The Flying Scotsman (33 page)

When he was gone, the three of us who remained were silent for a short while. Then Mycroft Holmes stretched. “So, it is time we were gone. The Stationmaster will be wanting us out of his domain, I should think. There are two telegrams yet to send, and we will be on our way.” He no longer had the manner of a professional traveler. “Miss Gatspy, is there somewhere we may take you? I do not like the idea of you being abroad at this hour and with so severe a bump on your head.”

I waited to hear her speak. “I should not bring you to the place I am going to stay tonight,” she said.

“Possibly not,” Mycroft Holmes told her, “but if you were in my position, you would insist on seeing you to your door, my dear young woman. You are in no fit state, and this is no sort of hour for you to be out and about without protection.”

“You sound like Guthrie,” she said, attempting a rallying tone but sounding forlorn to my ears.

“Guthrie would be right in his concern,” said Holmes, as smoothly as if he addressed the French Ambassador.

I knew I should return to my cabin to gather my valise and my portfolio, but I could not bring myself to leave her; she might take advantage of my absence to disappear as she had done before. “Your situation does worry me, Miss Gatspy.”

“Very well,” she said after a moment. “But I rely on your word as gentlemen to forget the address to which you deliver me.”

Holmes smiled at her. “My dear Miss Gatspy, surely you would not expect us to take advantage of your indisposition.”

“Well,
I
would, were I in your shoes,” she said without apology. “I have a few bits of luggage—do you think the porter will fetch them for me?”

“No doubt,” Holmes said, and motioned to me to gather up my belongings. “And then you will walk Miss Gatspy out of the car while I collect my cases.”

I ducked into compartment three for my valise, and then into compartment four for my portfolio. The two seemed heavier than when I last carried them, no doubt because of my fatigue and hard use. The way I felt, a serviette would seem as great a burden as a woolen rug. I came to Miss Gatspy’s side. “There, I am ready.”

“Good,” said Holmes. “Then if you will, accompany Miss Gatspy in her hunt for a porter.” He went into compartment two for his luggage.

“I truly am grateful to you, Guthrie,” she said as we made our way to the platform for the last time.

“After what ... happened, you will agree that there is no need for gratitude.” I would have embraced her then and there had we not been in so public a place. As it was, helping her down the steps to the station platform, I carried her hand to my lips.

“If my head weren’t so infernally sore, I would kiss you for that. Did you grow up on tales of chivalry that you have so finely tuned a sense of honor?” She touched my face with her gloved hand. “What
am
I going to do with you?”

“There are a number of possibilities,” I said, feeling a trifle breathless as I leaned nearer to her.

“None of which will serve our purposes, you will agree,” she said with some of her characteristic firmness of purpose. “Neither of us are in a position to undertake a courtship.”

“There must be a way,” I said, feeling reckless. I saw a porter approaching and was at once vexed and relieved to have him interrupt our exchange. “You, there. Miss Gatspy’s things are in compartment five—fetch them for her, there’s a good fellow.”

The porter signaled his compliance and made for the first-class car.

“Guthrie,” she said very seriously, “you must comprehend that nothing has changed between us.”

“Nothing? How can you say that? Why,
everything
has changed,” I protested.

She shook her head. “No. You still work for Mycroft Holmes, who is the heart of British diplomacy, and I am an agent of the Golden Lodge. When we had that one night together, it changed nothing but your conviction that you had no right to care for me. That you—finally—recognize our ... shared affection makes no difference. Our lives follow different paths.”

“Which continue to cross,” I said, striving to hold onto a shred of the happiness she had given me. “Do not tell me it—”

Mycroft Holmes came down the steps, his profound gaze lingering on the two of us for a breath or two before he said, “Shall we try to find a cab? There must be something available at this time of night, late though it may be. And where is the telegraph office?”

The porter, emerging with Miss Gatspy’s luggage in hand, cocked his jaw in the direction of the long flight of stairs leading from the station platform to the street above. “Just there. You’ll have to pay extra; it’s past midnight.”

“I’ve no objection to that,” said Holmes and set out at a vigorous stride toward the office, leaving Miss Gatspy and me to trail after him, the porter in our wake.

