The Devil's Due Page 25

  ‘You are thorough, Mr Holmes. You even went to the docks, then?’

  ‘Elaine, this is a bad idea,’ said Titus Billings.

  ‘Shut up, Tristan,’ she snapped, dropping all pretence. ‘Let Mr Holmes get this wrong.’

  ‘You arranged two deaths that were personal to you. But you had to make them seem like something else. The roster of Luminarians was a ready-made inventory of sinners. Perhaps, as you proceeded down the list, you convinced yourself that you were actually doing the world a good turn—’

  She interrupted. ‘By eliminating vermin, yes, I was. You might consider me an avenging angel!’

  Holmes nodded appreciatively. ‘Indeed! And such brilliant work with the Danforths.’

  ‘Wasn’t that clever?’ Lady Eleanor smiled. ‘I had the advantage of meeting Charles Danforth and his charming, terrified wife at a garden party. I recognized the bully and his madness, and when the name came up, well, a little research … I have sources, too, Mr Holmes, and the Danforth will idea was hatched.’

  ‘The suicides! And all those other deaths! Wives. Siblings. They were not all guilty people,’ I said. ‘Why? And how?’

  ‘He doesn’t understand, does he, Mr Holmes?’ purred Lady Eleanor. ‘Evil spreads, a pebble tossed into a pond of sorrows, the ripples touching all. The “how” was simple. Research. Ask Mr Holmes, he’s a master at it. Research, and a small push. Like dominoes.’

  ‘But the … flourishes, as one might call them,’ said Holmes. ‘You wanted the families to truly suffer as yours had—’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And you wanted to be found,’ stated Holmes.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, appreciated, at least. The Tarot cards. The letter. You wanted it known that these disparate deaths were by the same hand.’

  ‘Those cards were a foolish idea,’ said Billings.

  Holmes looked at him sharply, then laughed. ‘So you removed them from the crime scenes when you could find them! Hence, their inconsistency.’

  Titus Billings’s sheepish look at his sister was confirmation.

  Lady Eleanor shook her head in anger. ‘I told you not to, Tristan!’

  She turned back to Holmes. ‘Well, it is all over now. And there is one piece of the puzzle you have not been able to crack. I wager you do not know why Mycroft Holmes was on the list.’

  Holmes was silent.

  ‘He was third on my personal list, in fact. Oh, I see that surprises you. Do you know why?’

  Holmes hesitated. I could see that he did not have the answer.

  ‘I can tell you,’ said a deep voice.

  Everyone turned to see Mycroft Holmes rise from the dead.

  There was a collective gasp from all but Holmes. Mycroft had supposedly burned to death last night, then was shot to death in front of us all just now, but he still was not dead!

  ‘Surprise, indeed!’ Mycroft waved a sticky hand in the air. ‘Theatre blood. My brother Sherlock is a terrible shot. Here is the connection. Elaine and Tristan Linville’s eldest brother Colin was my classmate at Oxford. We were both finalists for a scholarship, which I won. This was just around the time when the Linville family had been rendered destitute by Horatio Anson. Colin killed himself – and you, madam, blamed me.’

  I looked on, scarcely believing the events unfolding before my eyes.

  ‘Did the name of the scholarship have something to do with fire, then, Mycroft?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Exactly … That scholarship was called “The Flame of Knowledge”. He turned to Lady Eleanor. ‘I knew you would try to kill me by fire, and I was ready. I removed all my important papers from my flat, had the entire building evacuated with full warning to take anything irreplaceable. The Greek fellow upstairs was annoyed, I am told.’

  ‘Rather extreme, even for you, Mycroft,’ said Holmes.

  ‘It was time to redecorate, anyway.’ Mycroft made a small noise that was for him, I suppose, a chuckle.

  Madness.

  Lady Eleanor stared from one Holmes brother to another, impressed in spite of herself. But then her gaze hardened and she raised the Derringer and pointed it at Mycroft. ‘You should have stayed dead, sir. You won’t escape this time. Tristan—’ She turned to her brother.

  ‘Before you do the deed, Lady Eleanor, or may I call you Elaine?’ said Holmes, ‘I have a question for you. We might not have found you out, had you not decided to commit these crimes alphabetically. Why did you do that?’

