Authors: Robert Ryan
It wasn’t darkness that surrounded him, it was total pitch-blackness, a complete absence of light. He raised a hand and his knuckles hit the same solid surface that had braked the upward
progress of his head moments previously. He did the same with the other hand. Again, solid. He tapped. Wood.
Gingerly he ran his fingers along the surface and over his head, both hands this time. There was some sort of vertical screen there. And at the sides, too. He shuffled himself down until his
feet were pressing against another immovable surface.
By now he was sweating, even though it wasn’t particularly warm. He closed his eyes again, aware that there was a throbbing in his temple from the blow that had felled him.
Who was it who had stepped out in front of him? He tried to replay the moment as if it were a gramophone record. ‘
Major Watson?
’
It was no good, it wouldn’t come to him. Watson spread his fingers, reached up and pushed at the solid sheet of wood above his head. It would not yield. He attempted the same with his
elbows, but it was tendon and bone that came off worse. He tried to get some movement at the panels above the head and with the feet. Nothing.
Don’t panic.
That is very easy for you to say, he thought, feeling that very sensation rising in him.
Panicking will achieve nothing.
That much was true. But he had to consider that the box contained a finite amount of air. If he hyperventilated it would be used up that much quicker. Similarly, shouting would deplete his
oxygen. But he had to try.
‘Help! Help!’ he tried, but the voice seemed trapped within the confines of the same prison as his body. He made a fist and thumped as hard as he could and yelled again.
Silence. Only his ragged breathing and the insistent thump of his accelerated heart in his ears. It was time to face the truth. The box was a coffin. He had been buried alive.
Miss Pillbody held up her shackles and rattled the chain that linked her wrists and then did the same with the one that was looped through the chair she was sitting on.
‘So I have exchanged one prison for another?’
‘For the moment,’ said Mrs Gregson. They were in the stone-floored, beam-ceilinged kitchen of a ramshackle farmhouse to the north-east of London, en route to the Port of Harwich,
which was served by the Great Eastern Railway whose tracks ran within a mile of their current location. They, though, would be driving to the port. The longer they could keep Miss Pillbody
shackled, the happier everyone would be. And that would be difficult on the train.
The room was sparsely furnished, with a pitch pine table and chairs and a Welsh dresser devoid of any crockery, but it was warm thanks to a cast-iron range. Mrs Gregson wasn’t sure how
Nathan had located it, but it would do the job nicely.
‘I don’t know what you think I’d do if you uncuffed me. Bite you?’
Mrs Gregson did not answer directly but pointed behind her. ‘This gentleman is Mr Nathan,’ she said.
Nathan nodded in Miss Pillbody’s direction and opened his jacket to show an automatic pistol shoved into his waistband.
‘Pleased to meet you, too,’ said Miss Pillbody.
Mrs Gregson pulled open the door of the kitchen. Outside in the corridor was bucktoothed Hiram Buller, who raised his bowler as if greeting a lady on her stroll to church. Only the shotgun held
in the crook of his arm added a note of incongruity.
‘Mr Buller.’ She closed the door. ‘Do not for one moment think we underestimate your determination or resourcefulness. Both men are fully prepared to shoot to kill.’
Miss Pillbody gave a smile and a nod of appreciation; as if this were the highest compliment she could be paid.
‘Why did you kill the warder?’ Nathan asked.
‘Bitch. Deserved it.’
‘You have put us in a very difficult position.’
‘Because you feel guilty? Because if you hadn’t dreamed up this plan, that woman Gray might still be drawing baths and folding towels?’
Mrs Gregson said nothing, but the damned woman had touched a nerve. Now, she was complicit in a murder.
‘Send me back then.’
‘You know we can’t do that.’
‘I do. Because you might join me on the gallows. You’ve been lucky so far. All that nonsense with the balloon—’
‘Nonsense?’ Mrs Gregson blurted. She was proud of the scheme. ‘It was a modified version of the woman-overboard escape I used at Foulness.’
Miss Pillbody snorted. ‘That didn’t work, though, did it?’ Mrs Gregson had faked a leap from a ship and then stayed hidden on board until the hue and cry died down. She had
been caught, but not due to any flaw in the plan’s execution, just by dint of a keen dockyard guard. ‘How long before they realize that the body isn’t me?’
