Authors: Robert Ryan
‘I’m sorry, Major?’ asked Coyle, snapping back into the here and now. He had been thinking of his first meeting with Gibson, when he had saved the Englishman’s life. ‘What was that?’
‘You were wondering what Churchill gave me in the library.’
‘Actually I wasn’t, Major,’ said Coyle. ‘Like I said, best a man like me doesn’t know too much.’ He looked over at Watson, who was sitting next to him in the Vauxhall sports tourer. ‘I’m an axe, a club, a pike, a simple weapon, me. Best I don’t know.’
‘Well, I’m still as baffled as you are as to exactly what they are doing. I just don’t want you to think I’m being led by the nose by Churchill.’
‘We’re all led by the nose by someone, Major. Harry says—’ He broke off as he remembered Gibson’s fate.
They had spent the night in what Coyle had called a ‘safe’ house to the south of London. Although Watson was keen to be on his way, Coyle had insisted a night in London would be best.
That morning they had argued over the route, with Watson insisting on several diversions along the way. One had been to purchase a new medical bag and equipment. The other was to head down into Sussex.
As they motored on after a few minutes of silence, Watson cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry about Gibson. I liked him.’
Coyle just nodded, his face impassive. Then he said: ‘It was my fault.’
Watson recognized the guilty phase of mourning. ‘Coyle, that’s not true.’
‘Ah, it’s good of you to say so, Major. But I know different. I was surprised by them. It’s my job not to be surprised. It didn’t make sense, coming after you like that. Odd. That was before I knew it was something to do with H. G. Wells.’ He let a smile flicker over his face. ‘Don’t worry, Major, I’m not going to dwell on Harry, not yet. I told Harry he’d have to have a little patience. What I was really wondering is why you insisted we go south before going north.’
They had just left Ashdown Forest, motoring at a steady fifty miles an hour, the wheels humming on newly laid asphalt, disturbing the still, late-summer air. They were not far from Foulkes Rath, site of the tragedy of Squire Addleton, a grisly case yet to be written up and published. Watson pushed it from his mind.
‘I have my reasons,’ he said vaguely.
‘I don’t doubt it. I was planning on taking you to Colchester, Ipswich, Diss and Attleborough, coming in above Thetford. Not the way anyone looking out for you might expect. But then, this’ – he indicated the twisting road ahead – ‘isn’t the way
I
expected.’
‘No.’ Watson looked at the AA motoring map he had purchased at the garage in Reigate, tracing the route Coyle had just described. It seemed a sound plan. ‘But I need to investigate something first. Something that is bothering me. Trust me on this.’
‘I do, Major. But we’ll have to stop overnight somewhere again,’ said Coyle, looking at the falling sun. ‘We’ll get to your destination before dark, but I don’t want to be on the roads at night. I need to see who and what is around us.’
‘I know an inn or two in Sussex where we can spend the night. Small, anonymous places.’
‘Good.’ They slowed as the road dipped and turned, twisting through a village comprising two oast houses and a cluster of half-tiled cottages. A few locals stopped to look at the handsome little car with the fishtailed bodywork as it roared by. Watson admired the Irishman’s driving. He never seemed wrong-footed by the gears, the one thing about driving that often baffled Watson. Coyle was always in the correct ratio, meaning the engine never laboured. His braking was smooth and controlled, even though he had complained that the system needed upgrading for such a powerful engine.
There was little traffic on the road, barring local agricultural vehicles, and most of them were horse-drawn, and Coyle could let the Vauxhall have its head. Watson had rarely felt safer in a car. It was certainly an improvement on Mrs Gregson, the VAD auxiliary nurse who had acted as his driver in Belgium. They had kept in touch for a few months, but once she had gone back to the front, they had lost contact. He found, sometimes, he missed her forthright and often acerbic take on life. But not her driving.
Coyle’s handling of the motor car might be exemplary, but the springing on the Prince Henry was a little stiff for Watson’s liking. He could feel a twinge in his spine and another in his left hip. He tried to shift as subtly as he could to the most comfortable position. He didn’t want the Irishman to think he had an old invalid on his hands. Well, old, yes. He’d accept that. Getting old was something being denied to millions of soldiers across the globe. He mustn’t begrudge the toll of time. But he wanted this body to last a few more years, till peace broke out. Perhaps, then, it would be time to find a spot to see out his final days. Perhaps near the Sussex Downs. But until then, there was much to do.
