“What will Mycroft say?” I wondered, as we ogled the gold-flecked foyer. Mycroft’s idea of accommodations, I knew, was the shoebox Hotel Esmeralda.
“Mycroft is the least of our problems.”
Rachkovsky had said he would find us and instruct us regarding “arrangements.” But who knew what portion of the truth the Russian Machiavelli was speaking? Had he made some alternative plan regarding Anna Walling? Was she already dead, her body, as he threatened, floating in the Danube, anonymous as Manya Lippman’s, or cached elsewhere, never to be found?
After depositing my bag in a room large enough to house a family of five, I strode down the wide carpeted hall and knocked on Holmes’s door. He didn’t answer at first, and when he finally did, his customary pallor had now metamorphosed into a sallow grey. He stared briefly, then admitted me without comment. As I passed him, I distinctly smelled cognac on his breath. Indeed, he presently extended a snifter in my direction. I had never known him to be incapacitated by drink and could only be grateful his syringe and its lethal contents were nowhere to hand.
“Thank you, no. Holmes, I think Mrs. Walling would be better served if you were sober.”
He considered this, passing a hand across his forehead in a familiar gesture, then nodded, seemingly incapable of either conversation or movement.
I rang for room service and ordered coffee, another noun that arguably required no Hungarian, and held up two fingers before the bellman that I hoped would be understood to indicate two cups. When they arrived, I coaxed Holmes into taking his black.
“How many hours has it been?” he demanded, not yet drinking.
“Almost three since we arrived.”
“What are they planning? Are they planning anything? What have they done to her?”
“They’ve done nothing! Holmes, remember your own irrefutable logic. They have every interest in getting hold of Krushenev’s confession. To do that, they must be able to produce Mrs. Walling.”
“Yes, yes, to be sure,” he acknowledged woodenly, finally raising the dark liquid to his lips.
Passivity did not suit Sherlock Holmes at the best of times; on the chase, he found it insupportable. It was foreign to his nature to wait in circumstances such as these, and yet his hands were tied no less securely than had they been bound with hoops of steel. On former occasions, he might have endured such stress with recourse to his violin or (a lifetime ago) cocaine; now he had neither. He paced. He sat. He smoked and sipped at his cold, unleavened coffee.
I saw the envelope first when it was slid under the door, but when I pointed it out the detective fell upon it like a tiger.
“It’s addressed to Professor James Moriarty,” he observed ruefully. “How they must enjoy their pound of flesh.”
“Not the association I think you want on this case,” I commented.
He looked up from the envelope. “This isn’t a case. It never was.”
“I wonder how they found us.”
“Elementary. They sent the taxi that so conveniently fetched us at the station. The driver’s instructions were no doubt clear. Had I said not a word, he still would have brought us to this place.” He handed me the envelope. “Here. Read it to me. There’s a good fellow.”
He closed his eyes as I slid open the flap and extracted a single sheet of paper, typed all in capitals: “ACROSS FROM YOUR HOTEL IS THE CHAIN BRIDGE. AT PRECISELY FOUR-THIRTY, YOU WILL BOTH CROSS IT ON FOOT. ON THE FARTHER SIDE AT ‘ADAM SQUARE PARK’ YOU WILL BE MET AT THE BOTTOM OF BUDAVARI SIKLO. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE ISSUED AT THAT TIME. YOU WILL BRING THE DOCUMENT. WE ASSUME COLONEL MORCAR WILL BE ARMED. AS WILL WE.”
I looked at my watch.
“Ten past four,” I informed Holmes. “Whatever it is, they are cutting it fine.”
“Deliberately. They do not wish to provide us with time to maneuver.”
Holmes stared out the window. The bridge in question was directly before our hotel, spanning the Danube and leading to the hilly portion of the city formerly known as Buda on the opposite bank, atop which sat its imposing eponymous castle.
I reread the note. “Budavari Siklo. I wonder what that could be.”
On the far side of the bridge, we beheld a funicular railway, whose two alternating cars passed each other carrying passengers up and down the steep hill below the impressive fortress.