As we went along, Miss Gatspy said, “You’ll see I’m right, as soon as you’re used to—” She stopped. “I’ve known how you felt since our second meeting at the Fishing Cat.”

“You had a pistol in your hand then,” I said, recalling how adorable she had been. I adjusted my hold on my valise so that my portfolio could rest more easily atop it as I kept it tucked under my arm.

“Pay attention,” she said as if she read my thoughts. “You have done your utmost to avoid knowing your heart. It’s not surprising you would do so. Our dealings are awkward enough without having to add attraction to the lot.” She halted. “You don’t think Mister Holmes will stop you from working where I might be, do you?”

“I can’t think why he should,” I lied. I saw Mycroft Holmes enter the telegraph office, and felt, nonsensically, that Miss Gatspy and I were now alone together.

“Don’t say so to me, Guthrie,” she said, and put her hand through the bend of my arm. “It could be dangerous for both of us.”

“It hasn’t been thus far,” I reminded her.

“Because you have been wearing blinders, Paterson,” she said brusquely. “You have made us safe through your obstinacy.”

“Then I shall continue to do so,” I said, with a lack of conviction that was patently obvious even to me. I abandoned all pretense. “Penelope, I would rather leave my work than lose you.”

She smiled up at me. “How very dear of you to say it,” she murmured. “And how very untrue.” She walked a little faster, making me lengthen my stride to keep up with her. “You could no more leave Mycroft Holmes than I could turn away from the Golden Lodge. You would have no regard for me, and I no respect for you if we could. And well you know it.”

“At this moment, all I know is I love you,” I said, and all but froze. The enormity of my declaration filled me with the most stringent apprehension, and I struggled to think of some means to mitigate my avowal.

“Yes, Guthrie, I know,” said Miss Gatspy prosaically. “And I love you, if it pleases you to hear it.”

All the things that had been burgeoning within me, the silly confidences of sweethearts, the endearments that would set the seal upon our mutual tenderness, were routed by her direct articulation of her emotion. I could summon up no phrases more splendid than the one she had just used. “Oh, Penelope.”

“Yes, Paterson?” Her playfulness was back, and I did not dare try to reclaim the closeness we had only now found.

I was distantly aware that the porter was following us at a discreet distance.

We had reached the foot of the Waverley Stairs, four long flights made up of blocks cut from the same stone as the station itself. Entrances into the various floors of Waverley Station were to the right as I climbed the steps. Rising a full three tall stories, they marched up the side of the station, affording a view of Edinburgh Castle on the left at the completion of the last flight. I did not look forward to climbing the flight, not only because I was stiff and hurting from all my misadventures, but because I knew it would bring an end to my brief intimacy with Penelope Evangeline Gatspy, which struck me as the greatest cruelty I had suffered in the last two years.

Mycroft Holmes came out of the telegraph office with three sheets of paper clutched in his hand, his face set in hard lines, warning me that not all the news was good. He strode up to us, firm intent in every lineament of his being. “It is no coincidence,” he said without explanation. “How could it have slipped by me? I cannot think how I came to overlook anything so questionable.”

“What on earth is the matter?” I asked, and saw my concern mirrored in Miss Gatspy’s eyes. “Has anything happened in London?”

“Oh, doubtless,” said Holmes, dismissing the question without any sign of worry. “But this is quite another ...” He held out the telegrams. “After Sir Cameron’s wife, I should have been more careful. Superintendent Spencer’s wife’s maiden name was Vickers.”

Miss Gatspy did not appear shocked by this revelation. “Is it the same family?” Her coolness was admirable. “Is the report reliable?”

“Yes, worse luck,” said Mycroft Holmes, as we began to make our way up the stairs. “Whoever filed the reports on Spencer will have a question or two to answer in the next few days.”

“If a report was filed,” said Miss Gatspy significantly. “From what Prince Oscar told me, you may have unreliable men in the police. If such important material goes astray, what else might be missing, as well?” She was not climbing quickly; I could tell that her head was swimming, and I went to lend her my arm.

An instant later the railing of the bannister where I had been standing was shattered as the crack of a rifle echoed in the cavernous station; I dropped my valise as I tried to keep hold of my portfolio. A few inches away from the impact, Mycroft Holmes turned around, murder in his long features as he flung his valise away; he had reached his limit.