He felt in his pocket again for the magazine Churchill had given him, taken from a handsome bound set in the library. It was
The Strand
for December 1903. Everything he needed to know was in there, the politician had told him, and had marked a page. At first he had thought Churchill was playing games, because in the same issue Watson had published
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
. But it was another section altogether that he had earmarked. Watson hadn’t had time to read it yet, as he had fallen into a sound, exhausted sleep in Norwood. He would when they stopped that night.
Coyle cleared his throat to get Watson’s attention. ‘I don’t mean to pry, Major, but this is something I should know. Is it Mr Holmes we are going to see?’
Watson pushed himself up in the seat a little, ignoring the stab of pain in his hip. ‘It is. I tried telephoning, but the machine seems to be out of order. Or so the operator suggested.’
‘Why, exactly, do you need to consult him? And could anyone know this side trip is on your agenda?’
Watson put a cigarette between his lips and offered one to Coyle, who took it. Watson lit them both.
‘I doubt anyone would predict when I might visit him. We meet sporadically. Then again, my name is forever associated with his. Like Swan and Edgar or Tate & Lyle.’
‘Or Burke and Hare,’ said Coyle.
Watson laughed. ‘Quite. I don’t expect him to be here, not if Churchill told me the truth, but I am looking for clues to his whereabouts.’ As Holmes himself would insist, he would go over the scene of the crime for clues – for that was exactly what Watson considered the removal of Holmes to a ‘safe and secure place’ to be. A heinous act. ‘I shall be frank, I am worried for Holmes.’
‘Why?’
‘Churchill thinks this project of his is the biggest secret of the age. But it isn’t. There is one piece of news which, if it were to get out, would shock the nation far more than any war-winning device they are dreaming up in Suffolk.’
‘And what is that, Major Watson?’
He took a deep draw on his cigarette and let out a stream of hot smoke that was snatched away by the slipstream. ‘Sherlock Holmes is losing his mind.’
As Coyle predicted, they reached the little cottage on the South Downs before the dying sun had touched the treeline, but it was a close-run thing. Banks of low cloud blotted the pre-sunset glow into a crimson band along the horizon. To Watson’s mind, it looked like a giant sabre-gash in the sky. Perhaps, he thought, as they pulled up at the gate, one day he would stop seeing the wounds of war in everything he experienced.
Coyle sat, examining the little house as the car cooled down, engine and exhaust pipes ticking and creaking as it did so. Watson made to get out but an arm slid across his chest. ‘Just a moment, Major.’
Watson looked, trying to see with Coyle’s eyes. No smoke from the chimney. No lights – and it had a dark interior even in bright sunshine, so lamps were always lit early – but a letter or note of some description was pinned to the door. The paper was curled at the corners, as if it had been out in the weather for some time.
‘Telephone’s been cut,’ said Coyle, nodding to the wire coils high on one of the corners. ‘Let’s take a look. Stay behind me.’
They exited the vehicle and walked up the path. As they moved closer to the front entrance, Watson could see the faded writing on the note: ‘For the Attention of Mr Sherlock Holmes’. Coyle peered at it, then removed the pin holding it in place, passing the paper back to Watson. He also put a finger to his lips as he pressed down the latch. Watson pocketed the letter. There would be time for that later. A wave of the hand told him to stay put and Coyle, pistol drawn, stepped into the cottage. Watson could feel the chill from within. No fire had been lit and no one had been in there for some time. A pocket torch flicked on, and he heard Coyle moving around, fast and efficient.
Coyle stepped back out. ‘The good news is, nobody in the opposition is waiting for us. The bad news is, your friend isn’t here. The even badder news is, the place has been ransacked.’
Watson followed him into the living area, lit one of the oil lamps and took in the scene: the unwashed plates, mounds of cigarette and pipe ash, tottering piles of books and magazines, and the remnants of half-completed experiments. ‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Watson. ‘In fact, if anything, I’d say he’s had a tidy-up.’
Coyle looked perplexed. ‘Really?’