  She laughed. ‘It amused me.’

  ‘Ah, I understand. The thrill of the high wire.’

  ‘I enjoy a challenge. As you do, Mr Holmes. The closer to the edge …’

  ‘It also appealed to her pathological need for order,’ said Mycroft.

  ‘The cataloguer. Who wanted to tidy 221B,’ said Holmes with a wry smile. ‘And do you intend to stop after killing my brother?’

  ‘And you, Holmes. And Dr Watson. Do not forget my flourishes, as you call them. It had been my intention, to stop after H. But now I see myself in a different light. My primary targets are scum. It is, as you noted, a kind of service. I think I shall proceed.’

  ‘I was right, then.’

  ‘Yes, but you will not be here to enjoy it. Tristan, kill Mycroft Holmes. Use Sherlock Holmes’s gun.’

  Titus, or rather Tristan, would at last get his chance to kill. But not before rubbing it in. ‘I have begun a projectile evaluation programme at the station, Holmes. Based on one of your own monographs, I believe. It will prove that your own gun killed your brother,’ he bragged, ‘and you will die in ignominy.’

  ‘Well, that’s progress. At least some good will come of this,’ said Holmes with remarkable sang froid.

  Lady Eleanor handed Billings Holmes’s gun, then raised hers to cover us both. ‘Then kill Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes with your own gun. Self defence.’

  Billings cocked Holmes’s gun and took aim at Mycroft.

  ‘Now, Titus,’ said Lady Eleanor. ‘Goodbye, Mycroft.’

  ‘Now?’ said Holmes.

  Now!

  Billings raised Holmes’s gun and aimed straight at Mycroft. The older Holmes brother stood perfectly still, expressionless, as though he knew that his nine lives had run out.

  Two gunshots roared at once. Simultaneously, Holmes lunged at Lady Eleanor, pulling the Derringer from her hand.

  She screamed and we all saw that Mycroft stood intact. Nothing had touched him. But Billings was on the ground, a bullet clean through the forehead.

  I kept my second gun raised, transferring my aim from him to Lady Eleanor. The tiniest thread of smoke came from the barrel.

  Lady Eleanor gasped and backed away. ‘How … how …?’ She turned to Holmes, once again ignoring me.

  ‘Blanks,’ said Holmes. ‘Mycroft’s gun and mine were filled with blanks. I would have thought that obvious to you when Mycroft revealed himself still among the living.’

  She looked at him, confused, then down at her brother.

  Billings lay face up, sightless eyes staring into the cavernous darkness stretching above us. All three turned to face me.

  ‘You killed my brother,’ whispered the lady. With a moan, she sank to her knees beside him. I lowered my gun at last.

  ‘What kind of crazy person would chase a murderer with a gun loaded with blanks?’ I said to Holmes.

  Holmes shrugged. ‘One not prepared to kill.’

  ‘And he is truly a dreadful shot,’ added Mycroft. ‘Sherlock, in your line of work you really must take target practice.’

  ‘But what kind of person comes to a war zone with two guns, both loaded?’ asked Holmes, nodding at my second pistol.

  I smiled. ‘A soldier.’

  He smiled back.

  We heard a sharp click. Lestrade had stepped from the shadows and placed handcuffs on Lady Eleanor. She squealed in fright. ‘These are just the ordinary ones, ma’am. I am not your brother.’

  To my surprise, Gabriel Zanders, along with several o
ther policemen, joined Lestrade, who directed several of his men to take Lady Eleanor away.

  Next to me, I could hear Holmes breathing heavily. The drugs were wearing off, and he would soon need help. I could see the energy draining from him like melting ice. He turned to me. ‘Heffie? Watson!’

  I had forgotten the girl! But Holmes looked so unwell, I hesitated.

  ‘Go and find her. I will be fine,’ he said.

  Two constables stepped in to assist him as I ran off. I caught a glimpse of Zanders watching the proceedings, eyes on Holmes, with an expression I might interpret as contrition.

  I raced to the front of the building, now unlocked by Lestrade’s men. There, across the street, I saw Heffie standing under a streetlight next to a doting young constable. They appeared to be sharing a meat pie. Spotting me, she waved.

  All was well.