“I’ll deal with this, Guthrie,” he said in so light a tone that I knew he was consumed with fury. With an agility that was rare in large, portly men, Holmes vaulted the bannister and crouched over, rushed down the stairs in the direction the shot had come—toward the storage warehouse at the rear of the platform. He rushed past the porter, who had taken shelter behind Miss Gatspy’s luggage, and who cowered lower as a second shot resounded and the stone of the second step cracked, small fragments flying with the ricocheting bullet.

“Can you see where he is?” Miss Gatspy asked from where we huddled together.

“No. In that direction,” I said, pointing to where Mycroft Holmes was going, running in a zig-zag pattern to frustrate another clear shot, but ultimately headed toward the warehouse. “I think the man is in the door. It looks ajar.”

She turned enough to look once, saying, “I hate this. We should be helping him.”

“You would not say so had you seen his face,” I said to her, taking her hand. “He has his pistol.”

Miss Gatspy took a deep breath. “It is still not—”

There was a third sharp report from the rifle, followed almost at once by two shots from Holmes’ pistol. I stood straight at the sounds, confident that the would-be assassin had been felled. That Mycroft Holmes had prevailed there could be no doubt; still I held my breath as I waited for him to make himself known. In a few seconds I saw Holmes come out of the shadows, his head lowered and his pace deliberate. As he reached the stairs once again, he spoke to the porter, who was visibly shaking.

“You had better send for the police. There is a dead man in your storage warehouse.” His voice was low, level, and weary beyond anything I had ever felt. He took a little time to pick up his valise, this very mundane action seeming to hold all his concentration. Then, mounting the stairs to where we stood, he said, “I must apologize; we are going to be delayed once more.”

The porter hurried off to the Stationmaster’s office, the sound of his shoes uncomfortably reminiscent of gunfire.

“Not like Leicester,” pleaded Miss Gatspy, “or Sheffield.”

“That will depend upon the police,” said Holmes, a world of supposition in his remark. “No doubt they will see you to your destination.” He sat down on the stairs next to the place on the bannister where the wood was splintered. “It should not be long, Guthrie. Then you may have your well-earned rest at the Royal Scots Club on Abercromby Place. I’ve been privileged to be asked to become a member. The Royal Scots are, as you must know, the longest-serving regiment in Service to the crown. You’ll find the rooms spacious, and the pub room that is on your left as you enter is a convivial place; they have, not surprisingly, one of the best selections of Scotch whiskies in the city.”

“Not a minute too soon,” I said, trying to match his self-possession. I had secured both my valise and portfolio again.

Mycroft Holmes did not have a rallying answer; instead he contemplated Miss Gatspy. “It might be as well, my dear, if you left now; you do not want to be questioned by the police again tonight, do you?”

The porter returned. “They’ve been sent for. Be here in five minutes, they say.”

“You’re most understanding,” Miss Gatspy said as if she had not heard the porter, and nodded. “I thank you for your regard for my sensibilities. The porter will know how to find me a cab.” Her demeanor softened as she looked at me. “You need not accompany me, Guthrie,” she said, forestalling my offer. “The porter will take care of me.”

“Based on his heroics?” I could not stop myself from saying.

“That was unkind.” She regarded me seriously. “Until we meet again, Paterson.” Then she leaned forward and kissed me.

I remained all but transfixed when she broke away and summoned the porter to follow her. Only when she was out of my sight could I speak again.

“It is better that she left,” said Holmes. “Safer.”

I frowned absently. “No doubt.” I had the oddest constriction in my throat which made it hard to speak. “Who was he?” I nodded in the direction of the warehouse door.

“I’ve no idea. Probably one of Vickers’ men. The Brotherhood has been dogging our steps from first until last.” He patted the steps beside him on the side away from his luggage. “Sit, sit, dear boy. No need to wear yourself out any longer.”

More to accommodate him than from any compulsion on my part, I sank down, putting my valise on the step and moving my portfolio onto my lap. Dumbly I stared at it. There it was, leather, with two buckled straps and the initials PEG in gold. But the letters were in a swashed style, instead of the leaded serif type on my portfolio. For all my efforts to think, I could not comprehend how the portfolio had come to change. “Strange,” I muttered.