‘Given the damage to the facial features, which are consistent with a fall from a great height, a few days, if ever. Long enough so they won’t be looking for you at the ports just
yet.’
Valentine from St Barts had provided the body that was dressed in prison clothes. It was the cadaver of a young woman from the East End who had died from exposure after a night – or more
likely several weeks – gorging on bathtub gin.
‘Can I get something to eat?’ Miss Pillbody asked. ‘If I am to stay in this position until morning.’
Mrs Gregson glanced out of the window. A faint overture of dawn had appeared and the birds were singing. She almost allowed the feeling of exhaustion to overcome her but took a deep breath.
‘Mr Nathan?’
‘There’s some bread and cheese in the car. And we can make tea.’
‘Tea! Hallelujah!’ sneered Miss Pillbody. ‘All is well with the world.’
‘That will be fine,’ said Mrs Gregson to Nathan. ‘And fetch the clothes, will you?’ Nathan handed Mrs Gregson the Webley as he left, his expression a warning to use it if
in the slightest doubt.
‘I think shooting me now would rather spoil the party, don’t you?’
‘Oh, we have contingency plans.’
‘Really?’ Both eyebrows went up. ‘I thought you were making this up as you rolled merrily along.’
‘You think you can hire the most accomplished illusionist in the country on a whim? Or one of the few balloonists who can fly over London at night?’
The plan had been both complex and simple. Miss Pillbody had never left the roof, but had hidden in the cleft of two chimney stacks, along with a length of rope dropped from the balloon, with
which, after a few hours, she descended the outside wall of the prison to where Nathan and Buller had been waiting, with hood and ropes and a fast car. The woman ascending the rope, witnessed and
sworn to by guards and neighbours alike, was an illusion projected by David Devant onto sheets slung from beneath the balloon, using his theatreograph system, mounted on a nearby rooftop. Mrs
Gregson had assisted him, such was the shaking of his hands due to his illness, but he had enjoyed creating the show. ‘What a shame there is no audience to applaud,’ he had said when
the masquerade was complete. But there had been an audience and they supplied something much more valuable than applause – sworn statements that the illusion was actually a genuine event.
‘It must have cost a pretty penny,’ said Miss Pillbody.
‘Sometimes, the name Sherlock Holmes brings out the best in people.’
‘Ah, but it’s the other one you want to save, isn’t it, Georgina?’
Mrs Gregson recognized an attempt to upset her, the gentle press of a knife between the ribs, presaging the sudden twist. ‘I want them both home,’ she said flatly. ‘They are
old men who deserve a rest.’
‘What are the clothes you mentioned to Nathan?’
‘You can’t travel in that prison garb. We shall be taking the ferry as Red Cross VADs. A perfect cover. And we can hide your restraints under the long cape.’
‘There are submarines and mines in the North Sea.’
‘We will take our chances.’
‘I can’t swim with these.’ She held up the manacles.
‘Then you will be taking somewhat more chances than the rest of us.’
Miss Pillbody stuck out her lower lip and blew a strand of hair from her mouth. ‘Will you at least allow me to brush and pin up my hair to keep it out of my eyes? All this running around
has made it quite wild.’
Mrs Gregson could see no harm in making her look presentable. And VADs, like regular nurses, did tend to wear their hair up. ‘Yes. In due course.’
‘And you are certain the Germans at the border will accept me in place of a piece of propaganda like Holmes? My masters are not sentimental types, you know. They won’t even trust me,
thinking I have been manipulated by the British. I will be treated with suspicion for many months. I might even end up in prison there.’
‘I wouldn’t put a wager on that, Miss Pillbody. Not with your silver tongue.’
A flash of a smile. ‘And what does Mr Holmes think of this scheme?’
Mrs Gregson must have betrayed something with her response.
‘Hold on a moment. He doesn’t know, does he? Is that right? Holmes is going to offer himself up and you wish to pre-empt that.’ Miss Pillbody began to laugh so hard that the
metal of her chains rattled. ‘Oh, perfect. At this moment you have no more idea where Sherlock Holmes is than I do.’