“I think I know,” said the detective with mounting excitement. “Ingenious,” he murmured. Then, abruptly springing to life, in an instant the Holmes of yore, he threw on his coat. “Quick, Watson, there is no time to be lost. Let us fetch your warm things and our passports. And remember your revolver—and your hat!” he added almost as an afterthought as he dashed past me to the door.
“You are going through with this, then?”
He turned and regarded me, his grey eyes clouded with pain. “What would you have me do?”
“I only wish to point out that you went to considerable lengths to obtain Krushenev’s signed confession.”
His eyes closed briefly, as though he were remembering just what lengths had been involved. Then he opened them again and gazed frankly into mine.
“She went through much more, Watson.”
Of whom was he speaking? Anna Walling? Manya Lippman or Rivka Nussbaum? Perhaps all three.
* * *
It was bitterly cold and growing dark as we made our way across the windswept stone and iron suspension bridge. I judged the span to be about a thousand feet. At either end the structure was guarded by two stone lions that put one in mind of Landseer’s enormous sculptures in Trafalgar Square. The Danube that divided the city in two was far from its fabled blue; it rushed past below us as a muddy, icy torrent. As we passed one of the huge stone towers, a plaque informed the curious that the bridge had been constructed in 1849 by one Adam Clark.
Clearly the square on the farther side, alluded to in the note, with its non-Hungarian designation, had been named for the bridge’s architect. And at the end of that square at the base of an enormous incline was a sign above a small building—Budavari Siklo*—indicating the lower terminus of the twin funicular railways to the top. Waiting for us was one of Rachkovsky’s minions whom I recognized from the baggage car of the Orient Express. The fellow evidently spoke no English but handed Holmes a second envelope, the contents of which he now read aloud to me:
“YOU WILL ACCOMPANY IVAN TO THE BOTTOM CABIN NAMED ‘MARGIT,’ WHICH IS HELD FOR YOUR USE. YOUR WEAPON WILL GUARANTEE YOUR OWN SAFETY. THE OBJECT OF YOUR INTEREST AND I WILL BE AT THE TOPMOST CABIN, NAMED ‘GELLERT.’ AT MY SIGNAL, BOTH CARS WILL MOVE. AS WE PASS, THE EXCHANGE WILL BE MADE. IVAN WILL THEN COVER YOU UNTIL I SIGNAL I AM SATISFIED. IF THAT PROVES THE CASE, YOU WILL BE FREE TO GO.” There is no signature.
“Ingenious,” I was forced to acknowledge, producing my revolver so that Ivan could see it. There would be no forcing us to deliver Krushenev’s confession prematurely.
The man nodded and motioned us to follow him to the lower housing, where inside we boarded the waiting cabin, whose name, Margit, was painted in gold above us. Ivan nudged the detective into position at the open left-hand doorway. Holmes held out his hand, and I removed my hat and gave it to him, whereupon, with slow, deliberate movements, he allowed Ivan to see him remove the folded paper from my headband.
Opening it, he displayed the confession out of Ivan’s reach, but Krushenev’s signature was visible by the light of the lone bulb above us in the roof of the cabin.
Ivan nodded, satisfied, grunted and opened his bull’s-eye, flashing a beam up the steep hill, which I judged to be at least forty degrees.
After a pause, perhaps three hundred feet above us, there came an answering beam, then a whistle, following which both cabins began to grind towards one another. Holmes refolded the papers and extended them in his left hand, leaving his right free to grab hold of Anna Strunsky Walling. What would happen should he fail? Would the woman fall between the tracks? Rachkovsky I knew for a cold-blooded murderer. Would he let her slid
e from his grasp to her death as if by accident? The possibility was so unthinkable my mind refused it admittance.
Gears grinding, the cars moved slowly in opposite directions, theirs descending, and ours, Margit, climbing, guided by the cogs beneath them and the unifying cables that ensured an identical rate of progress. Our cabin was empty save for we three, and I assumed a similar configuration in the car that was nearing us. As it approached and gained in size, I suffered the optical illusion it was moving faster. Its painted name, I could now see, was Gellert. How Rachkovsky secured the exclusive service of the funicular for this occasion I could not guess, but Holmes read my mind.
