A Study in Murder, page 22
But should this be the final tale in the entire canon? Surely Holmes should leave the public stage with a greater flourish, a final bow, rather than a case that baffled the Great Detective. It was true, Watson had long determined to bring to light some of those incidents where even Holmes’s deductions had proved fruitless, but as the grand finale?
Who was he fooling? This manuscript existed only in his head. There would be no chance for anyone else to read the finished product because the words of the final section did not exist in solid form, just held in the wires and synapses of his brain, an organ that must soon see its sparks extinguished for ever.
The thought made him restless and he pushed once more against the lid. For a moment he imagined something from outside. A scuffling. There it was again. And . . . voices? Was this it? Was the end presaged by aural hallucinations? No, again there was a distinct sound, scratching against the side of his prison, although whether animal or human he could not tell. Perhaps it was a curious mole or a wayward rabbit. But he had heard human voices, of that he was certain.
He shouted again for help, but no reply came. Then he heard a distinct click and the squeak of wood moving over wood. The floor of the wooden box he lay prostrate in was moving, swinging open as a mechanism of some description was released. There came the most perplexing sensation for a man lying in a coffin as Watson fell through the base and found himself falling through the air, apparently plunging deeper into the cold earth.
FORTY
One round. That was all they had given Ernst Bloch. One solitary bullet, just in case he decided to turn his Mauser on his captors. Why would he do that? Why would he thwart the one chance he had to get back to Hilde? No, he was going to carry out this mission, this state-sanctioned execution, unless they had been lying to him. He had to face up to that possibility, be alert to the chance that the perfidious British were toying with him, manipulating him into a situation where he would strike a blow against his own side.
But that was for later. Now, as he climbed the metal ladder up the crane, he had to concentrate on making his one shot count. A truculent wind snapped at him as he ascended, his hands chilled by the icy metal rungs.
He wasn’t sure where he was exactly. Gravesend, they had said, although he had never heard of the place – his British geography was poor. The morbid-sounding town was on the English coast somewhere, obviously. To his right were docks, where a score of cranes were busy unloading freight from merchant ships, dockworkers swarming over a pair of trawlers, probably being converted to mine-sweeping duties. A trio of destroyers rode at anchor just beyond the mouth of the harbour. Below him was a canal and set back from it rows of warehouses. The surrounding area was completely deserted, cleared of both civilians and military personnel while he carried out the exercise.
Bloch paused to catch his breath at the first of the platforms. He had been instructed to fire from the next one, which mimicked the height of the watchtower on the German/Dutch border that was to be his perch on the actual day. That day would be ‘soon’, according to Carlisle.
Which meant he could see Hilde ‘soon’.
A shouted prompt from below instructed him to keep climbing. On the ground, peering up, was Carlisle and, next to him, the bull-necked Sergeant Balsom. How he wished he had an extra bullet for him. Whenever the pair had time alone the sergeant made snide remarks about Hilde, hoping, he said, that Bloch wouldn’t return to find her pinned on a Prussian officer’s pork bayonet. Or carrying a cavalryman’s bastard child. But the jibes didn’t hit home; Bloch knew from the tone of her letters that Hilde had stayed true. Still, the image of what one of his old S.m.K. armour-piercing rounds would do to the thuggish sergeant helped him keep an even temper.
As the wind tugged harder at his tunic, with the rifle slung over his back he scampered up the next section of ladder at double-quick speed until he made the perforated steel platform. Here, he walked to the rail and surveyed the scene. To the right was the bridge that, Carlisle claimed, more or less matched the one crossing the River Meuse. The scale was different – this was a much shorter span over the canal – but the distance was about right.
Bloch pulled the strap of his Mauser over his head and slipped off its protective muzzle cover. He then removed the metal caps from either end of the telescopic sight. Even without the magnification he could make out the target at the end of the bridge nearest to him. He shouldered the rifle and adjusted the optics. The man came into sharpened focus.
