by C J Lutton
“Claims,” he repeated. I shuddered as I imagined Mrs. Morel in this horrid place.
Yet when I tried to turn my mind to other subjects, I was caught upon those words, that phrase Berthold had used: “a king’s ransom.” Berthold’s comment was ill-timed and more to the point, wrong-footed. No king had sat on our throne for more than fifty years. Although I knew Berthold was simply repeating a tired phrase, the terminology roused a tangle of thoughts. All at once, I wished that Holmes and I were here alone, so I could discuss the matter with my friend. Talking to Holmes often gave me clarity. His manner of casting off the chaff and getting to the wheat kernel was integral to his deductions. Instead, such discourse would have to wait.
“We shall take the gold with us,” decided Holmes. “After all, those pellets might be the only tangible proof we have.”
“Proof of what?” I asked.
“I am not ready to say,” Holmes demurred. “All in good time, Watson. All in good time."
Using the Bowie knife, I cut a piece of the shroud and folded the fabric into a pouch to hold the gold nuggets. The beadle’s eyes lit up when he watched me transferring the pieces from the corpse to the linen. At the very end, I tossed a small pebble of gold to the beadle. “Sir? I believe you could do good for the parish with this token of our gratitude. Use it wisely is all that I ask.”
Holmes fought a smile. I could almost hear him saying, “Watson, you are a sentimental old chap.” Perhaps he would be right, but what harm could it do to give the beadle a bit of gold? No one seemed to be lining up to claim what we’d found. Surely the beadle could find a worthy cause enacted under the purview of the Church and thus the token would do some good in this sad, treacherous world. At least the token might fund the running of the deadhouse.
Certainly, someone had tortured this poor fellow. Admittedly, he must have been used as a carrier for gold. But why kill the transport after the fact? That didn’t make sense to me. I could only hope that Holmes’ piercing mind had a better grasp of these baffling points than I had.
We’d no more than taken our seats in the cab and rapped on the roof so the driver would know he should drive on, when Holmes sprang across the cab and locked Berthold’s head in a choke hold such as I have never seen in my life. I flattened myself against the cab seat in shock. Holmes rarely uses force to make his point. This time he did.
“I ought to strangle you where you sit,” Holmes hissed at Berthold. “You knew all along that man was carrying stolen gold. Yet you asked me and my good friend to play your foolish games. What is Mycroft up to? He had to have known the gold was there. Whose gold is it? Where was it going? How was it diverted?”
I blurted out, “How did it get inside that man? Holmes, I’ve never seen the like. Did he intend for nature to take its course? That defies all tenets of good sense.”
Berthold made no attempt to get Holmes to leave off choking him. Instead, he endured the choking with a stoicism I could only count as admirable. His raspy voice said, “Go ahead, Holmes. Although I would have never guessed that the great Sherlock Holmes was a murderer as well as a thief. What do you suppose the Home Office will say when they learn the gold has gone missing from that poor dead sod? Can’t you think they’ll blame it on you, Holmes? Certainly no one will blame your brother. No, even if you care nothing for your own reputation, friendship demands you don’t leave John Watson to be hanged for treason!”
“Good heavens, man!” I shouted. “Treason? I am a loyal servant of the Crown. I have given the Queen my years of service and I’ve naught but a splintered bone to show for it. In this adventure alone, I was following the directive of Mycroft Holmes, who is closer to the Queen as any other man in the realm. Yet you dare to threaten me?”
Holmes had not loosened his hold on Berthold’s throat. “Explain yourself, man, and do it quickly if you hope to leave this cab on your own two feet.”
“Back off and I shall!”
Slowly Holmes let his arms grow slack. Berthold rubbed his neck with open palms. “That gold belongs to the Queen. Regular shipments of gold from Australia fund the protection of the realm. Specifically, those nuggets will go to arm, dress, and feed our troops who will fight the Boers in our next conflict.”
I stifled a gasp of shock. We’d heard rumblings but no clear trajectory towards armed conflict had been announced. This was news indeed, and the general populace would find it troublesome. I choked on the words, “The Boers? But I thought we had South Africa under our thumb.”
