Chronicles of the Lost Years (The Sherlock Holmes Series) (27 page)

“Did you see her, Holmes?” I asked.

“No.”

The door of the play house opened and admitted the child Elizabeth. She carried my medical bag in both hands, elbows akimbo to accommodate its depth, which was very nearly equal to her waist height. She shuffled into the room to drop it at my feet.

“Mr. Holmes thought you might want this,” she told me, her eyes shining in her grave, perfectly formed face.

“I…ummm…thank you,” I replied, inadequately.

“Elizabeth was once the key member of a band of house-breakers. She did me the favor of retrieving your bag from your rooms, today, on a strictly commissioned basis, as she no longer breaks into houses.”

Elizabeth smiled and I found myself smiling back. The charm of the little girl was irresistible.

“Elizabeth is also Wiggins’ half-sister and older than she looks,” Holmes continued. “Yours is not the first heart and mind to be distracted by those innocent eyes. Elizabeth.”

She turned at his address and Holmes nodded toward me. Elizabeth reached into her pinafore pocket and produced my purse, which she handed over solemnly. “I had to pay Mr. Holmes his promised one pound,” she said, “and I do not have any money.”

“So she used yours,” Holmes said. “Elizabeth is also one of the best pick-pockets on the streets. Retired, of course,” he added blandly.

I stared at her, astonished.

“Except for emergencies,” she replied, primly.

• Chapter Thirteen •
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AT TWO O’CLOCK in the morning I found myself crouched on the bare dirt in front of Sikmah’s immigrant hostel, hugging my medical bag to my chest and closely wrapped in my borrowed coat, which smelt abominably. It was an uncomfortable position and I had maintained it for not quite an hour already.

But the discomfort meant very little to me, for I was more than eager to begin my part in Holmes’ plan to rescue Elizabeth.

Holmes had warned me to expect a wait of any length, for he would only begin when the hostel was completely still and settled for the night. He had returned to his hired room, assuming the persona of the deaf and dumb Indian he was using. He planned to slip down to the front door when it was safe to allow me access into the building.

The plan, roughly, was to disable the ferocious sentinel guarding the door to the room Elizabeth was held in and remove her. All in stealth, for, as Holmes warned me, “there are at least twenty men on the premises who would object violently to being woken.”

At twenty minutes past the hour, the latch of the door creaked and the shadow about the frame widened and deepened before Holmes’ darkened features appeared.

I arose stiffly and moved into the building, squeezing past the half-opened door, and blinking in the musty blackness of the front room.

I felt Holmes’ long fingers on my arm and his voice murmured into my ear; “Something is amiss, Watson. The guard is no longer there. He was gone when I returned tonight.”

I looked about as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Before me were a number of worn horsehair chairs and lounges and beyond them perhaps a dozen long tables and benches. In the corner next to the empty fireplace in the sitting area were several brightly painted figures of deities, their glossy gold tints picking up the feeble glow of the down-turned lights above the stairs, which exaggerated their predatory expressions. On a shelf below each figure were a number of long red tapers, each standing in its own ball of dried clay. Most were half-burned and had guttered out. None were now alight, but the pervasive intoxicating perfume lingered in the warm air.

I lifted my gaze upwards to the balcony Holmes had described. Nearly a dozen doors led from it and at the left hand end, opposite the stair head, was a corridor that I presumed led to the rear door and any utility and storage areas. There was a single lamp burning very low, sending a pale glimmer of illumination along the balcony. I looked to the right, where Holmes had located the guard. The spot was empty, but a stool stood against the blank wall, mute testimony to Holmes’ description.

We climbed the stairs carefully, making the minimum of noise and made our way along the balcony. From behind each door we passed we heard either silence, or the natural noises of slumbering men.

At the last door, I took up my post guarding Holmes’ back as he bent and examined the lock. It was locked, for Holmes produced his pouch of metal probes and carefully delved into the keyhole. He withdrew the probe and selected another, bigger instrument and proceeded to unlock the door.

As soon as the click of the lock sounded we opened the door and slipped inside, and Holmes crossed the room and threw aside the heavy drapes, letting in the starlight. I closed the door behind me and we both looked toward the bunk.

It was empty.

The room was small enough to be taken in at a glance and that glance confirmed what Holmes already suspected.

“Moran has already flown,” he whispered. “And none of my lookouts raised the alarm, either.” He dropped the curtain back into place and picked up a candle from the window ledge and put it on the table before him and lit it. His features were strained and somber in the dancing light. “The news of your abrupt disappearance from Baker Street must have terrorized him to the point of flight, Watson. He guessed, rightly, that I was gaining on him.” He looked away. “This is a grave development.”

I put my revolver back in my pocket and dropped my bag to the floor. “What will you do now, Holmes?”

“I do not know.” He looked around the room and I could see he was assessing it for clues, a habit that was ingrained after years of practice. But the habit produced results, for his attention was immediately caught by some detail invisible to my eyes, and he bent to study it more closely.

Patiently, I perched myself on the single hard chair and watched as Holmes quartered the room. The job was swiftly done, for it was very small and he turned to the bunk. At once he gave a triumphant and almost silent exclamation and pulled from between the lower mattress and the bunk frame a scrap of lace. I recognized it.

“Elizabeth’s,” I whispered.

Holmes threw back the thin cover and beckoned me over. “Look, Watson.”

I studied the crumpled sheet that covered the mattress. Holmes plucked a long red hair from the pillow, but my eyes were caught by a more sinister clue. Approximately twenty inches below the pillow was a blood stain, fresh and not small. It would be from the left side of someone lying on the bunk, and more alarmingly, from the lower torso.