It was, in truth, only an approximation of a human being, the sort of dummy the British liked to use for bayonet practice. This one was dressed in a long black woollen coat and a low-crown top hat, as if ready for a night at the opera.
Bloch put down the rifle and examined his options. The wind was gusting intermittently, which was far from ideal. He was confident he could make a clean kill standing up, but decided it would be better to use the railings as support. Would there be any such resting point on the actual tower? He couldn’t be certain, so he made a note to ask for a stand for the rifle like the British snipers used, a single pole that clamped to the foregrip.
Bloch dropped to one knee and rested the rifle on the rail. He took his time getting comfortable, positioning the stock in his shoulder and distributing his weight carefully. He timed the peaks and troughs of the breeze coming from the sea, finding a ragged pattern in the gusts. He put his eye to the rubber bell that surrounded the ocular lens. A series of minor adjustments followed, to the zoom ring, the focus on the objective lens and the top, elevation, turret. Finally, the windage compensation, although with a single shot to his name this was guesswork.
Stop and breathe. Through the sights he could see the torso and the head. It had to be a body shot in these conditions, he decided. A tiny miscalculation in the sighting or drift of the bullet and, at that range, he could miss altogether. No, it was a chest shot. Even if he missed the heart, it was unlikely the victim would survive a high-powered round slicing through bone and blood vessels.
He snapped his head back, away from the sights and blinked hard, his mouth unexpectedly dry. It had been a long time since he had dealt with such considerations. At one time, it was all he thought about – angles, trajectories, penetrations, kill shots and incapacitating wounds. It had been a form of madness, the mania of mass killing that had gripped the whole of the Western Front. And now here he was, embracing all that again. But in a good cause, he reminded himself. One last kill for Hilde. And this wasn’t a man in his crosshairs. It was a stuffed dummy. So take the damned shot.
He put his eye back to the rubber bell, waited for the next gust of wind to peak, riding its coat-tails down to the moment when he squeezed the trigger, watched the world blur under the recoil, then resteadied and repositioned so he could see that the round had ripped out the spot where, in a few days’ time, Sherlock Holmes’s heart would be.
FORTY-ONE
It was meant to be a soft landing but the impact jarred every bone in Watson’s wasted body. For a few moments he couldn’t see anything, the light causing his eyes to ache and water after what seemed like hours of darkness. When he did blink away the moisture that filmed his corneas, he was looking up at the coffin and the hinged door that had swung open to release him. The coffin had been suspended on two trestles, one at either end. He had never been buried at all. The coffin was above ground. It was some kind of prank.
The anger at this made him roll to one side, off the thin mattress that had been provided to break his fall, and eager hands grabbed at him to haul him to his feet. He was in a hut he didn’t recognize, but he could place most of the faces that stared at him, some in concern, others in bemusement. Critchley, Lincoln-Chance, Peacock, Harry, Boxhall, Father Hardie and Hulpett, the man he had been on his way to meet. Most surprising of all was Brünning, the Feldwebel.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Watson demanded, his anger quickly replacing the fear he had just experienced.
Critchley started to brush at his clothes but Watson smacked his hand away.
‘Colonel, what is the meaning of this?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lincoln-Chance, ‘it was my fault. I feared you were about to ruin everything.’
Watson composed himself. ‘Ruin everything? Is that why you put Harry in as a spy?’
Harry examined his feet.
‘He was never at Baker Street. Were you?’
He gave a gulp before he spoke. ‘No, sir. But I am a great admirer—’
‘Never mind that,’ Watson snapped. ‘What is this all about? Why the trick coffin?’
Boxhall stepped forward with a cup of tea. ‘It’s how we escape, Major.’
Watson, despite his irritation, took the tea. ‘Where are we?’
‘Keep your voice down, please,’ said Lincoln-Chance. ‘There are guards in the towers still. We are in the isolation hut. Next to the cemetery. There is a tunnel from the recreation room to here. Although very few know about it.’
Watson was incredulous. ‘You dug a tunnel between huts? Through this ground?’
