Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants (22 page)

‘Perfectly,' I said, stinging my lips with the invigorating liquid from my second glass.

‘Here you attempted a disguise.'

‘Exactly,' I confirmed.

‘I admire the idea, my dear Watson, but the execution was poor, very poor. If they knew who you were, then naturally they would know of your association with me.' I admitted readily to my muddled thinking. ‘I would not presume to think of myself as the greater prize,' Holmes went on, ‘but I am afraid to say that your choice of impersonation was somewhat wayward.'

‘Enough, Holmes,' I laughed. ‘I have admitted my folly.'

‘You escaped through the back of the shop and down to Bingham Place, where you stopped and conducted an interview.'

‘A policeman,' I said. ‘At least I thought it was.'

‘An imposter?' asked Holmes.

‘Right again.'

‘It is an old trick. In my experience the keenest villains are drawn to the theatrical arts.'

‘But how did you know that was the spot of my abduction?'

‘Take a look at the sole of your shoe,' he said.

A red stain was impressed there.

‘Blood!' I cried.

‘Paint,' corrected Holmes. ‘Not only did you brush against the pillar box, you stepped into a great pool of paint that had been left behind by the careless workman.'

‘Then his negligence did me a great service.'

‘Quite so,' said Holmes,

‘But what then?' After they abducted me, how could you possibly know our destination?'

‘Because my friend, by this time, I was only a few yards behind you. I rose late that morning but on learning you had ventured out, was immediately concerned for your safety. I knew Baker Street was being watched. I followed your trail and only when I reached Pettiman's did I discover the trouble you were in. A few moments later and I would have either saved you from your ordeal altogether, or would have fallen into the same trap. In any event, I commandeered a hansom and pursued you. I lost you in traffic and it was only after exhaustive enquiries and the sharing of the best part of a pound among the drivers that I traced the address in Hackney.

‘Well I am most grateful.'

‘We must be on our guard,' said Holmes. ‘These men are a new breed. No one is safe until they are locked inside those fine new buildings at Wormwood Scrubs. I have already sent word to Mrs Hudson to leave for her sister's house in Margate. Baker Street for now is a death trap. But alas, that is exactly where we need to go.'

‘You are incorrigible Holmes,' I said. ‘But a hansom, I insist. No more bicycles.'

My friend was true to his word and half an hour later we were making good speed down the Essex Road. However, somewhere past the Angel, Holmes called out a series of complicated instructions to our driver and our route home became rather less familiar. The driver took us through one narrow thoroughfare to another until I was quite lost.

‘I thought we were heading to Baker Street?' I said, puzzled.

‘My dear Watson, we are,' he reassured me. ‘However,I just have one or two items to collect first.'

‘From whom?' I asked.

‘Myself.'

Unwilling to expand on this enigmatic answer, I folded my arms and watched as one district folded into the next and huge houses emerged and disappeared. It struck me how desperate we are to make our mark on the world, to create our own great monuments of bricks and mortar. I peered in at the afternoonified front parlours and thought of Mary and the quiet and orderly life we ought to be leading.

‘Here!' shouted Holmes and leapt out of the carriage.

We scurried up a gloomy alleyway between two large houses until we arrived at a set of damp stone steps. These in turn led up to a flat balcony thickly lined with moss and lichen, set against a solid brick wall. There was a single windowless door. It seemed to me a place for the worst kind of back street dealing and skullduggery and I baulked at the prospect of meeting whatever low life lurked behind it. Holmes peered at the door intensely, as if trying to open it by sheer force of will, then suddenly, as if remembering something vital, he returned to the steps, lifted a loose slab and retrieved a rusting key. I was intrigued all the more.

‘I almost forgot my own hiding place,' he admitted, turning the lock and disappearing inside. ‘Well don't let your shadow grow cold Watson, come on in.'

I stepped into the darkness while Holmes fussed with the lamp. There was a smell to the place that was eerily familiar; a combination of tobacco, sulphuric acid, musty books and papers, cinnamon and leather.

‘Why, Holmes,' I began. ‘This place smells almost exactly like...' The room flooded with light.

‘Home?' my friend asked, looking entirely delighted with himself.

It was an astonishing scene. Before me, was a perfect recreation of our sitting room in Baker Street including our two chairs, our coffee table, our fireplace, even many of our books. The same wallpaper covered the walls; the same mirror adorned the wall. For a moment, I caught sight of myself walking in through another door.

‘Great George's Ghost, Holmes!' I exclaimed. ‘What is the meaning of this?'

‘My dear Watson,' said Holmes, retrieving his stash of tobacco from his Persian slipper. ‘Surely I have told you before that I have five dens hidden about the city.'

‘But,' I marvelled, ‘it is the same in every detail!'