  CHAPTER 32

  221B

  As a soldier, I have in the past taken pride in needing little rest, of being always ‘at the ready’. In the army, the need for sleep was considered a weakness. Yet here I was, three days after the events at the Baker Street Bazaar, still taut with nerves yet utterly exhausted. I fortified myself with cup after cup of coffee, attempting to dissipate my nervous fatigue by writing up this case while it was still fresh in my mind. As Thomas Carlyle said, ‘Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so dreadful as idleness.’

  A bright, cold light shone through the windows at 221B as I sat in my old chair near the fire, scribbling feverishly. It was eleven in the morning, and the door to Holmes’s bedroom was closed. He had slept the better part of these ensuing days after the events at the Baker Street Bazaar, and as far as I knew was sleeping still.

  Over the last three days I had attended to his burns, which now were nearly healed. Dr Meredith had visited twice about his wrist. The swelling had gone down, and Meredith gave us a refined and optimistic prognosis, along with specific finger mobilization exercises, with which I was to help Holmes regain his violin capability.

  Holmes slept through all of this. I believe that his command of Morpheus was as vital to his remarkable powers as any other skills he possessed. How I envied it.

  Holmes at last emerged from his bedroom as the clock chimed the half hour, still in his bedclothes and dressing gown, hair tousled, and desperate for a cigarette. Except for the brace on his wrist he looked almost exactly as he had just over a week ago when I had arrived for what I thought might be an enjoyable holiday.

  ‘Good morning, Watson! Where are my cigarettes?’ He flung himself into the chair opposite mine. I poured him a coffee.

  ‘Eat something first,’ I said.

  He opened up The Times. ‘Zanders! Well, something laudatory. Whatever on earth!’ He read for a moment, then laughed. ‘Now he exaggerates in the opposite direction. I am an angel of justice. A genius!’ He flung the paper to the floor. ‘Why can he not just tell the facts?’

  ‘The facts do not sell papers.’

  ‘Evidently. And how about you, Watson? Writing up the case, I see,’ he said. ‘How will you embroider it?

  ‘It is a puzzler, Holmes. I have a few things I’d like to clear up with you.’

  ‘Of course, dear fellow. Ugh, this coffee is cold.’ He set it down. ‘Mrs Hudson! Hot coffee, please!’ he shouted.

  ‘How did you conclude that Lady Gainsborough and Billings were siblings? Surely, just the names Elaine and Tristan alone were not enough. The two look nothing alike.’

  ‘You did not observe, Watson? Earlobe shapes the same, first and ring finger lengths, and very faint sibilant “s”s in their voices: those were the initial clues. I already suspected, the names were mere confirmation. Eleanor and Titus: Elaine and Tristan. I regret that this last clue came rather late.’ He held up a cigarette and I lit it for him.

  ‘Mrs Hudson!’ he called again.

  ‘Patience! Did you suspect Lady Eleanor early on? When, exactly?’

  ‘I will admit that I did not, at first. Her advances, overt flattery and neediness were calculated to blur her motives, and were well done. But gradually a concatenation of facts tipped my suspicions. First, her handwriting, and the cataloguing of her husband’s collection. Both indicated a penchant for organization. You recall also that she longed to straighten up this room.’

  ‘Many would,’ I said.

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘And she asked you to stay alone at the school, and later her home,’ I added.

  ‘Other explanations were credible, there. But it was the discovery of the type of poison used in the ammoniaphone – something of a marine origin – that tipped the scales for me, to pun badly. After you went to bed, Watson, I looked up that Hawaiian myth to which Kepler referred. That poison was ultimately suspected to be from a particular type of coral. You recall, of course, the aquarium in the lady’s home?’

  ‘Oh, coral! Of course! How elaborate, then.’

  ‘Everything she did was elaborate. But without a motive these were still not enough. But as I said, all was a ruse to cover up her revenge killings of Horatio Anson, her husband Lord Gainsborough and Mycroft Holmes. She threw too much decoration into the mix. Those three murders alone might have had the elegance of a Pythagorean theorem and might never have been connected. Instead, she widened the scope, propelled by hubris.’

  ‘Hubris, indeed. Calling herself an avenging angel!’