Berthold brayed with laughter. “Just as I had you two under mine? Don’t be ridiculous, Dr. Watson. As long as there are rulers in this world, there will also be the masses waiting for the opportunity to rise up. Defending the realm is an expensive proposition. The gold shipments from Australia are what keep our country solvent.”
“Who was that dead man?” Holmes asked.
Berthold shrugged. “I could not say. I do not know. Nor do I think Mr. Mycroft Holmes knows about this man. Furthermore, I’m not sure that Mycroft cares. All we know is that gold from Her Majesty’s mines in Australia is dug out of the ground and loaded monthly onto a ship departing from Sidney and bound for Liverpool. Once the ship docks, a military guard sees that the gold is taken directly to the Queen’s Treasury in the Tower of London.”
“So were you looking for Mr. Morel?” I asked. “Presumably he was on one of those ships and it sank. You hoped he could tell you what was happening?”
“Watson,” Holmes admonished me, “there is no Mr. Morel.”
I could tell Berthold agreed with my friend. I said, “Then whom did I just slice into? Whose body did I desecrate?”
Berthold’s face twitched as he struggled not to smile. “We believe the dead man was Alton Baker, the second lieutenant on the Celestial. But we do not know for sure. As to whether he is married to a Maria Morel, that too, is questionable. These points of inquiry are what your brother hopes that you, Mr. Holmes, can find out. He wants to know who is behind the repeated sacking of our ships. Three of them have gone down, the Celestial being the most recent.”
“But why would someone force a man to swallow gold?” I asked, voicing my thoughts. “And why would his body pitch up in the Thames? Surely, if the ships are sinking, there’s no need for proving the gold is gone. Furthermore, why would a lost sailor be dumped into the Thames? Wouldn’t he be lost at sea?” The deluge of questions kept on coming. In the midst of my recitation, my stomach gurgled. During my ghastly efforts in the dead house, I’d been so caught up in the deed at hand that I’d temporarily forgotten my need for sustenance. Now it came roaring back with a vengeance.
Holmes heard the noise and smiled at me. “I doubt that Mrs. Hudson will want to serve you, Watson, smelling as you do.”
“Berthold, have the cabman take us to a public house. The Golden Ram is near enough. Don’t worry, Watson. Your less than appealing apparel will not cause a great disturbance. I trust my brother laid on you a reasonable sum of money for expenses, Berthold? Good. The least that Mycroft owes us is a hearty meal and a fine glass of wine.”
16
Frequent readers of my work will no doubt recall that Sherlock Holmes has at his disposal a vast network of helpers who function as a tributary does emptying into the vast ocean. This myriad of reporters hail from all walks of life and serve my friend with pleasure, as it thrills them to know they’ve done small services for the world’s greatest consulting detective. Individually, they are unaware of how their bits and bobs of information fit into the whole, for they are those threads that only Holmes can weave into a complete tapestry. His unassailable logic, his keen intellect, his ability to use his imagination are the tools he alone can bring to this fresh new discipline that I call forensic detection.
Readers will also be aware that Holmes has established for himself a variety of bolt holes, spots known to him alone where he can retreat for any number of reasons, whether it is his desire to simply fuel his thought process with solitude or his need to prepare for another role that might
assist him as he gathers necessary information, or his choice to absent himself when the criminal element is hot on his trail. One of these bolt holes, I was surprised to discover, was the Golden Ram, a public house not far from the Thames.
On the outside, the place looks like any other such establishment. From the pictogram of a stately ram with horns of shining gold to the mullioned windows, it was easy to identify as a place for food and drink. The floor was rough-hewn and uneven, worn by the abrasion of thousands of soles. A man taller than Holmes would need to watch his head, as the ceiling was low and the beams that crossed overhead were thick. A blaze in a large fireplace roared its approval, spreading light and heat throughout the dining room. As one walked straight inside from the front door, one could not help but come face-to-face with the publican, standing behind the counter at the bar and drawing pints with practiced ease. Holmes directed us to turn right and led us to a booth in the back corner, a darkened hiding place, or so it seemed, because we’d no more than taken our seats than a comely woman wearing a spotless white apron and a mob cap sashayed from swinging doors. She asked Holmes, “The usual, luv?”