‘Well if it's good enough for Baker Street, it's good enough for here.' He primed a pipe and busied himself in its ignition. He vanished in a triumphant cloud of smoke. ‘After all, Watson,' he continued through the fog, ‘the idea is to feel entirely at home.' He collapsed into his armchair and I followed suit.

‘Now,' Holmes began, ‘we find ourselves in one of our most singular adventures facing perhaps our most formidable adversaries. I have a theory developing but there are several components which remain elusive. It is as if we are assembling a large jigsaw puzzle on a table. We have the outer edges; we have formed one or two scenes in the interior but it is too early to guess at the overall picture. Do you follow?'

‘Quite,' I said, drawing on a cigarette.

‘We know some of the key players: Snitterton, Miss Braithwaite and the mysterious Gustavus. We have joined enough pieces to get a clear picture of Snitterton and Miss Braithwaite and to know something of their characters. To my mind, they are equally dangerous. It is too early to say which of these is the principal danger or whether there is a higher power at work. We know they want the ruby elephants and ultimately the diamonds, but what is the extent of their ambitions? Where will they stop?'

‘And what of these Archangels? Are they in Snitterton's power, or do they belong to another case entirely?'

‘I applaud the question but I cannot yet give you an answer. As you know I dislike speculation. That is the business of the London Stock Exchange. We have a choice: either wait for the facts to reveal themselves or seek out them out for ourselves.'

The one key feature these parallel rooms lacked was Mrs Hudson. After our exertions, a bowl of her delicious stewed prawns or curried eggs would have worked wonders on our constitutions. As it was, Holmes and I had to make do with a tin of hard biscuits and a half pint of a passable claret that my friend had kept in reserve for an eventuality such as this. Fortified, Holmes went about collecting various items. From a drawer, he retrieved an identical copy of his Webley Bulldog revolver, which he unwrapped from an oily cloth. He filled the barrel then handed it to me. I also saw him find a cane and riding crop.

‘If we find these Archangels enjoying tea in our front parlour,' he warned, ‘then we at least ought to be ready for them.'

Miraculously, there was hot water and while Holmes busied himself with some papers, I ran a bath. An hour later and wearing a fresh collar courtesy of my friend's standby wardrobe, we were ready.

SEVENTEEN - The Castle

We were on our guard as we swept into Baker Street, but were not prepared for the sight of our front door left wide open to the street.

‘It doesn't look promising, Holmes,' I remarked. ‘Do you think we ought to call Gregson?'

‘Not yet,' my friend said, his eyes darting up at the first floor window. We approached with caution.

‘Of course it's possible,' I suggested, ‘that Mrs Hudson simply forgot to close the door behind her?'

‘Impossible,' said Holmes. ‘She is scrupulous in that respect. No I'm afraid we have had some uninvited visitors.' Both of us reflected glumly on our respective possessions and what may or may not have been taken.

Holmes cocked his pistol and led the way up the stairs, treading softly and avoiding the fifth step and its incurable creak. The scene was as bad as we feared. Just as Holmes' facsimile rooms were reassuringly familiar, our Baker Street original was now an alien landscape. Our chairs had been upended; the mirror was broken and our books and papers were scattered across the floor. Holmes immediately checked his emerald tie pin and Persian slipper, both of which were safe in their hiding place in the coal scuttle. I looked over my own things and while disordered, curiously nothing was missing.

‘They were looking for something specific,' I put in.

‘Plainly,' said Holmes. ‘But there is something else. I believe they were surprised.'

‘By whom?' Holmes knelt down and retrieved a single hair pin from the rug.

‘I have a terrible suspicion,' said Holmes gravely, ‘that Mrs Hudson either did not receive my warning to leave for her sisters,' or chose to ignore it.'

‘Great heavens!' I shouted. ‘Then we must call Gregson. There is no time to be lost.'

‘Calm yourself, Watson,' my friend warned. ‘Do we really want their clumsy boots all over the evidence? Let me at least examine it first.'

This was a development neither of us had foreseen. Ordinarily Mrs Hudson was spared the perils that routinely faced Holmes and me in our adventures. We had previously thought of 221b Baker Street as a haven of safety; a refuge from the madness of the world. While neither of us spoke of it, we both knew that a terrible weight of responsibility lay upon our shoulders.

Holmes was like a hound following a scent. He stepped carefully towards the door, knelt down and retrieved another small item; a few steps further and he had found another.

‘Oh, bravo, Mrs Hudson!' my friend exclaimed.

‘What is it, Holmes?'

‘She has left us a trail. These hair pins have been deliberately placed; they are guiding us somewhere, Watson. I have long suspected that Mrs Hudson was a student of my methods. This is the proof!' My friend was feverish in his excitement.

‘Another!' he cried as he descended the stairs, ‘and another!' However towards the bottom of the staircase, the trail went cold.

‘Perhaps she simply ran out,' I suggested.