  ‘“Avenging” and “angel” are contradictions, are they not? I will also admit the inconsistency of the Tarot cards puzzled me for a time.’

  ‘What has become of the Goodwins?’ I wondered.

  ‘You shall see, Watson. They and Mycroft are due here in—’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Ah! I must dress!’

  Mycroft arrived early, informing us that he had managed to bury most of what happened in order to protect the Goodwin brothers, who may have seemed complicit when they were not. Also, it seemed that Judith, that clever young villainess who nearly got the best of me, had managed to escape to France. I registered that Holmes would not let that rest. Another trip to France was in our future.

  A half hour later, all three of us sat facing the Goodwins. The two young MPs were such outsized characters that their flamboyance and youthful vigour seemed too big for this modest sitting-room. James lounged on the sofa, while Andrew paced behind him near the window, casting glances at the street below. Both wore suits of sleek, heathery cashmere and silk paisley scarves. They were like stars of the stage with their own personal costume designer.

  ‘We owe you both apologies,’ said Andrew Goodwin. ‘We realize that we hampered your efforts by revealing things so … so incrementally.’

  ‘You did,’ said Holmes. ‘Explain yourselves.’

  Mycroft closed his eyes at the painful directness of this question.

  ‘We work in government,’ said James. A long pause, as though that should be sufficient.

  ‘And?’

  ‘It is complicated,’ said Andrew.

  Holmes fixed them with a stare.

  ‘It was a mistake and we apologize,’ said Andrew. ‘There are a great many intersecting interests. Some of the Luminarians have … well, have atoned to such a degree that their contributions are such that …’

  ‘Well, the security of the nation depends on …’

  ‘… discretion, and the judicious construction of …’

  ‘… er, of carefully orchestrated arrangements, relationships …’

  ‘Stop!’ said Holmes. ‘You sought out compromised individuals and blackmailed them into doing favours for Her Majesty’s government, while continuing the philanthropy of your choice. While they waited their turns to be useful, you were amusing them and stroking them socially. A kind of Robin Hood scheme, with a very elaborate carrot and stick, am I correct?’

  The two brothers exchanged looks. Andrew nodded.

  ‘These Luminarians, then, operated as high-level informants for the government?’ I asked, astonished.

  ‘That is, essentially, accurate,’ said Andrew.
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br />   ‘But what terrible fallout from this convoluted plan! I really do not care to hear any more,’ said my friend dismissively. ‘It is a wonder that the government functions at all with these Machiavellian schemes in which the serpent eats its own tail.’

  ‘Politics have never been your forté, Sherlock,’ Mycroft commented.

  And thank heaven for that, I thought. I, for one, found my friend’s clear sense of justice – tempered by compassion – to be a beacon shining through the murk of human behaviour and morality. His results were both pragmatic and profound.

  No, politics were not his forté. Nor mine, either.

  I will admit in retrospect that I perhaps undervalued the Goodwins and their own brand of ‘doing good’. As I reread my notes some thirty years after the actual events, I can report that the accomplishments of these two young gentlemen would outlive their legendary parties and complicated politics. Twenty-five years later, both received Victoria Crosses for bravery on the Western Front in the Great War, from which neither man returned alive. But we knew none of that at the time.

  ‘What has become of Lady Eleanor?’ I asked.

  ‘Her trial is next week. Life imprisonment, most likely,’ said Mycroft.

  ‘And the Queen’s cousin, Titus Billings’s clandestine benefactor? Has he been told of his protégé’s part in these murders?’ asked Holmes archly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mycroft. ‘And any further influence by this Royal person has been sharply curtailed. This case has been discussed at a level beyond him.’

  ‘Good!’ I exclaimed.

  We sat silent for a moment.

  ‘The Luminarians. Was all this your idea, Mycroft?’ drawled Holmes.

  His brother said nothing, which I took to be an affirmation.

  ‘Then how did you get on the list?’ Holmes continued.

  There was an awkward pause. Mycroft was perfectly inscrutable. We turned to the Goodwins.

  ‘Mycroft is privy to a great many secrets, as you know, Holmes,’ said Andrew. ‘He helped us choose some of our honourees. But then we … we …’

  ‘We crossed the line with him when we then questioned his own, er …’ said James.