Albino's Treasure Read online

  As a speech it was hardly one designed to mollify me, but I did take his point. Whatever Holmes was doing, I owed him my trust. If he said silence was essential, then I could do nothing else but be silent. ‘Go back to the hansom as quickly as you can, and I’ll meet up with you by St Clements,’ he said quietly and, without another word, turned and loped further down the alley at a deceptively swift pace. I stood for a moment, still stunned by the speed at which recent events had occurred, then, remembering his admonition to be as quick as possible, hurried back to the cab, around which a crowd had now gathered.

  ‘Dr Watson! Dr Watson!’ a voice called out. Above the heads of the assembled mass of people I could just make out the cab driver waving a hand in my direction. I pushed my way towards him, ignoring a flurry of questions from the onlookers and gawpers, each of whom wished to know what had become of the knifeman. Only once I reached the hansom and pulled myself inside did I take a moment to announce to the crowd in general and to no one in particular that I had lost him in the dim alleyway, and that I would now take Mr Sherlock Holmes back to our lodgings, where I could better tend to his injuries. The driver flicked his whip and we moved off. Within a few minutes we passed the Courts of Justice, where a dark shape slipped from the shadows, grabbed hold of the door of the cab, and swung inside.

  * * *

  I have had cause before to note that for all his many excellent qualities, Sherlock Holmes was, in some respects, an exasperating individual, with sundry eccentric habits that appeared designed to irritate his friends and colleagues alike. The willingness with which he fell back into the easy embrace of cocaine was, of course, the most troublesome of these, but in my opinion the manner in which he kept his plans a secret known only to himself ran that a close second. When pressed, his various defences – that his was a naturally secretive nature, that caution must be his watch word, that the fewer people involved the less chance of failure – were convincing enough, but even so there were times when I found my role as ill-informed stooge a trying one. It was this, and perhaps the natural release of tension generated by finding Holmes to be safe and well, which prompted me to declare, with some asperity, that I would not in future act as a prop in his machinations if he did not have a very good explanation for his recent behaviour.

  Holmes had the grace to seem abashed in the face of my anger. He held out his hands placatingly, then pulled himself onto the seat beside me. ‘My profoundest apologies, my dear fellow,’ he began, with every appearance of contrition on his long face. ‘But before I explain further, may I take this opportunity to introduce Jamie Ewing, one time Baker Street Irregular, now turned to an honest life – of sorts – on the London stage. Jamie is a contortionist with the Lees Circus, to be precise.’ He reached down and helped the blood-soaked ‘corpse’ from the floor to his feet, then onto the seat opposite, where I could finally get a decent look at the man I had thought to be a mortally wounded Sherlock Holmes.

  Up close, the resemblance was not, in fact, particularly striking. Ewing was a little shorter than Holmes (not that that mattered when he would only be glimpsed inside a cab, of course), and somewhat heavier, particularly in the face. But the general shape of the two men’s faces were similar enough and the hair and eyes the same colour so that, seen only fleetingly and dressed in Holmes’s clothes, it was unsurprising that he would pass muster as London’s foremost consulting detective.

  ‘How do you do?’ I said politely, unsure of the etiquette when meeting a man pretending to be a dead friend.

  In reply, Ewing continued to wipe the blood from his hands and, looking up from underneath heavy brows, nodded in my general direction.

  ‘Ewing is a friendly soul,’ Holmes interjected, ‘but like many creative types he can be… intense… immediately after a performance. It makes him disinclined to talk. But,’ he rubbed his hands together enthusiastically, ‘I can certainly take up the conversational slack and provide an acceptable justification for my recent activities. You will, I think, be interested to discover the manner in which Jamie and I so convincingly carried off our recent charade.

  ‘You will have noticed that the “injury” Jamie suffered is low on the left side of his chest, with copious amounts of blood soaking the entirety of that section of his clothing. A balloon, filled with goat’s blood and taped beneath the shirt, of course. Childishly simple, but effective. The puncturing of the balloon, though… now that is far less pedestrian. Perhaps you would care to test your observational skills, Watson?’ He gestured to our companion. ‘Jamie, if you will?’

