Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares (23 page)

“The fiend,” I said. “Is there no end to his savagery?”

“No, nor to his vindictiveness and opportunistic cunning. He arranged a rendezvous with her in the back alley behind the brothel, then pounced. As he was a regular client of hers, she would not have suspected his true intent, not until the very last second.”

“Hence the lack of signs of a struggle.”

“One can picture de Villegrand emerging from the shadows during the storm. Perhaps he and the Abbess exchange a friendly word or two. Then he accuses her of betrayal. Perhaps she denies it, perhaps not. The vicomte presses her, forces her to own up. Then, without warning, he strikes.”

“
Savate
. A kick to the chest.”

“Delivered by an expert, it caused instantaneous death.”

“Could Torrance not have done it on his behalf? He, after all, is an acquaintance of the Abbess too, so could have set up the meeting with her. And de Villegrand doesn’t appear to like getting his hands dirty, not if there is an intermediary available.”

“But could Torrance have made it look like something Baron Cauchemar would have done?” said Holmes. “There’s the rub. De Villegrand’s intent was not simply to exact vengeance on the Abbess but to frame Cauchemar for murder. A means of throwing the police onto the wrong scent. That’s in the unlikely event that they would be on the vicomte’s scent in the first place.”

“You knew this all along?”

“I believed de Villegrand to be the Abbess’s killer but had no way of proving it, and without proof, belief is nothing. All I could do was bide my time and hope that he would do something to incriminate himself. With Benoît, he has at last shown his hand. We now know him to be a cold-hearted desperado, and deadly dangerous too.”

“He would not have left Benoît here, as he did, if he had not expected someone to discover him.”

“Not ‘expected’, Watson. Wanted. And not just ‘someone’ – us. De Villegrand knows we are breathing down his neck. The conservatory trap was supposed to do away with us, or at any rate leave us in no fit state to continue to pursue him. But what killing Benoît and pressuring Aurélie into committing an act of terrorism tells us is that the dénouement of his plan is drawing nigh. De Villegrand is sacrificing a few last pawns, in order to set up the checkmate. He and his sidekick Torrance, wherever they are, are getting ready to deliver the final blow.”

“Which is?”

“One final attack. An atrocity to make all its predecessors pale into insignificance. The spark that will ignite the powder keg our nation has become and cause it to tear itself apart.”

“Briton at war with Briton,” I said in chilled tones. “Anarchy reigning. Mob rule.”

“A fire will burn that will reduce this country to ashes and leave our imperial dependencies vulnerable and ripe for takeover. France becomes the supreme global power. De Villegrand is victorious.”

“Not if we stop him.”

“And we shall,” Holmes declared. “It all hinges on one question.”

“Namely?”

“Who – or what – is the Duke of Hell?”

We arrived back at 221B Baker Street dirty, dishevelled, demoralised, footsore and hungry. Mrs Hudson took one look at us and clucked and fussed like a despairing mother hen.

“Honestly, two gents of your standing, out the whole night long and coming back all bedraggled, like something the cat brought in. I’m used to
your
shenanigans, Mr Holmes, but to see you dragging the nice Dr Watson down to your level – I don’t know! Sometimes I wonder if it’s a madhouse I’m running, not a lodgings. You’ll be wanting a hot meal right away, I’ll be bound. Neither of you’s eaten since suppertime, by the looks of it.”

“Food, Mrs Hudson, would be more than welcome,” said Holmes. “And perhaps you can tell me how long my brother has been waiting upstairs?”

“How did you –?” Mrs Hudson shook her head. “I’m not going to go to the bother of finishing that sentence. You always seem to know everything.”

“Not everything, my dear lady. But Mycroft wears a distinctive eau de cologne with, in my opinion, rather too much emphasis on the citrus notes. The scent of it continues to loiter in the hallway. From its strength I would estimate he passed through here roughly half an hour ago.”

“More like three quarters!” boomed an angry voice from the floor above. “Where in God’s name have you been, Sherlock?”

Holmes grimaced at me. “The mountain has come to Mohammed. Let us go kowtow on bended knee.”

