A Study in Murder (23 page)

‘Here we are, sir, one basket. And six sugar cubes.’

‘Right. Give me a hand, will you, Harry? If you have time?’

‘I got to do Hut 3 after evening
Appell
. I tell you, sir, you’d think some of them fellas was born in a barn and lived in a pigsty. The Temporary Gentlemen aren’t too
bad, but some of the others I swear don’t know how to wipe their own arses. Sorry for being so crude.’

‘No apologies necessary, Harry.’

‘Then I have to clear the rec room – put the cards back, make sure there’s 52, British style, not 48, pack away the chess pieces . . . same thing really. Most of the officers
think there’s an invisible army trailing after them, clearing up. Thing is, for many of them, that’s exactly right. Although I reckon a lot of those invisibles have been killed these
past few years. I think they’s in for a rude awakening when they get back, the toffs. Servants’ll be like gold dust.’

‘I’m sure. Pass me that kidney dish, will you?’

From beneath his bed he produced a screw-top jar, half filled with a clear liquid.

Harry looked at the contents of the canister with suspicion. ‘If that’s what I think it is, I’d go easy, Dr Watson. You want, I can get you the good stuff. Not sure where you
got that.’

‘It’s not for me.’ He removed the lid and sniffed. It was fortuitous that Steigler had kept the liquid recovered from the séance and that he was willing to hand it over
to Watson. It confirmed what he had thought. Kügel and Steigler were using him as a surrogate. But if foul play had been done, it didn’t matter who was calling the tune for the
investigation, as long as it got to the truth.

The fumes from the container clawed at the back of his throat, making his eyes water, but not before he got the fruity smell of esters, redolent of pears and bananas. Despite the acrid
overtones, the scent of those fruits made him feel hungry for fresh food. Perhaps he would go over to the tin hut and buy some of his peaches back; not fresh perhaps, but healthier than rat
broth.

‘Place the sugar cubes in the bottom, please.’

Harry did as instructed and Watson carefully poured about half of the Virginia Dog over them, watching them collapse and crumble until he had a thick, viscous fluid. He sniffed.
‘Not very scientific,’ he said to Harry. ‘But I think the rats’ love for sugar will overcome any aversion to what may or may not be in here.’

Harry lowered his voice. ‘Is that from the rec room, then? You reckon that stuff might have . . . y’know, done them in?’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I heard you was over there. I figured, if Dr Watson is interested, something must be a bit queer. You think they was poisoned?’

He was impressed by the lad’s insight. ‘I don’t know. But you get a bad batch of any distilled product and it can have serious consequences, although not normally death.
Imagine if there were a bad batch of this, though. Might someone want the evidence disposed of as quickly as possible?’

‘I dunno, sir. But I tried that stuff once. I had a headache for four days.’

‘I don’t doubt it, Harry. I’m not sure if rats get headaches. But they can be poisoned. Now, you think we can get those rats in this basket and close the lid without spilling
all of the liquid?’

‘Give it a go, sir. I remember you and Mr Holmes was always up to strange ’speriments. The smell was right awful sometimes. Didn’t Mrs Hudson go on.’

Watson laughed and felt a sudden flood of warmth towards the young man. He had been right. How good it was to have this link back to his past, something solid, flesh and bone,
rather than the untrustworthy, disembodied voice in his skull. ‘Good man, Harry.’

With a series of swift, co-ordinated movements they had the rats in Peacock’s basket, the sound of their claws on the weave filling the room.

‘They’ll eat their way out eventually, sir. You know that?’

‘I do. In the absence of a glass cage, however, it will have to suffice. Let us hope the pair fancy some libations before they start on the willow, eh?’

‘Sir. I’d best be going.’

‘Right. And Harry?’

‘Sir?’

‘Thank you. It’s a pleasure to have you with me.’

‘Pleasure’s all mine, sir. Life was getting dull before you turned up.’

When he had gone, Watson spent a few minutes standing over the basket, listening to the movement of the rats within. The frantic scrabbling had subsided, replaced by sudden bursts of activity
and then moments of quiescence while they explored their immediate surroundings. He would give it until the evening
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, he decided, then, if they had drunk the potion and if they showed
no ill effects, he would let the blighters go. And just hope he didn’t run into them anytime soon, in a different context altogether.