  Ewing shrugged indifferently as Holmes beckoned him over, but leaned forward nonetheless, in order, it seemed, that I might better view the rent in his shirt and the area immediately beneath. I studied the torn fabric, the sticky, deflated balloon and the man’s untouched skin, but I could see nothing which would indicate how Ewing had survived the attack unhurt.

  ‘Some form of trick knife, I suppose,’ I said, knowing even as I spoke the words that they were a poor guess.

  So it proved as Holmes pulled the knife from his coat pocket and rapped the hard metal of its blade against the door of the cab. ‘I’m afraid not, Watson. This knife is as real and deadly as any other. Look more closely.’

  I did as he suggested, but a minute or more of careful study offered up no fresh knowledge and I was forced to admit defeat.

  Holmes smiled with pleasure. ‘I grant you that it is an unusual problem, but the information you require is in plain sight. Observe the blood balloon, to begin with.’ He traced a finger along the length of the long cut in the thin rubber. ‘It was not punctured, but sliced. Do you imagine I involved a contortionist, rather than an actor, for no reason, Watson? You know me better than that, I hope.’

  ‘Ewing twisted his body as you stabbed down!’ I exclaimed, pleased to come to the answer before Holmes could tell the entire story. ‘By some miracle of his contortionist arts, he was able to position himself such that the blade cut along the balloon, rather than entering it directly!’

  ‘Bravo, Watson!’ Holmes agreed with delight. ‘After years of training, Jamie is able to contract his rib cage as he desires, and in doing so can create as much as two inches of space where one might reasonably expect his flesh to be. It took hours of practice, but as you saw, we managed a decent facsimile of a murderous knife attack when it was required. The knife slid along the length of the balloon, releasing the goat’s blood and giving every appearance of having been fully thrust into the victim, without inflicting any actual physical injury.’

  As was often the case when Holmes revealed his secrets, I was caught between a desire to applaud his genius, and a temptation to lambast him for the risks he took. It was all very well to admire the aftermath of his fakery, but as a doctor I knew how easily things could have gone wrong. I had no chance to do either, however, for Holmes resumed his narrative with an altogether more sombre look on his face.

  ‘But I have begun my tale at the end and it is the period before that which is of most importance in our investigations. As you will recall, I left you this morning with the intention of infiltrating the fellowship of which our Mr O’Donnell is a member. Moving from the general to the specific, when we parted this morning I made my way to a little place I keep not far from Covent Garden, where I changed into clothes more fitting an itinerant labourer, freshly arrived from Ireland. Thus attired, I took a stroll down into St Giles, bound for the Earl of Dublin public house. It is, as you know, one of the very roughest and most dangerous areas of London, but the efforts of philanthropists have elevated it in recent years to something closer to a place fit for human habitation. Even so, I confess that I was not entirely prepared for the degree of squalor I experienced as I left the fashionable shops of Oxford Street behind and turned into what remains of the old rookeries. Stop here, driver!’

  This last was directed upwards, and had the effect of swiftly bringing the cab to a stop. As soon as it did so, Holmes clapped Ewing on the shoulder and flung open the door. �
��On your way now, Jamie, and thank you once more. You have been more than helpful.’ Ewing quickly slipped outside and within moments had faded into the light fog, which hung in the evening air. Holmes closed the door behind him, rapping on the roof to signal the driver to move on.

  ‘You have done rather well to find a hansom driver willing to have murder seen to be done in his vehicle,’ I wondered aloud.

  Holmes let out a short barking laugh. ‘My dear fellow, while the London cabbie has many sterling qualities, a willingness to aid a complete stranger in the faking of a murder is not one of them. No, the driver is our old friend, Wiggins. This night has been quite the Irregular reunion.’ And with another laugh he resumed his story.

  ‘There is no need to go into detail regarding my passage through the rookeries. Suffice to say that the tattered, dirt-matted and glowering figure I presented was a perfect match for the other unfortunate souls I encountered as I navigated my way down a series of tiny alleyways running with filth, until I eventually found myself outside the unmarked entranceway to the Earl of Dublin public house. It is little more than a one-room gin shop, in truth, and the men who frequent the place exactly the sort you would expect in such a hovel. But, as I had hoped, in one corner sat a group whose appearance was unmistakably superior to that of their fellow customers. Their clothes, their speech, their very bearing marked them as something out of the norm in that place, though not sufficiently so as to cause suspicion or alarm. This was the meeting of the Brotherhood I was looking for.’