Mycroft was ensconced in Holmes’s own armchair, and his expression was as choleric and distempered as I have ever seen it. His cheeks were bright red and there was a film of sweat on his brow, as though he had been exerting himself physically. I would have been surprised, however, if he had so much as stirred from his sedentary posture since assuming it. Rather, he had been sitting here all this time, quietly smouldering, outraged that he had left his precincts – Whitehall, Pall Mall, the Diogenes Club – and travelled halfway across town, only to find his brother out. It was like a circus elephant performing some unique, unprecedented stunt, with no audience to applaud the feat.

“I need not ask if it is important business which brings you to my door, brother,” said Holmes. “Nothing but the gravest matter of state could compel Mycroft Holmes to make use of his legs and abandon his clubland Parnassus for the less rarefied climes of Marylebone.”

“And I need not tell you, Sherlock,” said Mycroft, “that impudence is no way of atoning for your absence. I ask again: where have you been? Nowhere Id want to be, by the look of you.”

“Forgive me for not realising that an event as rare as a solar eclipse was about to occur: a house call from Mycroft. I would never have had the temerity to venture out, had I had some foreknowledge. I would have waited here like a virgin anticipating a visit from her paramour.”

“Virgin?” Mycroft spluttered. “Paramour? You really do –”

“We have been pursuing the case,” I interposed. The Holmes brothers were building up to one of their sibling spats, and I wished to defuse it before things turned nasty. “We have turned up several major –”

“Yes, whatever,” said Mycroft with a flap of a pudgy hand. “I came here to tell you in person, Sherlock, that while I initially chose to heed your recommendation, against my better judgement, I have since revised my position. In light of this morning’s events, and on mature consideration, I have decided that I am right and you are wrong.”

“Then you have done it?” said Holmes. “The Queen is to be dispatched to Balmoral? Even after I counselled in the strongest possible terms against that?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not ‘to be’. Has been. The arrangements are in place. The wheels are in motion. The Royal Train has made its way to Euston Station, whence it will carry Her Majesty and various family members northwards. It is for the best. A bomb at Buckingham Palace itself? If that isn’t a sign that the terrorist threat impinges directly on the monarchy, I don’t know what is.”

“This is not good.” Holmes sank disconsolately into the other chair. “Not good at all.”

“I rather think it is,” said Mycroft. “I took the precaution of warning Her Majesty a few days back that she and her immediate family should be ready to depart at short notice, were the public situation to deteriorate substantially. This morning I was finally able to convince her that the hour had come. I’m glad to relate that she saw eye to eye with me on the matter. Her very words were, ‘A ruler must know when to stand firm and when to show discretion, and must appreciate that the latter is in itself a kind of standing firm. I will do as you say, Mr Holmes, not for my own benefit and peace of mind but for the country’s.’”

“She really is a magnificent woman,” I avowed. “As wise as she is gracious.”

“No, no, no,” protested the younger Holmes to the older. “This is a disastrous course of action. Mycroft, you must put a stop to it.”

“Wouldn’t even if I could, Sherlock.” Mycroft consulted the Vienna clock that hung not far from the bullet holes which Holmes had shot in the wall, their pattern forming the letters “VR” in tribute to our monarch. “As I said, the wheels are in motion. Literally. Her Majesty and family boarded the Royal Train some ten minutes ago. It will be pulling out of the station even as we speak. I simply don’t understand your objection to any of this. Where could she be safer but at Balmoral?”

“How about at Buckingham Palace, where she already was, watched over by a contingent of guardsmen?” suggested Holmes acerbically. “Even so, it is not her being at Balmoral that troubles me. Once there, I am sure she will be well protected.”

“Absolutely. A battalion of the Royal Scots Greys is already encamped in the grounds. They are patrolling the estate and manning the boundaries. A jackrabbit couldn’t get past them, never mind a bomb-toting terrorist.”

“But between here and there, she will be dangerously exposed.”

“On the Royal Train? Balderdash! She and her offspring and retinue are being closely guarded by a dozen of Special Branch’s finest. Not only that but the ‘Iron Duke’ class locomotive pulling the carriages is one of the fastest in the land, and the route has been fully cordoned off. All other scheduled LNWR and Caledonian Railways journeys that intersect with it have been either diverted or cancelled. The signals are all up and the points appropriately aligned. Save for stops to take on more coal or water, the Royal Train will not halt. It will hurtle through the night and, barring mishaps, will reach Perth well before sunrise, whereupon carriages will transport the royal party the remaining sixty miles to the castle. The whole operation has been planned meticulously down to the minutest detail. Nothing can go wrong.”