So far his only theory was thin. The three men had been poisoned by alcohol. It could be accidental. It could also be deliberate. But if the latter, why? Who would gain from their deaths? It was
all very well finding the method, but he needed motive. And for the moment he simply couldn’t conceive why anyone – British or German – might kill a group of men misguided enough
to think they could speak to the dead. Or why they would bury them in such haste.

Watson sat down and picked up his pencil and paper again. Soon he was writing once more, oblivious to the rodents a few feet away from his bed. Where had he got to? Ah, yes, Holmes had just
disappeared from the carriage.

He wrote until his fingers ached once more, something that had never afflicted him before. It was with great sadness he laid out the final paragraph for now, for it pained him to recall
those lost years when Holmes had been plucked from him.

Neither of us realized then that it would take five long years for the Rugby Mystery to be solved and, in the interim, my great friend would appear to be lost to the world forever.

After
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and the evening meal of cylinders that managed a convincing impression of sausages, and a boiled vegetable with the consistency, but not the taste, of
cabbage, Watson returned to his billet, stamping the snow off his boots at the entrance to the hut and pushing through the bodies towards his surgery.

Peacock hailed as he passed. ‘Chocolate, Major?’

Watson hesitated, then moved across to where Cocky was holding up two squares of Dairy Milk. He took them with a thank you.

‘Not finished with my basket?’

‘Soon,’ Watson said.

Cocky moved in closer. ‘I don’t know what you are playing at, Major, but don’t rock the boat.’ It was not a threat, but a plea. ‘I’ll go mad if you
do.’

‘How do you mean?’ Watson asked.

Cocky looked around to make sure nobody else was listening. His well-fed face had reddened, and Watson wondered about the man’s blood pressure. ‘I’m up next, is all.’

‘Up next?’

‘Cocky, you going to share that with your chums or just with your betters?’ asked the lieutenant called Laine.

Peacock snapped back and scooped up the remains of the chocolate bar. He tossed it over to Laine. ‘That’s it till the next parcel.’

Watson pulled him closer once more. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Peacock,’ he said softly.

‘Like what?’

‘Like a séance.’

Peacock shook his head vigorously. ‘No, don’t worry. Nothing like that.’

Back in his room, Watson could hear the rats. If they had drunk the liquid, it hadn’t affected them. He took a lamp close to the lip of the hamper, undid the straps, and
eased up the lid. Two sharp furry faces, whiskers twitching madly, appeared at the crack, flinging themselves at the opening with such force Watson almost lost his grip before he slammed down the
lid and redid the fastening. But he had seen what he needed. The kidney dish was empty.

Watson returned to his bed and looked at the inch of fluid left in the jar. Rat physiology was different from humans’. There were poisons they could process without harm that would fell a
man. It could be that. It was a silly, inconclusive experiment. Oh, for a proper laboratory, analytical equipment, controls, assistants.

Watson took the lid off the jar and raised it to his lips, his eyes prickling as he did so.

Didn’t you just tell a man not to do anything stupid?

Aye, I did, thought Watson as he braced himself for the burn and drained the jar in two big gulps.

Winston Churchill entertained Mycroft Holmes in a minor drawing room, relatively restrained by the standards of Blenheim, but still opulent by any other benchmark. The
wallpaper was hand painted, every cornice and curlicue gilded, all the artwork venerable and valuable. They sat on a pair of couches, arranged in parallel in front of a roaring fire, under the
black eyes of famed and framed ancestors. A manservant brought two enormous balloon glasses of brandy and then retreated from the men sitting before the grate, the flickering flames giving them a
devilish hue.

Churchill was in his early forties, four decades younger than Mycroft, but a spectator might think they were of the same generation. Years of political infighting – and a daily intake of
brandy, cigars and champagne – were beginning to take their toll on the younger man. His physical state was not helped by the strain of waiting for the report of the Dardanelles Commission,
as Mycroft well knew. Churchill’s political future rested on whether he was condemned as a reckless adventurer who gambled away men’s lives or as the engineer of a noble failure.

‘How are you, sir?’ Mycroft asked, deferring to the younger man.