  By now, the cab had arrived at Baker Street. Wiggins jumped down from his perch and opened the door for us. I made to leave, but he held out a hand to stop me, then quickly informed Holmes that we had not been followed, nor did he think anybody was watching us now. Clearly, Holmes was leaving nothing to chance. With a final thank you to the driver, Holmes leaped to the pavement and led the way into our lodgings.

  I was glad to be inside in the warmth, and lost no time in pointing out to Holmes that thus far he had not touched upon the reason for the astonishing scene at the restaurant.

  ‘I hope,’ I said with some sharpness, ‘that though a long story, there is a satisfactory conclusion?’ It had been quite an eventful evening and I was in no mood to be told only half a story, as was Holmes’s usual practice.

  Holmes, for his part, threw himself down in his favourite chair with a tired sigh. ‘I am coming to that, I assure you, Watson,’ he said as he settled himself. ‘Let us get comfortable, and I will move my story on a little.’

  I took my own seat and lit a cigarette. As soon as Holmes was satisfied I was ready, he continued his tale.

  ‘As I said, one small group caught my particular attention as I entered the Earl of Dublin. Knowing that it would be the worst of possible mistakes to approach them directly, I ordered a glass of porter and took myself to a seat close enough to them to overhear, but not so close as to raise suspicion. Once in place, I simply sat back and waited, listening in on their discussions about freedom committees and fundraising and the like, and sipping what was in truth an excellent glass of beer.

  ‘As I suspected, I did not have long to wait. Even the most politically astute Irishman is a foolish creature when he has been drinking, Watson. Where the Scotsman will fight his own shadow when drunk, and the English become gay and merry, the Irish descend into a melancholy of the most pitiable sort when strong drink has been taken to excess. Terrible tales of the Famine are brought out, dusted down and retold for the thousandth time; lamentation and sorrow fill the air; and, in due course, there is a particularly Irish form of communal singing, in which everyone within reach is embraced like a long-lost brother, so long as he too is an Irishman far from home.

  ‘That was the moment I had been waiting for. It took another two glasses of porter on my part, but with the whiskey flowing freely at the table beside me, it took no more than half an hour for the political talk to fade away and the strains of “Carrickfergus” to replace it. Rest assured, I lost no time in inserting myself into the company and was soon on good terms with several of them, and accepted by the rest as exactly what I seemed to be – Edmund Brady, a fellow republican and Irish nationalist, homesick for the Emerald Isle.’

  I smiled a little at the thought of Sherlock Holmes in such company. He grimaced in acknowledgement. ‘It was, I admit, an unusual situation, but a fruitful one nonetheless. I quickly struck up a particularly amicable acquaintance with one of the younger men of the company, by the name of Peter Keane. A baker by profession, he said, but one unable to make a living in his own country due to the restrictive laws imposed by the English oppressor. I, of course, was appropriately sympathetic and alluded to my own similar misfortunes as a tenant farmer in the north of the country.

  ‘My new friend soon introduced me to his compatriots. Chief amongst these was the quietest fellow around the table, a slim, clean-shaven gentleman with a high forehead and dark, almost violet eyes. While the rest were exactly the sentimental, drunken fools which they appeared to be, he was something else entirely, something difficult to categorise.’

  Holmes stopped to tap the embers of his pipe out and, I think, to give further consideration to his next words. Whoever this quiet, dark-eyed Irishman was, he had impressed Holmes in some way.

  ‘He was younger than I expected, for one thing. It is a fallacy much beloved of the lesser sort of Scotland Yard man to claim that a criminal may be known by sight, so ingrained in their features is the infamy of his acts, but it is undoubtedly true that the longer one is steeped in crime, the more it lends a flavour to one’s appearance. This man – more boy than man, in fact – had none of the criminal indicators I would have expected. Smooth skinned and clear of vision, his eyes shone with something I can only call contentment as I made the slightest of nods towards him. Had this young man ever visited your surgery, Watson, you would not raise an eyebrow, nor have any concern as to his character.

