Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Murder Page 7

  ‘And there you have me, Mr Holmes. No. My first thought was that someone deeply invested in wines that rival the French might profit. The Americans. The Germans, perhaps the Italians. But I think not. The Americans have been helpful, and the Germans and Italians now face the same plague, though to a lesser degree. Regarding jealous colleagues, I think not. This particular problem has united the larger research community to a remarkable degree.’

  ‘And still Britain may be suspect,’ said Holmes. ‘As Watson mentioned, our whisky business is said to be growing in leaps and bounds.’

  ‘I think as a scientist does. Instinct is perhaps as important in my work as observation and logic. And my instinct tells me this disaster is an accident and nothing more.’

  Holmes nodded. ‘I wonder, could this divisive theory then originate from someone who profits from a deterioration of Franco-British relations?’

  ‘There you exceed my expertise, Mr Holmes,’ said Janvier. He turned and placed a hand on a single, closed door at the end of the hall. It was locked and he felt in his pocket for the keys.

  ‘Back to the letters, Dr Janvier,’ said Holmes. ‘You mentioned there were two curious things. What was the second?’

  Finding the key, Janvier unlocked the door. It swung open with a bang and both Holmes and I jumped, primed for what, I am not sure. What we saw was a complete surprise.

  The room stood vast and empty, a laboratory like the others, but this one was not only devoid of people but of equipment as well. Bright sunshine flooded in from an expanse of windows, and dust motes floated over barren zinc lab tables. Along one end of the room were a row of cardboard boxes, from which protruded various pieces of equipment.

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu!’ said Janvier with an embarrassed laugh. ‘How could I have forgotten! We moved our laboratory to larger quarters in another building only yesterday. I was so engrossed in my story that it completely escaped my mind. We must go to another building!’ He strode through the laboratory to the other end. ‘Follow me, please. It is a shorter way out.’

  ‘You were about to mention the second curious thing, Dr Janvier?’ said Holmes.

  Janvier unlocked a door at the other end of the deserted lab and we entered a small decoratively tiled antechamber where a set of double doors led outside. They, too, were locked. He withdrew another set of keys from his pocket and began to unlock them. As he flung the double doors open wide the brilliant sunlight blinded us momentarily. He turned, silhouetted in the bright rectangle.

  ‘Ah, yes. The last one was in rhyme,’ said he.

  But before this fact could yield further thought, there was a sudden deafening roar and the sound of splintering glass. The entryway in which we were standing blew outwards into rubble. In a kind of slow motion the air turned a solid white and I felt myself propelled forwards through the air like a rag doll.

  We were buried in an avalanche of bricks, mortar, plaster and dust. I was conscious only of white everywhere and a single thought: Janvier was wrong. And then blackness.

  PART TWO

  GETTING AHEAD

  ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs …’

  —Rudyard Kipling

  CHAPTER 7

  Vidocq

  must have lain there a moment or two, perhaps even a minute, as the roar echoed in my head, a temporary deafness and blindness robbing me of action. The sounds of gunfire and shouts resounded and echoed through my brain, and then receded into silence. The battlefield.

  Was I dead?

  Wiping my eyes, I blinked out the dust, and rolled over onto my side. I opened my eyes to see the octagonal red tiles of the hallway in which I lay. Not Afghanistan. Not the battlefield. Montpellier.

  I felt a sudden stab in my bicep, and sitting up, I noticed a long shard of glass was embedded in my sleeve. Light streamed in from above and I looked up, noticing a shattered clerestory window.

  France. Janvier’s lab. An explosion.

  I lurched to my feet, head clearing.

  Janvier, who had been before us, had received a small cut over his eye. But he now stood, apparently otherwise unharmed, though a bit stunned. He vigorously brushed the dust from his own clothing.

  ‘Your forehead,’ I said. ‘It is bleeding.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said he. He drew out a handkerchief and pressed it to his cut forehead. ‘I am all right,’ he said. ‘And you, Dr Watson? You look as though you had seen a ghost.’

  I gently extracted the piece of glass. No large patch of blood; it was merely a scratch. ‘I am fine.’ I turned to look for Holmes. I could not see him, but nearby a wall had collapsed. My heart began to race. He had been right behind me. Had he made it through the door?

  ‘Holmes?’ I cried moving towards a mound of rubble, terrified at what I might find there.

  ‘Look!’ shouted Janvier. ‘He has gone back inside!’ The Frenchman pointed behind us into the damaged laboratory, where in the heavy layer of dust I saw a disturbed area where Holmes had fallen, and then footprints heading directly back inside towards the site of the explosion.