Critchley shook his head. ‘It was here already. Under your feet are gold workings, some of them centuries old. When we first tried to organize an escape we blundered into them.’
The cracks in the big house, he recalled. Subsidence. The workings had made the ground unstable, that was why Kügel’s mansion had settled and cracked.
‘Look, this is partly my fault,’ said Hulpett. ‘That damned séance . . . it spooked me.’
‘Perhaps we should have taken you into our confidence earlier,’ said Boxhall.
‘But we thought you were a chat, remember,’ added Peacock.
‘One at a time, please,’ said Watson, taking some of the tea. ‘Will a designated spokesman please tell me what exactly I have witnessed here?’
The group exchanged uncertain glances, like a jury charged with selecting a foreman. ‘Why don’t you gentlemen return the way you came,’ said Father Hardie, ‘and I will explain all to Major Watson. Before we attract any attention.’
There was a murmur of assent and the group turned towards a section of the floor that had been removed. Critchley took something from his top pocket and handed it to Hardie. ‘You’ll be needing this.’ Hardie nodded and took a piece of card.
When the men had departed, Hardie replaced the section of floorboards and dragged a cot to cover it. ‘It’s not the best camouflage but the Germans rarely come in here. Brünning sees to that. He’s on a wage. We mumble typhus or cholera every so often and they just glance in, and if a volunteer is needed to step inside, why, good old Brünning volunteers.’
‘He is playing a risky game.’
‘And is suitably rewarded. Cigarette?’
Watson nodded and, after he had drained the tea, they lit up. The windows, he noticed, were tightly blacked out by thick fabric taped to the frames to prevent any light escaping to the outside world. Hardie fetched two chairs and they sat facing each other at one end of the coffin.
Watson tapped the wooden box. ‘This is Boxhall’s work?’
Hardie nodded. ‘What makes you assume that?’
‘Family of furniture makers. Rough hands for an officer. Cuts and scratches and splinters.’
‘Ah, I see. Yes, it’s ingenious, isn’t it?’
Watson stood, went over and ran his fingers under the coffin, working the flaps to try to understand the mechanism. ‘Above ground, yes. It is hard to see what use it is six foot under. These wouldn’t work.’
‘Oh, you can’t get six foot down in this soil. Not in winter. Too hard. But we don’t have to, if we know where to dig.’
‘Hardie, would you like to start at the beginning?’
The priest nodded. ‘It was Lincoln-Chance who discovered the gold workings when he was digging his first tunnel. He went down and followed the tunnels and stumbled across a way to break through to the outside.’
‘A ready-made escape route?’
‘Aye. The wee problem was, after we got two men out, Kügel introduced the punishment of killing two inmates for every man who escaped. That kindae put a damper on things, ye might say.’
‘Which is why he is still here? Lincoln-Chance?’
There was something like anger in the priest’s eyes when he spoke. ‘No, laddie. Don’t be fooled by Link’s looks. Cresta Run playboy he may be, but he’s no’ daft. He decided there was a way to get men out without bringing down the wrath o’ Kügel. Some way to keep everybody happy.’
‘Which was?’
‘Kill them first.’
Watson began to see where this was heading, but, playing the dunce, he said: ‘Rather drastic, isn’t it?’
‘Wefindawaytofaketheirdeath–typhoid,dysentery,cholera—’
‘Suicide?’
A sly smile spread over the priest’s craggy face. ‘Aye, suicide.’
‘That’s why you weren’t too concerned about their immortal souls?’
‘Ach, the play-acting and wringing of ma hands was never ma thing.’
‘So how many people know?’
‘All that was in this room, one or two more. The fewer the merrier, if you get my meaning.’
‘And how do you choose those who are to seek their freedom?’
‘Well, Major, first off is – can ye speak German? After all, we’re a long way from the border. If not, we give lessons and if they make decent enough progress, they are in. And second – can ye afford it?’
‘Afford it? You mean you charge people to escape?’ Watson couldn’t keep the scorn and disapproval from his voice.
