Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants (21 page)

‘I am Michael, the Archangel.'

I struggled for breath. I saw the policeman once again fall to the ground. I saw the blood on the pavement. I felt my hand once again rise to my throat. I shouted in terror.

There was a light, in the form of a single flame, at one end of the room. From the other side, I heard another voice.

‘I am Raphael,' it announced and another torch was lit.

Then behind me, another: ‘Uriel.' And at the fourth point of the compass: ‘I am Gabriel.' I was at the centre of the four flames. In the flickering light I could now make out the figures of four men, almost identical in form. Tall, thin, pale of face, each with a top hat, a burning torch in one hand and a cane in the other.

I had by now the small comfort of knowing at least that these were mortal men of flesh and blood. But I could not fathom what they wanted with me.

‘The Archangels,' I began bravely. ‘Were they not guardians of all that is good? Were they not the enemies of evil?'

‘Good and evil,' said Michael, in his sinister way, ‘are relative constructs. Every man believes in his own just and good cause. What one man sees as abhorrent, to another is a noble act. We all have our obligations and motivations. And we have good reason to believe that you know something to our advantage. What do you know, Dr Watson, of the mountain of light?'

I was stunned into silence. Eventually, I essayed an answer.

‘Is it the Biblical home of the Archangels?'

‘Come now, Doctor,' said the man announcing himself as Raphael. He stepped into the light, ‘now is not the time for games.'

I stared at him, recognising him as the constable I had met on the street, who I had left for dead in a pool of blood.

‘But...' I stammered.

‘Yes, we are sometimes a little theatrical,' he admitted. ‘But today you are centre stage, doctor. We are but the producers of this drama. This is your moment to shine.'

‘Where am I?' I repeated.

‘That is of no consequence,' uttered Uriel, immediately sounding less patient than the others.

I reached for my pocket watch and in an instant felt a hand at my throat.

Michael had leapt with the speed of a devil, throwing his torch to Raphael, who caught it in a free hand.

‘My watch,' I gasped, ‘I was only looking for the time.' The grip loosened a little.  

‘We know you are a military man, Doctor,' continued Raphael. ‘We have already taken your service revolver into safekeeping.'

‘The time,' I said more defiantly, ‘I just wanted to know the time.'

‘In here it is always night,' said Raphael. ‘That is all you need to know.'

‘Then you are vampires, not angels,' I said, by now, ceasing to care what became of me. ‘May God have mercy on you.'

‘Be that as it may,' said Michael, ‘but now to our question. The Mountain of Light. Tell us what you know.'

‘I know nothing!' I shouted. ‘You talk in riddles. What are you, a secret police?'

‘We are police of a kind; guardians of a kind too.'

‘Of what?'

‘If you will not speak of the Mountain of Light,' persisted Michael, ‘then what of the Ruby Elephants? The ones that you were to give to Macintosh.'

‘What do you know of Macintosh? Did one of you kill him?'

‘He is of no concern to us now.'

I felt the heat of the flames scorch my skin then stared at the ground, thinking of Holmes. What a fool he would think me for getting into this fix.

‘Come now, doctor. It is but the work of a moment. Tell us about the Ruby Elephants.'

‘Very well,' I spluttered, ‘but keep those flames back. I am no use to you dead.'

Michael nodded and they stepped back together in an odd synchronicity.

‘The Ruby Elephant, I believe is a society of men. They met in the Punjab on the business of her Majesty's Government and the East India Company. They have all now returned to England.

‘Where do they meet?' hissed Uriel.

‘In London!'

A flame flashed through the air and stung my face. I felt a blinding pain in my eyes and I dropped to my knees.

‘Do not insult us, doctor!' he screamed. ‘Where do they meet?'

‘I do not know!' I felt a boot in my ribs.

‘Perhaps,' said Michael more calmly. ‘You believe you are protecting someone. You are not. If it is question of trust, then we act for the very highest authority, I assure you.'

A thousand thoughts tumbled through my mind. Who was I protecting? Holmes? Surely not. The Maharajah? I barely knew him. Would I endanger his life if I revealed his whereabouts? Almost certainly. Did I wish to die to protect him? It did not seem fair... Uriel stepped forward again, his boot approaching as I lay on the stone floor. I noticed a pair of silver angels on the buckle of his boot as it swung back. There was the sound of shattering glass.