  ‘Holmes!’ I shouted again, peering into the room. I started after him.

  ‘Careful!’ Janvier cried. ‘There could be a second bomb!’

  But I was already halfway across the room. Nearer the site of the explosion white dust filled the air.

  I paused, now enveloped in a miasma of white and having lost view of the footprints, which vanished below me into the floating cloud. I squinted and bent down, trying to locate them. After some moments, I finally found them and proceeded slowly forward into the impenetrable whiteness.

  A ghostly apparition, covered from head to foot in plaster, emerged from the fog. It was Holmes. In his hand he held something wrapped in a handkerchief. I heaved a sigh of relief.

  ‘All is well, Watson,’ said he.

  ‘Thank God. Did you find anything?’ I asked.

  He nodded as Janvier came up behind me. The Frenchman fanned the air and coughed. ‘Outside, gentlemen, please!’

  We made our way out of the building, and across a courtyard I could see a crowd of people gathering and pointing. I heard whistles and shouts and the clanging bells of the French police growing nearer.

  ‘Tell me what you found, Mr Holmes?’ urged Janvier.

  ‘Whoever did this has made his escape,’ said the detective. ‘However the explosion is a large one at the back of that room near the sinks. Dynamite. A second stick had been lit but I found it and managed to stop it before it ignited.’ He held up the offending item, and then placed it in his pocket.

  ‘You are mad, Holmes,’ said I. ‘You could have been blown to pieces.’

  He smiled and shrugged.

  I looked back at the swirling dust. ‘We should check for injured people!’

  ‘I did. There was no one.’

  Janvier placed a hand on my arm. ‘No one was there. As I said, our work was transferred yesterday to a larger building. And everyone is eating their lunch.’

  ‘But you are different, Dr Janvier. Do you not occasionally work during lunch?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘True. Perhaps it is the American influence.’

  ‘But to the point. The timing of this – might you have been the direct target?’ asked Holmes.

  Janvier paused. He and Holmes stared at each other intently for a moment. I had the impression that both were sifting the information and perhaps coming to some kind of joint conclusion.

  ‘Not likely,’ said Janvier. ‘The mistaken laboratory. The timing of the detonation.’

  ‘I concur. A message. Not intended to kill,’ agreed Holmes. ‘But dangerous nonetheless.’ He withdrew the stick of dynamite from his pocket, using his handkerchief to do so. It was a few inches long, wrapped in brown paper with a label. The fuse was blackened. ‘Made by Nobel, in Scotland. The best for the task that can be found anywhere. You are very lucky, even so.’

  It was exactly like the dynamite that Isla McLaren had so casually displayed at 221B.r />
  ‘Holmes! That is the same—’

  ‘I know,’ said Holmes. He turned to Janvier. ‘The letters threatened you to stop or your work would “go up in smoke” I believe you said.’

  The scientist looked down at the ground ‘But they will have to kill me first.’

  ‘Do not tempt fate, Docteur. I suggest you post a guard at all times.’

  A police commissionaire rushed up to us, bristling with urgency. His blond hair was clipped short, and he was bronzed so deeply from the Mediterranean sun that he appeared almost metallic. Holmes and Janvier answered a few quick questions in French, and after a few minutes the man retreated and headed back to the site of the explosion. His accent was indecipherable and I had understood nothing.

  ‘Might you translate, for my colleague?’ said Holmes.

  Janvier laughed, with a tinge of bitterness. ‘He attempted to apologize to me. When the letters first arrived, the director of the lab showed them to the police. They dismissed the threats as I did, but for a different reason. They thought I was simply trying to draw attention to myself!’

  Holmes snorted. Janvier continued. ‘Idiots. But it alerted someone in the Chamber of Deputies, and their response was to send that horrible … et voici … here he is now. Excuse me for a moment.’ He moved quickly away to speak to two worried assistants.

  A dark figure slowly approached us from the other side of the courtyard, emerging from behind the building which had suffered the blast. He was silhouetted against the bright sunlight and at first I could not make out who it was. The swagger, however, was striking.

  ‘Sherlock Holmes!’ exclaimed the familiar, French-accented voice. He passed out of the bright light, and into view. It was the disreputable Jean Vidocq himself.

  In contrast to our dishevelled and whitened state, the tall, handsome Frenchman was the picture of elegance. He strode forward with a smile, impeccable as always in a well-tailored frock coat and jaunty cravat.

  The man was a rakish charmer, to whom women seemed drawn as by a magnetic force. He was insufferable. In fact, I still felt the occasional pain in my back directly due to our contretemps at the Louvre last year. The man had knocked me down a flight of steps.

  ‘You!’ I said.