  ‘And yet I should say, Watson, that this youngster is as dangerous in his own way as the late, unlamented Professor Moriarty was in his prime. Incredible as it may seem, when comparing two men so different in age and education, but I believe him to be almost the equal of Moriarty intellectually, and his superior in physical strength, charisma and moral integrity – but most worryingly for those of us who oppose him, this young Irishman is driven not by simple avarice, nor by a desire for power, but by a Cause.’

  Even in conversation I could hear the capital letter with which Holmes began that last word, and I knew well what he meant. The average criminal is, by nature, a selfish and solitary creature, with little thought in his head but his own advancement and profit. In need – or, for that matter, when need is slight, but desire strong – he will betray his colleagues in order to save himself and give the matter little thought. But give that same criminal a Cause, provide him with a higher purpose, and his previous predilections will disappear at once. Such a man will defy the authorities even into the shadow of the noose itself, and his followers will do the same.

  ‘He had presence,’ Holmes said eventually, confirming my suspicions. ‘That is the only way I can describe it. Even without speaking, he dominated those around him. I was not given his real name – even in their cups, the Brotherhood are not so reckless – but I was introduced to him in due course. Major Conway, they called him, but with a laugh as though the title had some element of mockery in it. Affectionate mockery, I should add, for there was no doubt of the respect those men had for him.

  ‘“And who might you be?” were the first words this Major spoke to me, after looking me up and down for a solid minute. Then, “You are not exactly who you appear to be, I think,” and I knew it was not a question but a statement of fact. “Perhaps not exactly, at that,” I replied, with a smile which I did not mean.’

  My friend laughed. ‘That was a sticky moment, I admit, Watson. The Major was looking at me steadily, without rancour or threat, but requiring an answer for all that. I had at most ten seconds to make some plausible, yet
unthreatening, addition to my story. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that the entire room had fallen silent and every eye in the place was on me. “I am a man with a grievance, Major,” I said and hoped that would be enough to whet his appetite.’

  ‘And was it?’ I asked breathlessly, caught up in Holmes’s narrative.

  ‘Once I had elaborated, yes, but it was touch and go for a while. The Major raised a hand, and the conversation restarted around me. He indicated that I should sit, and when I had he poured me a drink from the bottle in front of him. It’s strong stuff these Irishmen drink, Watson! Pure potheen, distilled in the area around Cavan in Ulster, I’d hazard. I have considered writing a monograph on the distinctive nature of these regional “moonshine” variants, in fact, as an aid to the Irish constabulary… but never mind that. I digress.

  ‘I drank the glass of spirits in a single draught, which in some way appeared to comfort Major Conway, for I felt a definite lessening of tension. “What manner of grievance would it be, Mr Brady?” he asked. “Something which warrants blood being shed, I’d guess.”

  ‘I had thought that I would be days, perhaps weeks, in establishing myself, but as the Major looked at me across the table, I saw an opportunity to more quickly achieve my goal. You must bear in mind, Watson, that the primary motivation of these revolutionaries is not, as they claim, to provide freedom and succour for their fellow countrymen, but rather to spread terror and destruction across the mainland. Murder and dynamitism are the means by which they advance their cause, and it would be through murder that I would gain their trust!’

  I must have given some involuntary indication of my shock at Holmes’s words, for he swiftly moved to reassure me.

  ‘There is no need to look so alarmed, Watson! Of course, I had no intention of killing anyone, but at the same time I knew that without some impressively wanton act of criminality I could never hope to inveigle myself deeper into their plotting, and so discover the gravity and seriousness of O’Donnell’s boasts. Hesitantly, as befitted a stranger in the company, unsure of the reception he might receive, I let him tease elements of my so-called grievance from me. I told him of my brother, arrested without cause by the London police for the crime of being an Irishman, and imprisoned on suspicion of republicanism. I told him more: how my brother had died in the cells, the victim of a savage beating when he refused to divulge the names of his fellow conspirators. Conspirators which he did not have, I said, with tears in my eyes. An innocent man, I groaned, murdered by the English.