A caped figure flew through the air and the world was splintered into a thousand shards of light. There was shouting, a gunshot, then the whip and flash of the drawing of swords. A second shot was fired and for the second time that day, I believed myself to be a ghost.

‘Watson!' a clear, commanding voice called through the gloom.

‘My dear Holmes!' I exclaimed. He threw a revolver through the air and catching it cleanly, I felt its cold, comforting weight in my hand.

‘Behind me,' he instructed. ‘These ghouls have poor manners and would not hesitate to slit our throats.' I stumbled to his side, my eyes still streaming from the smoke and flames.

At the far end of the room the Archangels gathered themselves into a knot, their sabres drawn and eyes gleaming likes demons.

‘I fear we shall not hold them off for long,' he warned, glancing up at the broken window behind him. Presently I noticed a stout rope hanging down.

‘Up and away, Watson,' Holmes said. I wasted no time throwing myself on the line, keen not to spend a moment longer in this bear pit. I pulled myself up then turned to cover my friend's escape.

‘Holmes!' I cried, ‘now you.' I fired a volley into the darkness and heard the shots riccochet around the walls as Holmes swarmed up the rope. In the darkness I saw the Archangels swoop upon us like a murder of crows.

We emerged into a shabby looking street. At a glance I guessed it was Hackney and judging by the faint blues, orange and purples colouring the darkness, that it was dawn. A carriage rumbled past, laden with bags of coal and a dishevelled looking old woman trudged past with a consignment of the first editions.

‘Look alive, Watson,' said Holmes, sprinting up to me. ‘These men will stop at nothing until we are ghosts.' We dashed down a narrow street, hurdling a bollard that obstructed our end of the thoroughfare, and tore past a row of tatty houses. Already we could hear the clatter of boots behind us as the Archangels gave chase. Holmes' stride began to lengthen, covering the ground like a cheetah. As a sprinter, he was technically superb. Presently, we turned a corner and found ourselves in a cul-de-sac. Holmes stopped on a pin and I had to do everything in my power to avoid a collision.

‘Over the wall, Watson,' he urged and in a single bound he was up and over. I followed with less finesse.

‘Holmes,' I said, ‘I fear we are trapped.'

‘There is always a way,' said Holmes.

We were in the small back yard of what appeared to be a keen sportsman. Beside the neatly potted plants and vegetable patch was a selection of gymnastic apparatus: dumbbells, a pommel horse and a set of parallel bars. My friend nodded, his bright eyes darting about the yard, finally alighting on the lean-to against the wall of the house. He dashed over, threw open the door and shouted in triumph.

‘I knew it!' he cried. The open door revealed a pair of bicycles, each with vastly different sized wheels. Relevant to each other, one wheel was the size of a penny, the other, a farthing. ‘One would have been miraculous,' cried Holmes. ‘Two is a thing of serendipity. This, Watson, is the moment of our salvation. With a favourable wind behind them these machines can reach thirty miles per hour.'

‘Have you ever ridden one, Holmes?' I cautioned. ‘I have heard ghastly stories of young men coming a cropper on such things. Young Horatio Carr, the son of the MP almost broke his neck on one the other Sunday on the Brighton Road.'

‘In the wrong hands, Watson, a child's hobbyhorse is a dangerous thing. Just do what I do.'

In the street outside, I heard the skirmishing of feet against the gravel as the Archangels reached the other side of the wall. Holmes and I silently wheeled our machines to the gate and waited for our moment. My friend pressed his ear to the wooded panel and held a finger to his lips.

‘Now,' cried Holmes and kicked open the door to the yard at the same time propelling himself and his bicycle through the gateway. I followed at speed.

‘Look down, you gods,' intoned Holmes as we scrambled up the step and into the saddle, ‘and on this couple drop a blessed crown!' Holmes ascended like an angel into his saddle. I on the other hand had never fancied myself as a cyclist and that opinion remains unchanged. I still don't hold that it is an appropriate or dignified way for a gentleman to transport himself. I planted a foot on the peg just above the back wheel and only by some miracle found myself up and in the seat.