“The device can be hired for weddings,” he surmised.
The clanking sound of the descending cabin added to our own, besides which my heart was now pounding like a pneumatic drill as the adrenaline once more coursed through my veins. What if Holmes should miss? I looked down to behold the parallel railroad ties blurring hypnotically past beneath me with vertiginous speed. What if, by the slightest miscalculation on his part, the courageous woman should fall to her death?
“Watson! Don’t look down!” Holmes’s stern command obliterated this terrifying prospect. I looked up in time to see the cars passing one another. In a flash, Rachkovsky’s hand shot out and reached the detective’s to snatch the precious paper, even as Holmes’s right arm encircled her waist and pulled Anna Walling across the distance of two feet, clutching her in an iron embrace.
She remained clasped to him, her eyes shut.
“Your travel papers?”
She nodded, eyes still closed.
In the next instant, the cabins parted, continuing their journeys in opposite directions without hindrance, Margit nearing the top and Rachkovsky’s Gellert approaching the terminal housing at the bottom of the hill. Holmes and Anna Walling never took their eyes from one another. I was unsure where to look, but could not help noticing their hands almost touching. Ivan was in no such confusion. He kept his revolver trained on us as we bumped to the end of our journey and then peered down the incline.
For the longest, agonizing time, there was nothing, but finally a bull’s-eye beam assured us Rachkovsky was satisfied the bargain had been kept. With a grunt, Ivan signaled we were free.
“Quickly!” Holmes yelled. “Find a taxi!”
At the top of the hill, near Buda Castle, there was no shortage of motorcars, and one of these was easily ordered to take us to Keleti station, which was, in fact, not far from the upper terminus of the funicular. There was no thought of returning for our belongings at the hotel.
“Are you all right?” Holmes asked Mrs. Walling, as the taxi slewed across melting snow, making its way to the station.
Mrs. Walling, pale in a way I could not have believed possible given her colouring, could only nod. We rode in silence, each preoccupied with our own reflections.
“You should not have rescued me,” said she finally, her Slavic accent fully returned. “You should have retained confession and exposed Protocols.”
“Oh, but I did,” responded Sherlock Holmes, endeavoring not to chortle.
To our mutual astonishment, he reached again for my homburg and extracted Krushenev’s confession.
12.
JOURNEY’S END
“Where do ideas come from?” Sherlock Holmes wondered, as our train for Vienna wound out of Keleti station with the three of us seated in rudimentary third class, carrying only the clothes on our backs. Holmes had stubbornly put off all our questions until we were under way. Finally he deigned to address them.
“There I was in Watson’s upper berth, seemingly at my wits’ end, torn between Scylla and Charybdis—”
“Which one am I?” Anna Walling inquired mildly.
“Between a rock and a hard place,” the detective translated, without answering her question. It was obvious he was intent on relating her rescue in his own way. “Surrendering Krushenev’s confession and allowing the hoax of the Protocols to flourish was unthinkable. I had seen the mischief they enable.”
“‘Mischief’ doesn’t seem to quite cover Rivka Nussbaum and her family,” I remarked sourly. “Nor does it do justice to—”
“Granted, Watson, granted,” Holmes allowed hastily. “On the other hand, neither could I allow anything to happen to Mrs. Walling. And yet, my mind refused to function. I lay there, staring at the ceiling eight inches from my nose, when out of nowhere I remembered something. As I said, where do ideas come from?”
“What did you remember?” Mrs. Walling and I demanded as one. I knew Holmes savored his dramatic touches, but we were exhausted and at the end of our patience.
“I remembered the business car.”
“What are you talking about?” Anna Walling demanded with more than a touch of asperity. Her manner seemed strange, given that it was only thanks to Sherlock Holmes she was alive at all, but I began to sense what the detective was getting at.
Realizing we occupied a carriage with open (albeit cushioned) seating, I lowered my voice. “Ah yes, the business car on the Orient Express with all the typists—”
“What typists?” Mrs. Walling began, her impatience mounting.