Watson nodded. ‘Holmes never was the neatest of men.’ He crossed over to the fireplace and lifted a threadbare Persian slipper from a hook on the chimney breast. He sniffed deeply, the aroma of the shag tobacco within tingling his senses, then moved to the armchair and sat. ‘And he seems incapable of keeping a housekeeper these days. I’ll make us some tea in a moment.’
‘Aren’t you worried?’
‘About Holmes? Yes, of course. For several reasons. However, I suspect I know what has happened. When I said Holmes’s mind had gone, I didn’t mean completely. It’s just that he has trouble accessing the higher faculties sometimes. It’s as if his brain is stuck in neutral, and he has forgotten how to engage the gears. It started with small incidents: a moment’s forgetfulness, an inability to make a connection that, in the old days, he would have seen in an instant. The worst thing was, he became aware of it happening. That’s why he retired. That’s why he won’t get involved with any government schemes. He has a reputation. He wants to die with it intact.’
‘I can see that,’ agreed Coyle. ‘I’m sorry, it’s a bloody shame . . . but you know what happened to him, you say?’
Watson nodded. At first, the realization of Holmes’s diminishing faculties had upset him dreadfully, but somehow the war had made it seem less of a tragedy. We all wither and die. Even the world’s greatest – and only – consulting detective. Now, when he pictured Holmes, he conjured up the man who solved the problem of the Notorious Canary Trainer, the death of Cardinal Tosca, the tragedy of Woodman’s Lee and death of Captain Peter Carey. That was 1895. What a year. He could still feel the thrum of excitement as case after case came to the door of 221 Baker Street and up the stairs to 221B. Watson thought the detective at the peak of his physical and mental powers then; it was always that fine vintage, Holmes ’95, that he returned to whenever he thought of his friend.
‘When his brain is not running properly,’ Watson said, ‘he behaves oddly. He calls me up, we have a lucid conversation, then he calls me up an hour later, forgetting we have spoken. It’s most . . .’ He thought of the times recently when he had refused a call from Holmes. He felt his face redden. Could one of them have been something about this business? Could Holmes have been reaching out to an old friend and confidant, only to find himself rebuffed? Watson gave a shiver of shame. ‘. . . trying. The old Holmes was the most circumspect man alive. The Holmes we have now is a gossip. He could not keep a confidence, even if he wanted to. I suspect that Churchill or his people realized this mistake and had him removed.’
Watson was now certain it had been Holmes who had inadvertently opened his mouth about Miss Mary Culme-Seymour, the young lady the King was meant to have married in Malta in 1890 and neglected to divorce before he married Princess May. It would take only the wrong word to a sharp hack
—
reporters often pitched up at that very cottage unannounced to interview the legend
—
for the true facts to emerge.
‘You think someone tried to shut him up?’
‘Yes, I do. Churchill said those who knew too much were sent to a “safe and secure place”. I think that was the phrase. Although he didn’t specify exactly where. The North Sea, he said.’ Watson held the Persian slipper up to his nose once more. ‘The problem is, Holmes would have known too much but could no longer be trusted to keep it to himself Watson felt disloyal even voicing this, but he believed it to be the truth. ‘Or at least, that is how Churchill would see it.’
‘So, Churchill would have gone to Holmes before he came to you? Forgive me, but you were second choice in this?’
‘Certainly,’ Watson said without rancour. ‘We usually come as a package – Holmes’s mind and whatever meagre medical skills I still possess. I think once he realized Holmes would no longer be able to bring his powers to bear, Churchill hoped I could supply a spark of the former to join the latter. I am afraid he will be sorely disappointed. Time has taught me that Holmes’s abilities are not easily transferred.’
‘So you want to find out where he has been deposited?’
‘I do. And I shall agitate for his release, DORA be damned. But aren’t you charged with such matters? The incarceration of those who pose a threat to national security or some such?’
Coyle shook his head. ‘Internment? Not usually. Special Branch or military police, they’re the lads for that. I’ve not heard of anywhere in the North Sea where they are sending folk.’
Watson stroked his moustache in thought. ‘But could you find out where it is? Where he might have been taken?’
Coyle nodded. ‘Possibly. It might take some time. Harry, he’s the one . . .’ He paused, struggling with the tense. ‘He was the one who dealt with other departments, went in for office politics. Him having a proper accent, an’ all. They wouldn’t talk to the likes of me – Special Branch was once the Special Irish Branch, y’know.’