The fiends were upon us immediately. To see them in daylight rendered them almost absurd. All of them dressed in their identical black suits, three quarter length coats, dark, round spectacles, black top hats and canes. They were like four undertakers on a day out. Yet there was nothing comical in their expressions. They wanted only our murder. They were tightly drilled and to a man in the most perfect physical condition; each was as lithe as a panther and kept up with us with ease.

‘This way!' shouted Holmes, pointing forwards like a cavalry officer. We turned into Burma Road, a wide, perfectly straight road with handsome houses on either side, and reached a terrifying speed. Still the Archangels were at our heels. ‘Don't slow down!' yelled Holmes, as he took the corner into Clissold Crescent. I felt a cold rush of air at my left ear and saw a black cane land in the street ahead of me; a blade was fixed like a bayonet to one end. Another narrowly passed me on the right and I doubled my efforts at the pedals. At any moment I expected to feel a knife in my back. I followed Holmes into the bend and swerved at a most foolhardy angle, almost colliding with a hansom coming the other way. A boy on the corner whistled his appreciation and Holmes did not disappoint, lifting his hat in acknowledgement. The madness continued down Stoke Newington Church Street and then onto Green Lanes which was teeming with traffic. Somehow we managed to weave a path through the carriages and only at Newington Green did I feel that we had managed to put some safe distance between us and our pursuers. For a terrifying moment I lost sight of Holmes and was only able to breathe again when I saw him dismount at the red brick archway of the new headquarters of the China Inland Mission.

My own dismount only narrowly managed to avoid coinciding with my early death. I hit the curb and flew forwards over the handlebars, landing in the forgiving earth of the freshly planted flowerbeds. Holmes watched this with his arms folded, an expression of high amusement on his gaunt and usually rather severe face. It took a moment to recover my dignity but eventually even I had to admit that the situation was not without a comic dimension.

We recovered our senses at The Edinburgh, a public house on the corner of Newington Green.

‘Do you think it's quite safe to stay in the area?' I cautioned.

‘In here, certainly, Watson,' he said, ‘and besides, I don't think your nerves could stand another journey without something to settle them first.'

By some freak of chance, Holmes was on familiar terms with the publican, a former boxer, a fact confirmed by his handsomely broken nose.

‘I won't be the last to say you are a loss to the fancy,' the gnarly landlord growled, dropping two tumblers onto the bar and filling them to the brim with some noxious liquor. ‘If you wanted a return to the ring, of course I could arrange that for you.'

‘I shall bear that in mind, Charlie,' Holmes twinkled. ‘Now to be on the safe side, do you have a back room where my friend and I can discuss some private business?'

‘Of course, Mr ‘Olmes,' and if you are in any sort of trouble, ‘I should be only too happy to organise some local muscle to help you out. Not that you need it with that fearsome right hook of yours.'

‘You are too kind, my friend,' beamed Holmes as we were led into a dingy little room with a table and two chairs. ‘And you'd better let us have two more of these, if you don't mind,' Holmes added, nodding at the drinks.

I drained my glass in a single gulp and stared into it as if some truth would be revealed.

‘What can I say?' I began.

‘You don't have to say anything at all,' said Holmes. ‘No doubt they would have taken me too if I was strolling in broad daylight. It is not a question of what you did or didn't do. It would have made no difference to the outcome. These are not the common or garden criminals we are used to. These are men of a quite different order.' I knew he was right.

‘Nonetheless,' I faltered. ‘Not many men would have attempted so daring a rescue.' I looked up at Holmes and caught his eye.

‘Come now, Watson,' he said, ‘you know I am not one for sentiment. You would have done the same for me.' I nodded.

‘But there is just one question,' Holmes put in. ‘Why were you wearing my hat?'

I felt the top of my head, realising the deerstalker must have blown away in the excitement.

‘Now let me see,' proceeded Holmes, without waiting for an answer, laying his flat hands on the table. ‘You were heading towards the zoo. That much I divined from Mrs Hudson. You crossed the road after Allsop Place and headed into Pettiman's. You managed to pick up a little of red paint on your trouser, do you see? It's from the freshly painted pillar box that stands on the corner of Allsop Place. By this point you realised you were being followed. Am I working along the right lines?'