“This is not good, Holmes,” I said, pointing to it. “Fresh blood, after three days? I hope Mrs. O’Connor is a superior example of her profession.”

“It could be an arm wound,” Holmes pointed out. “And from what I could learn, Mrs. O’Connor is indeed an excellent nurse.” He lowered himself onto a clean section of the mattress and examined the underside of the upper bunk. “Would you pass me the candle, please, Watson.”

I gave him the candle, and he lifted it to shine on the upper bunk. “Ah!” he said. He turned his head to look more closely, then brought the candle out and offered it to me. “We have received guidance from another source,” he said. “Look for yourself.”

Holmes stood to make room for me and I crouched low and lifted the candle to illuminate the place where he rested his finger, against the base of the upper bunk. The slats of wood were spaced an inch or so apart, and on one was scrawled a word and figure. It took me several seconds to make sense of it, for the writing medium had sunk into the wood and radiated outwards, swelling the lettering almost to the point of illegibility. But by bringing the candle close and puzzling it out, I read aloud.

“Andhra 7”.

I looked at Holmes for explanation, for it was clear it made sense to him.

He was leaning against the post of the bunk. “A light in the darkness, Watson. Against all my expectations, Elizabeth has contrived to rise above her difficulties and leave us a message, and a direction to search in.”

“You mean Elizabeth wrote this?”

“Without doubt.”

“And what does it mean? ‘Andhra’ is not English.”

“No. It is the name of an area out of Indian antiquity, and also the name or part of the name of a ship. The ship, in fact, that Moran is planning to escape from England upon.”

“So ‘7’ is probably a date. Tomorrow. No, today!” I exclaimed.

“Yes. A day earlier than expected. We now know what our time limit is.”

I looked at the writing again. “Holmes, this is blood she has used.”

“Exactly.”

I looked up at him again, a little astonished at the pleased note in his reply. “You’re glad of that?”

“Indeed. You mean you don’t understand what that means?”

“No,” I confessed without shame.

“It means, my dear Watson, that despite injuries and drugs, Elizabeth has more of her faculties about her than Moran realizes, and is hiding it from her captors. They have obviously been speaking quite freely in her presence, as they were last night when I eavesdropped. They do not consider her much of a physical threat for they have not bothered to tether her hands. If they had tied her hands she would never have been able to reach the slat, nor been able to manipulate her hands to write the message. Nor would she have been able to covertly re-open her wound for the fresh blood necessary to write with.”

I must have looked appalled, for Holmes shook his head. “That is not nearly as terrible as it sounds, Watson. It means Elizabeth was more or less rational, for she has grasped the importance of the name of the ship, determined a means of passing that information on and executed it. So her wounds cannot be totally incapacitating. It also means Elizabeth knows we will be hunting for her despite any threats made by Moran. That gives us hope, Watson. With Elizabeth in the midst of the enemy and still in the game, we stand at least a fighting chance.”

I stared at Holmes. This summation displayed military thinking and it was revealing that he considered Elizabeth—a woman, wounded and handicapped by the soporific effects of drugs—as a key advantage. It was clear that this single gruesome message conveyed more hope to Holmes than a full battalion of soldiers fighting for his cause.

Fifteen minutes later we were out in the street, our business in that establishment done. We left the place undisturbed. After Elizabeth was safely back in our hands would be time enough to call the police in.

“And what is our next step?” I asked, as Holmes led me through the streets towards Wiggins’ abode.

“Sleep,” Holmes replied instantly. “And after that, we must ascertain when the sailing ship
Andhra
is due and at what dock.”

Holmes led me back through the narrow streets. It was very late now and it was possible to discern the faintest wash of light in the sky over our heads, though as yet, the houses about us remained shrouded in the blackest cloth of night.

Tucked away in an obscure and steep mews, sited at the top of the pitch, was a small house that Holmes entered after first gazing about for observers. He drew me in behind him. I stopped with the closed door behind my back, blinking in the enclosed darkness, but Holmes took my arm and led me further into the house. I sensed there were other occupants under the roof, for Holmes was careful to guide me around furniture and architecture with little noise and he remained silent.

I was led up a narrow stair and into a room, where Holmes opened a drape far enough for me to see the dim outline of a small, narrow cot.

“Sleep,” he told me. “You’re quite safe here.”

I needed no further assurance. Gratefully I sank onto the meager mattress and composed myself for sleep.

I awoke some hours later, stiff and cold, for I had failed to cover myself before sleep had descended. I was aware of the sound of traffic somewhere in the distance, but the house itself was still and quiet and I could hear my own heart beating in the silence.

The room was a dingy box room and the temporary bed I had occupied was similar to those I had used in Afghanistan—and as equally uncomfortable. Apart from the bed and a thick quantity of dust, the room was empty. I did notice, however, that there had been a considerable amount of traffic in and out of the room recently, for the floorboards between the bed, door and window were swept clean and bare by boots. In the corner by the window was a now dry dust mark created by a wet sole, to prove my theory.

The observation cheered me a little and I rose and pulled my coat about me and made my way out into the corridor. The corridor was narrow and tall and quite dim, but there was a runner laid along the center of the bare floorboards and the place seemed reasonably clean. To my left as I stood in the doorway of the room I had slept in came a quiet chink of china and the unmistakable sound of hot water being poured. My throat contracted dryly at the idea of sustenance and I turned and traversed the corridor and descended the stairs I found down to the lower floor.

A door, outlined by a wedge of warm orange light emanating from behind it, beckoned to me from across the hall I found at the foot of the stairs and I entered into a warm, cozy kitchen. A fire was lit at the far end and working from its light stood the young girl Elizabeth, pouring tea from the same pot she had served me from the previous evening.