“Precisely, Watson! In desperation, it occurred to me there was likely a Russian typist and typewriter aboard the train. I told you I was going for some air, then raced to that selfsame business car, which, as you might expect, was virtually unoccupied at that hour, save for an Italian typist with a stack of material awaiting attention and her reddened eyes barely open, poor woman. I am not sure whether you observed, Watson, but the typewriter used by Krushenev in his office was in fact of German manufacture, a Blickensderfer. Examining the machines on the train, each keyboard calibrated in a different language, you may imagine how overjoyed I was to find a Cyrillic Blickensderfer. I rang for the porter and explained I had urgent need of the Russian typist. The man went casually off on my errand and, after what seemed an eternity, returned with Miss Ludmilla Ogareff, as she introduced herself, blinking sleep from her eyes but doing her best to appear cheerful, as advertised. I presented her with the confession and asked her to retype it, word for word. She slipped on a pince-nez and went to work. I worried the text might arouse her suspicions, but I imagine by now these ladies are accustomed to every sort of document, and at this hour Miss Ogareff was not disposed to do anything but get the job over with and go back to sleep.
“I peered over her shoulder as she worked. Though, as you know, I can neither read nor speak Russian, yet I was perfectly capable of comparing the original to what she typed and ensuring that each letter was identical to its source. Several times she made mistakes, and I was obliged to ask her to begin again, which she did, though shaking her head and allowing me to crumple and pocket her previous attempt. At other times, she instinctively corrected typographical errors made by Krushenev and appeared more than a little put out when I insisted these be replicated. Certainly the hour did nothing to encourage precision on either of our parts, so I was careful to proceed at a glacial pace, my pockets slowly bulging with rejected efforts.
“When at last the two pages were complete, I thanked her and pressed a gratuity into her hand, which I think surprised her and sent her off to dreamland in restored good humor. I now had a complete and identical—”
“But the signature!” I exclaimed. “You didn’t have Krushenev’s signature!”
“Quite right, old chap. That indeed I lacked. But I’d already worked that part of the problem out in my mind. The business car being empty save for the Italian typist, who took no notice of me, I held Krushenev’s pages against the window, where the coming daylight easily illumined the man’s signature. I had then only to place my copies on top and trace his name on them with my own pen. It was tricky,” the detective added with evident satisfaction, “as the unsteady motion of the car made the work more difficult, but again I resolved to take my time. In addition, I have always found when forging signatures that copying the originals upside down makes for a freer, more sponta
neous-appearing result. In this case, I also had the advantage of knowing that when Rachkovsky scrutinized the writing, he would remember Krushenev had appended his name under terrifying circumstances. I am certain that in attempting to exonerate his role in the business when relating our encounter, the editor had surely emphasized the duress under which he’d produced the document. Any shakiness in the signature might well be the result. Afterwards, I tore the rejected pages to bits and flung them off the train, where the elements will make short work of whatever is left.”
The detective sat back with the evident intention of lighting a cigarette, only to find his case empty. “Rats,” he mumbled.
There did not appear to be much more to say, but my admiration for my singular friend at that moment knew no bounds. He was clearly functioning at the height of his powers.
“They will realize mistake,” Anna Walling predicted in the silence. Holmes shrugged.
“Perhaps. Maybe the difference in paper will call attention to itself—that is certainly a possibility—but we are far from Russia now. In less than two hours, we will be in Vienna, farther still. The Emperor Franz Josef and the Tsar are not, as I understand it, presently working in harness. After that”—he sighed—“we’ll be off to Munich, then Paris, then the boat train to London. From there Romeo Watson will rapturously rejoin his Clarendon Street Juliet, and at long last Mrs. Walling, with our undying gratitude for all the hardships she has undergone, will travel to Southampton, thence to follow her husband’s footsteps to New York.”
I was sure I saw Anna Walling wince at this.
“If you will excuse me,” was all she said. We rose automatically as she left the compartment.
After a moment, Holmes rose again without comment and followed her.
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols Page 19