Holmes remained sceptical. If his frown had been any deeper, I daresay his brow might have cracked in two.

“But don’t you see, Mycroft? This is exactly what the terrorists want. This has been their intention all along.”

“That we make the Queen safe?”

“No. That she is flushed out of Buckingham Palace and forced to go on the run. They have scared the fox from its burrow.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Look at the facts. The first bomb exploded on Cheapside, the next at Regent’s Park, the third at Waterloo, the fourth in St James’s Park. The fifth would have blown up at the palace had the hapless bomber not had such a struggle with her conscience. She was a scapegoat, by the way, a sacrificial lamb, and acting under duress. I will be recommending to the police that she be released from custody at the earliest opportunity, once her personal security can be ensured, and that she be exonerated of all culpability.”

“I am as aware of where the bombs were placed as you are, Sherlock. So what?”

“So,” said Holmes, “do you not see the pattern?” He fetched a book of maps from the bureau and flicked through to a page detailing the layout of London’s streets. Taking a pen, he marked each of the bombing locations in turn with an X. “The far end of Cheapside, where the restaurant that was bombed stands, is approximately four miles from Buckingham Palace, as the crow flies. Regent’s Park is about three. Waterloo is two. The boathouse in St James’s Park is less than one. It is like a countdown in distances, zero being the final, aborted bombing immediately outside the palace garden walls. This arrangement can be no accident. We are looking at a clear, deliberate progression.”

Mycroft donned a pair of pince-nez spectacles and squinted through them at the map. “Why did you not point this out before?”

“I didn’t think I needed to. I felt that, to someone of your perspicacity, it should be quite obvious.”

“I have innumerable demands on my time and attention,” Mycroft blustered. “I can’t be expected to remark on every single tiny detail of every single subject that falls under my purview.”

“But I could not have been more explicit in the telegram I sent you. I told you that under no circumstances should Her Majesty be moved.”

“Had you laid out your rationalisation in full, perhaps I would have given the advice more credence. I heeded it anyway, until the fifth bombing made the prospect of the Queen staying put untenable.”

“This is typical of you, brother,” Holmes fulminated. “You act without properly digesting the data or considering the consequences. Normally you arrive at the right decisions, but this once, you have been foolhardy, and as a consequence the Queen’s life is at risk. The terrorists have one last, heinous misdeed planned, and I am now firmly of the view that it is going to be an attack on the Royal Train. We, by which I mean you, have played right into their hands.”

“Preposterous, Sherlock! How could they hope to attack it?”

“Why not with a bomb?” I said. “That has been their chosen
modus operandi
thus far. Why deviate from it now? A strategically placed bundle of dynamite somewhere along the train’s route, attached to the piling of a bridge perhaps, would send it careering off the tracks. The accident at Staplehurst in Kent, the one in which Charles Dickens narrowly escaped death, showed us just how deadly such a derailment can be. The terrorists could easily replicate that tragedy.”

“Knowing de Villegrand,” said Holmes, “he has something more sophisticated and theatrical lined up.”

“De Villegrand?” said Mycroft. “Thibault, the Vicomte de Villegrand, you mean? He’s behind all this?”

“You know him?”

“Know of him. Never met him. Vaguely connected to the French embassy, isn’t he? Some kind of cultural liaison nabob. Ambassador Waddington does not think too highly of him, that I do know. His Excellency is a staunch defender of France’s interests and the French way of life, which comes from being the son of English immigrants – keen to assimilate into his adoptive country,
too
keen some might say. There’s none more devoted to his nation than the naturalised foreigner. However, even he thinks de Villegrand is a tad overzealous in his patriotism. It’s rumoured that
le vicomte
has ties to a clandestine extremist group of reactionaries who seek to promote France as the ultimate world superpower. Les Hériteurs de Chauvin, they call themselves, after the mythical Napoleonic soldier, the epitome of Gallic manhood and sovereign loyalty.”