Churchill sipped his brandy. ‘Well enough. Although my enemies are all powerful today and my friendship counts for less than nothing. I am simply existing.’

‘Until the report?’

‘Of course.’

‘I am sure it will be good news.’ Mycroft was certain of this because a government-appointed body was unlikely to admit to a catastrophic failure in planning and thousands of wasted
lives. If they did so, Australia and New Zealand, which had lost many thousands of sons, would be in uproar. It might even threaten the Empire.

‘We haven’t always seen eye to eye, have we, Holmes?’

Mycroft shook his great head. ‘We have had our disagreements.’ It was an understatement. Churchill was a great admirer of Mycroft’s brother, Sherlock, and had had reason to use
his talents in the past, and had come to know Watson quite well since their meeting at the front in Belgium. But, unlike them, Mycroft was a political beast with his own ideas about how best the
nation could be served and so Churchill was always wary around him.

‘Well, then I can expect you to give an honest opinion about me.’

Mycroft thought for a moment and opened the bout with rather a soft jab. ‘You know I think as Home Secretary you could have organized our intelligence services in a more efficient
manner.’

‘You can do better than that, sir.’

Mycroft took a slug of his own brandy. He didn’t like the tone Churchill had adopted or the challenging one-eyed stare he was giving him. Had the man been drinking already? ‘How do
you mean, Mr Churchill?’

‘Clemmie will tell me I am a wonderful man. Not without fault, mind, but wonderful. Lloyd George, too, flatters. But, really, I value most the opinion of those I have crossed swords
with.’ He leaned forward. ‘Give me your assessment of Winston Spencer Churchill, Holmes. Both barrels, if need be.’

Mycroft took another generous dose of brandy before he spoke. ‘It is a difficult matter.’

‘Try, man. They tell me you are cleverer than your brother.’

‘In some things, I am his superior, it is true. In human relationships, certainly. But like my brother, I find much that is paradoxical in you, sir.’

‘Go on,’ Churchill demanded gruffly when it appeared Mycroft had come a halt.

‘I would say you have a clever mind, holding an above-average intelligence.’ Churchill gave a little grunt of satisfaction. ‘But whether that mind is always focused as it
should be is open to debate. You handle great subjects in rhythmical language, which is often inspiring in the extreme. But I fear you are sometimes enslaved by your own phrases. I suspect you
deceive yourself that you take broad, overarching views, when your mind is fixed upon one comparatively small aspect of the question. You admire a grand gesture, but do not always look at the
motives behind it or the consequences of failure. I fear that is what happened in the Dardanelles.’

Churchill said nothing.

‘Your power for good is very considerable. On the other hand, you have a capacity for unwitting harm. Your temperament, sir, is of wax and quicksilver. You would describe yourself as a
statesman, but I feel you to be a politician of keen intelligence with an extraordinary set of skills, if only one knows how to apply them. I think, if used judiciously and at the correct moment,
you could do great things for this country. On the other hand, should you feel slighted or betrayed, you can make much mischief. For those reasons, I would advise any Prime Minister always to have
you in the Government and keep you close at hand, where your talents can be accessed.’

‘And where they can keep an eye on me?’ Churchill offered.

‘Precisely.’

Churchill took a polished humidor from a side table and, without offering Mycroft one, lit up a corona, puffing it into life before examining the glowing tip. Mycroft thought he had overstepped
the mark. ‘You don’t, do you? Smoke cigars?’

‘No, sir. Pipes, cigarettes. Not cigars, not for some years now.’

‘You should. I find they offer a sense of peace that no other smoke can.’ He puffed some more. ‘That was a fair assessment, I feel. I know I can be impatient and headstrong.
Bloody-minded and vengeful, too. But knowing one’s faults is half the battle. So, Mycroft Holmes, why have you come to the wilderness to consult with this old dog?’

Mycroft outlined what he had discovered about Watson’s capture, the offer of exchange by Von Bork and his brother’s disappearance.

‘I remember Mrs Gregson,’ said Churchill. ‘Who could forget her? Another one who is headstrong and bloody-minded. I admire her, though,’ he added.

‘I would have to concur. Reluctantly.’