‘Unimaginable,' said Holmes. ‘She uses twenty at least at any one time.' For a moment we stood, desolate on those famous steps thinking of the consequence of our actions.

‘My, my, Watson,' Holmes began, ‘look at this.' He pointed at the portrait of Queen Victoria that hung from the wall directly above the place where he had found the last hair pin. He then lifted a single diamond stud earring from the floor. ‘This is the final clue.'

‘What can it possibly mean?'

Holmes peered at Her Majesty with a look of the greatest concentration. If I had been closer it is possible I would have heard the very whirring of his brain.

‘Watson,' he said. ‘What say you to a pot of tea? I suspect this will be a three pipe problem.'

Holmes made the necessary preparations. He righted his armchair, plumped a pillow and brought sufficient quantities of loose shag tobacco to within arm's reach to sustain him in his contemplation. Before him lay the portrait of the Queen and the single, stray piece of jewellery. I watched my friend as he gazed at the items, biting on his pipe, until, in the manner of a fakir, his eyes glazed over and he was lost to all other things in the world. For him, all that existed was the problem.

After clearing up in a rather rudimentary fashion, restoring a picture to the wall here, adjusting a rug there, I retired to my room with my copy of The Time Machine. Yet reading was impossible. Instead I stared out of the window thinking of Mrs Hudson and the dreadful state of affairs in which we found ourselves. Waiting seemed intolerable and every ounce of common sense told me to interrupt Holmes, call in Scotland Yard and put the whole matter in their hands. It was no longer a theoretical game of cat and mouse.

Before I had even time to finish the thought, Holmes burst in. It had been barely five minutes since I had left him.

‘It's absurdly simple,' he said. ‘They are using Mrs Hudson to gain access to the Queen.'

‘Mrs Hudson?!' I repeated in disbelief. ‘Although she is a woman of some standing, I somehow feel she would be unable to make such an introduction.'

‘Not to the Queen herself; of course not,' my friend explained, ‘but indirectly. You remember two months ago she received a guest from out of London; an old friend. She entertained her for three days. You remember. We were half starved. I made us supper one evening.'

‘Yes,' I remember that, I said, ‘your beef was inedible.'

‘Of course it was,' my friend agreed. ‘But I recall overhearing a conversation while I was retrieving a tin of pineapple from the pantry. It was gossip of a particular sort - the transgressions of a footman and a chambermaid. It was obvious that she was employed in some domestic capacity at one of the royal palaces.'

‘But which one?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘Where would she be in residence at this time of the year?'

‘I am afraid Watson, that in order for us to progress the case we will need to invade a little of Mrs Hudson' privacy. I suggest that we begin with her diary, which should provide us with the name of her acquaintance.'

‘I feel Holmes, that in the circumstances, she would forgive the transgression.'

The diary was found easily enough; it was a small red volume, with a black band, containing the minutia of her daily life. Inside, on a date in early June, we discovered the name Lydia Woodbridge, which revived a memory of an introduction Mrs Hudson had made some time back. Her friend was a stout, practical looking woman with a relentlessly cheerful disposition and a penchant for pear drops, which gave the house a distinctive ether-like fragrance for the duration of her stay. We were just as fortunate to find a note that revealed the time her train arrived in London and which terminus: the three o'clock train from Windsor, arriving at Waterloo at 4pm.

‘There it is, Watson,' my friend said, clapping the diary shut. ‘They are bound for Windsor Castle.'

An hour later, we were rattling through the Berkshire countryside in a first class carriage.

‘It is safe to assume Watson, that they will have at least a four hour head start on us, which means they are likely to have caught the 10 o'clock train. Of course it is possible that they took a less direct route, or indeed that Mrs Hudson is still in London. However my instinct tells me that once they had her in their possession, they would proceed directly to the castle.

‘But what do they want?'

‘I believe they wish to steal an item of immense value from the Queen's household.'

‘Is it possible they mean harm to the Queen herself?'

‘That is entirely possible, which is why I have arranged for an inspector from the Windsor constabulary to meet us at the station. He has already sent his men ahead to the castle.'

‘Great heavens, Holmes. How did you relay this message so quickly?'

‘I asked Wiggins to send a telegram to Gregson.'

The ancient trees and fields of England flashed past. Meadows shone a luminous green and sheep grazed in their sleepy pastures. It did not seem conceivable that our own Mrs Hudson was now implicated, albeit involuntarily, in a plot against the Queen. The quiet villages, the bustling towns, the farmers trudging with their beasts in the fields were all unaware of the threat to the crown.

As we pulled in, I leaned out of the window and saw a deputation waiting for us at the station. Gregson himself was on the platform with a small party of local men.

‘You made extraordinary speed, Gregson,' Holmes congratulated, stepping down from the carriage.