Hardie lit another cigarette from the first. Watson refused his offer of a second. ‘You’ve seen how this camp operates, Major Watson. It is entirely lubricated by money. From the very top to the very bottom. It is not cheap to arrange the papers, money, train tickets, travelling documents that an escapee needs. Oh, we can do it all right. But it costs a packet.’
‘How much?’ he asked, unable to keep the disgust from his voice.
‘Somewhere in the region of one thousand pounds to guarantee Switzerland or Holland and freedom. Sometimes more.’
Watson whistled. It was an incredible sum. ‘But who has that much money to pay in camp? Asking for that money to be transferred from a bank back home would arouse suspicion, surely?’
‘Well, we’ll take a cheque or banker’s draft,’ Hardie laughed. ‘No, seriously. Hulpett was a solicitor before the war. He draws up legal documents so that the escapee promises to pay any sum owing upon their return to England.’
‘An IOU.’
‘Just a formality, y’see. A gentleman’s word is his bond. Most think it is worth the price.’
Watson shook his head. ‘It’s unbelievable is what it is. So this coffin . . . ?’
‘Is buried just above the workings. There is a handle inside for the poor dead man to release himself and fall through to the tunnels. We thought you might discover it for y’self. There, he finds his escape kit, map, instructions, money to smooth the path. New identity, so even if he is caught, they won’t identify him as coming from this camp. That’s very important. But we haven’t lost one yet.’
‘Are you saying you can guarantee they’ll get through?’
‘With enough money, you can guarantee anything, Major. Anything at all. The German civilians out there –’ he pointed with the glowing end of his cigarette – ‘need cash as much as anyone. Some of them rely on us to feed their families.’
‘Why was Hulpett keen to see me?’
‘Ach, Hulpett is a fool of a man. I told him to stay away from the séance, but he thought I was just being a God-fearing priest. Archer told him he’d made contact with Captain Brevette. On the other side. Yet Brevette escaped a few months ago. Hulpett got it into his head that he’d been caught, shot and we weren’t telling.’
‘Well, it might put a few customers off if that were so, don’t you think?’
Hardie looked affronted. ‘Major, please don’t think we are only in this for the money. The operating expenses are enormous. Sourcing the wood and the tools for the coffins costs a fortune. I tell you, after the war, this will be one of the great tales – how dead men managed to get home to Blighty. You should write a story about it.’
‘I’m not saying Archer really made contact with a dead man – but how do you know Brevette or any of the others actually make it?’
Hardie gave a little smile of victory. He handed over the card that Colonel Critchley had given him. It was from the Coburg Hotel in Mayfair, postmarked three weeks previously.
‘Tea and Scones at Coburg. Marvellous. Keep your chins up. You’ll be home soon – B.’
‘It’s an agreed code,’ said Hardie. ‘It’s a home run, as it were, if ye make it to the Coburg and send us a card. We’ve a fair collection now. The problem is we can’t overdo it.’
‘Yet you took three men out at once. Archer and his fellow séancers. Wasn’t that risky? And did they pay?’
‘Aye, although one of them stood surety for all of them.’
‘I’ll be blowed. Three thousand pounds?’
‘It’s hard to take in, that much, isn’t it? But it worked. They are probably halfway home by now.’
‘And Peacock, he’s out next?’
The eyes narrowed. ‘How do ye know that?’
‘He said as much. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, of course.’
‘Ach, he’s another bloody fool,’ Hardie said. ‘I was always against Cocky going. He’s the only man who has put weight on in this place, all the food his family and friends send over. I just hope yonder coffin is strong enough.’
‘But he has the money, I assume.’
‘Aye, he has that. Now, do you want to see with your own eyes?’ He glanced at the floor.
‘The tunnels?’
‘Well, the one to the rec room in the main compound. Unless you want to stay here till morning. There’s a little rope contraption enables us to pull the bed back in place once we are doon there. And we can get back to our huts easily enough with a bit of dodging of lights. I’m sorry about all the subterfuge.’