My Dear Watson,
By the time you get this, I will either be dead or on my way to the eternal sleep of death. The thought of this journey is lightened by the knowledge that you will be spared any more
suffering and can go home to a well-deserved retirement. I would recommend bees, but I know you never shared my enthusiasm for the wonders of the hive.
I am well aware that you – and Mycroft – consider me naïve in the ways of the world and especially politics. It is true I have only dabbled in my brother’s sphere when
I thought I might be of some assistance to King and Country. But even I appreciate that due to my having – in no small part thanks to your commendable efforts – a certain public
standing, that once I am in the hands of the Germans they will seek to exploit that position. I am old now, frailer than I was, although, again with thanks to you, much better than when we were
on that blasted island together. But I have no illusions about what methods the Germans might use to bend me to their will. A man can hold out for some time but few can guarantee they will not,
at some point, snap like the brittlest of reeds.
Therefore, I have prepared a poison that I will release into my body as soon as I am certain you are safe in the hands of our forces.
Do not grieve. I have feared the slow decline of old age more than any of the other evils I have faced. I have peered into the abyss of senility and know it isn’t for me.
I am already in Holland as I write this. I intercepted the instructions for the exchange from Von Bork at the post office, before they were delivered to the hotel. The hotel, I have noted,
is being watched. Which makes me suspect there are those who would – nobly but wrongheadedly – thwart me in this undertaking. Mycroft, whom I told only half the truth to? Or your
redoubtable Mrs Gregson? Or Kell. Or Churchill, perhaps. The watchers are of English origin, at any rate, that much is obvious. A naval man and two ex-army types I have deduced. One of them
plays cricket regularly.
So my task now is to make sure the exchange takes place and you are safe at home in England.
I say again, do not grieve for me. Ours was the most wonderful of times, you were the best of companions and colleagues. And friend, of course. What adventures we had. But I fear that the
world that will emerge from this conflict would ill suit me. I shall leave copies of this letter with Mycroft and post one to your club and another to Cox & Co. Mycroft has my will. Do not
fret, I have not left you the bees.
I wish you many more years and assure you that, should you decide to unearth some of the cases yet to be put before the public, I will be in no position to object. Just do not dim your own
considerable light at the expense of mine, as you are wont to do.
I shall see you on the bridge, John. It will be a pleasure to greet you one last time.
Your friend as ever,
Sherlock Holmes
Watson crossed his arms over his chest and let his breathing fall back to an even tempo. If he was going to die he was going to try to do it with a certain serenity and sense
of poise. He imagined he was like the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral, although as far as he could remember he lay with his fingers making a pyramid. Watson tried it but it didn’t feel
right. No, best be comfortable to face the last few minutes on earth. He ‘crossed his heart’ by gripping the opposite shoulder with each hand.
Would anyone ever find him here buried deep in the cold soil of Germany? That possibility gave him more pain than the thought of the breathlessness to come. That Holmes and Mrs Gregson should
never discover what became of him. And that the crime perpetrated on him should go unpunished.
Why did he have to be done away with? What was the urgency? A few days and he would be gone, away from the camp. And what were they covering up?
Foul deeds, Watson.
Yes, thank you, Holmes, even I could have grasped that conclusion. What was the significance of this Captain Brevette, apparently dead but still trying to communicate with the earthly realm? And
why should the medium and his friends need to be murdered? If that was what had happened.
You can’t solve it from in there. Not enough facts at your disposal.
I know, I know. Watson decided to concentrate on something else. The last, unfinished Holmes story that would never, now, see the light of day. But he could complete it to his own satisfaction
while he waited for the air to grow thin. He could picture the words on the page, paragraph by paragraph until he reached the release of the last line. He imagined himself at the desk at Baker
Street, the air full of curlicues of tobacco, the only sound the solid tick of the wall clock and the muffled clop of hoofs on cobbles, interrupted only by the occasional grunt from Holmes as some
item in
The Times
caught his attention. With a fresh Bishops Bourne writing tablet, he saw himself pick up an Onoto self-filling fountain pen – his favoured writing instrument of late
– and begin the final section of the story of the gold watches.