That left Berthold and me to ponder the chalkboard menu hanging next to the barrels of port and Guinness. I chose the ploughman’s lunch as I was too hungry to wait for food to cook. Berthold decided on the same. Holmes ordered a wine with a provenance so praiseworthy that it seemed wildly out of place for such a humble pub. Assured that such a marvelous vintage was indeed available, Berthold and I did the same. The barmaid was poised to walk away when Holmes crooked a finger at her. She bent her head close to his.
“Dolly, send Percy a message for me. Tell him I want to speak to the Duke.” Holmes delivered this out of the side of his mouth, sotto voce.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” said Dolly. “I shall do that first thing, before I get your wine. Be right back.”
The woman disappeared and shortly reappeared carrying three glasses of one of the finest cabernets I’ve ever tasted. “Percy’s on it, luv,” said Dolly with a sly wink at Holmes. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, and pushed it towards her so fast I barely noticed the exchange. Only after Dolly walked away again did I realise I’d watched a gold coin change hands. If I looked mildly astonished, it was only fair because such a sum was many times the expense of our meals combined. I was even more amazed when Holmes told Berthold, “That was to pay her for her time and expertise. You need to dig deep into your pockets and pay her handsomely for our food and drink.”
Berthold might have grumbled some, but the wine was far too good and the cozy nook was far too pleasant for him to stay irritated for long. Indeed, I felt my eyes growing heavy as I leaned my head against the back wall of the booth. Holmes had nothing to say to Berthold, and Berthold had nothing to say to Holmes, so I don’t believe I missed anything because I sat upright when the click of heels drew nigh unto our table.
There are those who suppose a kingdom such as ours is chock-a-block full of dukes. To read romantic novels, one might rightly conclude there are as many dukes as sheep on the hillsides, for only a duke will do when young ladies fall in love in books. However, I must set the record straight, for I do pride myself on well-informed readers. There are not that many dukes in Queen Victoria’s realm. Not many at all. Fully half of those listed in Burke’s Book of Peerage are related by blood to the Queen Herself. The others are likely related by marriage. To summon a duke to appear at a table, tucked away in the farthest corner of a pub, is a trick to be avoided by even the most celebrated magicians of the day. Nevertheless, Sherlock Holmes did just that, and he did it with such languorous ease that I was fair astonished when the Duke of Herrington strode his way to our table. I was even more flabbergasted when the Duke and Holmes embraced like long-lost schoolmates, which, as it happened, is exactly what they were.
The Duke looked to be the same age as Holmes. His gray eyes were soft, his brown hair was styled back from his forehead to emphasize the comely shape of his head. His lips twisted into an amused smile, not a grin, but nearly there. Not surprisingly, the Duke was by far the best dressed man in the tavern. Even so, he’d chosen clothing in subtle shades that blended into his surroundings. In short, he was the model of a man with a claim to royalty, yet his good breeding showed through and through because he carried himself without a scintilla of pomposity.
“Charlie,” said Sherlock Holmes, getting to his feet, “meet Dr. John H. Watson, my dear friend. This is Berthold and he’s one of Mycroft’s lackeys.”
This infuriated Berthold, which I believe was Holmes’ desired effect. I stood up as the others had done and offered my hand, although I felt rather out of my depth. The stink of my coat had increased as we warmed ourselves by the fire, and my hands needed a good wash from handling the internal organs of a long-dead corpse. But Charlie did not turn a hair. He greeted me with the sort of aplomb that marks a true gentleman.
Rather than have him sit next to me in my disheveled state, I excused myself to find Dolly. Once I explained my plight, that kind woman clucked her tongue at my embarrassing problem. “Not to worry, Doctor. I remember how my late husband was always getting his overcoat soiled with this or that. Must have happened once or twice a week at least. I’ll show you to a chamber where you can freshen up. If you’ll trust me with your coat, I’ll see to it and get it back to you, good as new. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can’t come up with a suitable garment you can wear so you don’t catch your death of cold.”
“Dear lady!” I exclaimed. “I should be forever in your debt. How much shall I owe you?”
“Not a farthing,” said she. “Mr. Holmes pays me a goodly sum indeed. This is part of my service to him, and glad I am to do it!”