‘I was fortunate to be on the right side of London and came directly.' He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice: ‘I sincerely hope that the business is as serious as you have outlined. There will be considerable embarrassment if this proves to be a wild goose chase. The Queen herself has been moved to a place of safety.'

‘What could be safer than the greatest castle in all of England?' asked Holmes.

‘What indeed, Sherlock?' rumbled a familiar voice.

We turned and were met with the astonishing sight of Mycroft Holmes standing just behind us on the platform.

‘Are we the last ones at the party?' I asked.

‘So it would seem,' said Gregson.

‘Sherlock,' said Mycroft gruffly, ‘what were you thinking endangering Mrs Hudson like that?'

‘I sent a message for her to go to her sisters,' replied Holmes, rather crossly, ‘which she ignored.' He did not enjoy being challenged, least of all in public and especially by his own brother.

‘You may be wondering, Sherlock, how I got here so quickly.'Sherlock smiled.

‘Hair pins?' he asked.

‘Precisely,' yawned Mycroft. ‘I was just passing Baker Street...'

‘Mycroft,' my friend interrupted, ‘you hardly ever pass Baker Street!'

‘I was merely planning a social call,'Mycroft explained, ‘when I saw the door ajar. I found the same scene as you and of course followed the same trail left by Mrs Hudson.'

‘You make quite a pair,' said Gregson. ‘I should like to have met your father.'Mycroft and Sherlock exchanged a look. ‘Why is it neither of you gave your talents to the police force? If we had you two at Scotland Yard there would not be a single criminal at large in all of London.'

‘Are we not of service enough?' asked my friend a little hurt.

‘Gentlemen,' I cried, ‘we must find Mrs Hudson!'

‘Yes, of course,' said Mycroft, chastened.

We made our way to a pair of carriages that were waiting to take us to the castle.

‘You could at least,' whispered Holmes to his brother, ‘have shut the front door.'

As the afternoon turned to evening, the castle rose up like a kingdom in the clouds. The brickwork blushed a magnificent shade of puce.

‘Has Miss Woodbridge been found?' asked Holmes.

‘Not as far as we know,' said Gregson. ‘She was in the kitchens this morning but has not been seen since.'

‘A rather worrying sign,' I ventured.

‘Not really,' said Gregson. ‘One of her duties is to compile the royal menus, which necessitates a great deal of research around the castle. Such is the enormity of the place, if she became engrossed in a particular volume, she may not be seen for several hours.'

We entered through the Henry VII Gateway and were driven towards the Round Tower. It seemed stupendous that we were here at all.

‘We must begin in the kitchen,' said Holmes. ‘I believe that is where they would have gained access most easily and least conspicuously.'

We were met by a rake-thin official from the Royal Household, Horace Ampleforth, wearing a wig of tightly curled brown hair who informed us at length of his title and role. I cannot now precisely recall this, but it may have been possible that he was Master of the Royal Candlesticks. He greeted us curtly, rattled off a list of things we were not permitted to do, then led the way to the kitchens. His head was raised at an angle no lower than forty five degrees, which produced the effect of his nose pointing like a small arrow into the air. It seemed astonishing that he was able to navigate his way across the courtyard without falling over.

The doors swung open to the Great Kitchen, a magnificent, steaming hall with high wooden roof beams, ornate stone windows and the black head of a stag peering down on the cooks. Along the stone walls was a gleaming collection of copper pots. One of the staff stepped forward from the fog, an emaciated woman with crimson cheeks who looked herself as if she was in need of feeding.

‘Have you found her?' she demanded, rubbing her thin, red-raw fingers together. There was an intoxicating smell of roasting meat in the air and we could barely hear for the clash of knives, clatter of spoons and the bubbling of a score of saucepans.

‘Not yet, madam,' said Gregson. ‘But we are doing everything we can. These gentlemen are here to assist.'

Mycroft peered over her shoulder, his eyes gleaming at the delicious dishes being prepared.

‘We have a banquet for 160 this evening,' the cook went on, ‘and we barely have a recipe to work from. We have resorted to my roast hare, tripe and onions, cider jelly and apricot charlotte. Beyond that, we are at sixes and nines. If Mrs Woodbridge is not found, we shall be serving bread, butter and bow wow mutton to the King of Denmark.'

‘When did you see her last?' asked Holmes.

‘This morning at eleven,' she sighed, repeating herself. ‘She said she was going to the royal library.'

‘Was anyone with her?' my friend pressed.

‘A woman. I sincerely hope it was the supplier of the grouse we have been waiting for.'

‘Brown hair, five foot six?'

‘Yes, that's her.'

‘Did either appear flummoxed in any way?'

‘Flummoxed, sir? We are all flummoxed here, from the moment we wake to the moment we collapse. There is not a moment of peace on God's Earth.'

‘Thank you,' said Holmes. ‘Rest assured, we shall find her.'