Once I had shucked off my coat, I was led to a private room upstairs, and there I availed myself of a delightful soap infused with chamomile flowers. After washing and drying with a clean flannel, I felt ever so much more sociable. My return to the table was heralded with smiles and invitations to make myself comfortable.
Holmes said, “Whilst you were gone, Watson, I bored my old friend with an accounting of our day’s adventures.”
“Bored? Sherlock, your vocabulary has deserted you when it was most important. I was decidedly not bored. My word,” said Charlie, staring at me with wide eyes. “A man who swallowed gold? Surely, Doctor, that was not an easy task for him. I’ve been known to choke on a crumb of toast.”
“True enough. Anyone can choke on almost anything. In this situation, we have evidence that suggests suffocation dealt the final blow. This poor creature was tortured within an inch of his life. As for swallowing small chunks of gold, under such duress, one can manage surprising feats and accomplish superhuman antics,” I said. “Furthermore, we have cause to believe our dead man did not live long after his Midas-inspired feast. I hope he did not suffer long, but I am bound to say, his end was thoroughly unpleasant.”
Coming out from the kitchen, Dolly carried a heavy wooden tray. She delivered to us our food. Charlie had agreed with my idea and asked the good woman for a ploughman’s lunch. Since Berthold had done the same, we all watched with surprise as Dolly set a bowl of mulligatawny soup in front of Sherlock Holmes. The pungent curry was so enticing that all of us decided we must join Holmes, and Dolly was happy to facilitate our palates by bringing more bowls of the soup. “We keep a pot of it going all the time, just for Mr. Holmes, we do,” she said with a charming smile.
The food went down a treat, a second serving of wine lubricated our goodwill, and thus we engaged in a lively conversation centered on the events of the day.
“There is a rumour,” Charlie conceded, “one I am loath to credit. However, I needs must share it with you all in strictest confidence. I share it only because I know I can count on your sworn silence as gentlemen.”
“I cannot vouch for Berthold,” Holmes said.
When the other man took offense, Holmes pinned him with a candid gaze. “Would you have faith in a man foisted upon you? Would you ent
rust secrets of a highly important nature to someone you just met? No, you would not, so by what stretch of rational thought do you suppose I would trust you? There is none.”
“I am your brother’s man,” said Berthold. “He trusted me enough that he sent me as his eyes and ears on this sensational mission. Is that not good enough for you?”
Holmes sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “No, it is not enough. So hear me and heed my words. If anything that Charlie is about to tell us comes back to my ears, I shall call you out. Believe me, if you think my wit is sharp you will find it rusty compared to my skill with a sword. Are we clear?”
Berthold swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed with barely disguised fear. “Y-Y-Yes.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows and gave a slight shake of his head as emphasis. “Berthold, I do not know you, so in the spirit of Christian charity I give you this free advice: Do not cross Sherlock Holmes in a fencing match. I have never seen a man handle a sword with such finesse. Never. And believe me, I have seen the best the world has to offer.”
“So I ask you again,” said Holmes in a voice so cold I thought ice might form on his wineglass, “are you able to hold your tongue?”
Berthold nodded. When he realised a bob of the head was not enough, he said, “Yes. I give you my word on my life.”
“Then, Charlie, loosen your tongue, my friend. I suspected you might harbour information vital to our cause. Do not fail me now,” said Holmes.
17
“For the sake of delicacy and due to my immense respect for the Queen,” said Charlie, “this is a story I am loathe to tell. I share it only because of my long friendship with Sherlock, and because I worry that this information might soon be used against Our Queen, even as She continues to rule over the world’s greatest empire.
“You are all aware of the Queen’s grief, both as a woman and as a ruler, when Her beloved Prince Albert died. Suffice it to say, no one gave our Queen more joy, more love, and more support than the man she married. Albert was a rare man. Despite the fact he was ostracized by many in the palace—his German accent was mocked at every turn, as was his brusque manner—he worked tirelessly to promote the interests of his adopted people. Losing him was such a blow that the Queen has never fully recovered. Thus, Her friendship with John Brown provided hours of amusement for Her family. They could not see what She saw in a man of low breeding. As you might guess, when one is born into Royalty, one is set above the common man on so very many levels that seeing others clearly is nearly impossible. Then, of course, John Brown died. Again Our Queen grieved.