  Vidocq responded with a cocky grin. But as he approached, Sherlock Holmes surprised me in the extreme. He rushed to embrace this rogue.

  ‘Jean Vidocq! Bienvenue! I am so happy to see you here!’ he gushed, clasping the Frenchman to his bosom, kissing him on both cheeks in the French manner of greeting.

  Vidocq, equally surprised, recoiled and backed away in disgust, frantically brushing at the white plaster dust, which Holmes with his embrace had deposited on his pristine frock coat. Holmes hid a quick smile.

  ‘Mon Dieu! What the hell is the matter with you, Holmes? Is it the cocaine?’ exclaimed Vidocq.

  ‘Ah, non, non!’ said Holmes. ‘C’est trop de soleil!’

  Too much sun? Holmes was inventive today. Janvier looked on in confusion.

  ‘Ah, so sorry,’ said Holmes, apparently recovering. ‘It is the shock also. Vidocq, my old friend!’

  Turning from Holmes with a look of doubt, Vidocq focused on his fellow Frenchman. ‘Dr Janvier? Ça va?’ he asked. What followed was a rapid exchange in French, of which I only understood that he was ascertaining that the famous scientist was unharmed. Satisfied, he turned to us.

  ‘Well, Monsieur Holmes, what an interesting coincidence. And Doctor Wilson, I believe it is.’

  ‘You know my name, Monsieur Verdun!’ said I.

  Vidocq was taken aback. ‘Ah, yes, Dr Watson, forgive me. It slipped my mind. How very strange to find you both here at this precise moment. Where were you exactly when the bomb went off?’

  Holmes smiled. With a grand gesture he indicated our plaster-covered selves. In fact, we were so whitened by the dust as to look like madcap bakers in a comedy turn at the Gaieties.

  Vidocq eyed us with derision. ‘A little close for comfort, n’est-ce pas? But again, why are you here, in the laboratoire? It is lunchtime.’

  ‘Indeed. One might ask the same of you, Vidocq,’ said Holmes brushing the white powder and bits of plaster from his own coat.

  ‘Police business.’

  ‘Excellent timing! Or are you simply prescient?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Dr Janvier has received death threats. I have been sent by the government to investigate and protect. Your presence here is suspicious.’

  Holmes laughed. ‘You will get nowhere with this line of thinking, Vidocq,’ said Holmes.

  Dr Janvier now returned and Vidocq turned to the scientist with an expansive smile. ‘Ah, Dr Janvier. So very happy that you are unharmed!’ he gushed, grasping Janvier’s arm in what I thought was an overly familiar gesture. ‘It was thanks to God that—’

  ‘It was luck or miscalculation on the part of the bomber, M. Vidocq, nothing more. If you will excuse me,’ the scientist said, breaking free and turning pointedly to us. ‘Gentlemen, my staff return from lunch and I must reassure my colleagues. I believe you have learned all I can tell you now. I will see that you receive a copy of my paper on the phylloxera on your way out.’ He started to leave but turned back. ‘And I shall take your advice, Mr Holmes. We will take more care.’

  He strode off, brushing at his clothes. We stood facing Vidocq.

  The Frenchman’s pretence at charm dropped like a curtain. He advanced on us with a frown. ‘Holmes, I will not have you meddling in this affair. I am hired by the French government to protect this man. In fact, we have every reason to suspect British hands in these threats and … well, here you are. I should have you arrested.’

  ‘You are joking!’ I said.

  Holmes shot me a warning look. ‘Vidocq, I do not know what your game is here, but assuredly it is financially driven. Your altruism is never what it seems.’

  ‘Speaking of finances, my dear friend, I understand you are currently lodging at the laughable Hôtel Du Beau Soleil. How difficult it must be to attempt to command the world stage from such undignified surroundings.’

  Somehow he seemed to know of our hotel misadventures in Nice. My surprise at this must have shown on my face. Vidocq laughed.

  ‘Not only M. Holmes keep the track of his special friends, Doctor.’

  ‘Vidocq, I suggest that you stay out of our way on this and on all matters,’ said Holmes.

  ‘Or what?’ replied Vidocq with a sneer.

  ‘Or I shall make your latest indiscretion known.’

  ‘And what indiscretion is that?’

  ‘Ah, then you admit to more than one.’ Holmes smiled as he reached into his pocket and removed a train ticket which he held aloft. The Frenchman gasped and patted his waistcoat, discovering he had been neatly pick-pocketed. Furious, he snatched at it, but Holmes pulled the ticket away and waved it in the air. ‘Paris–Nice, only yesterday,’ said my companion.

  I could not help but laugh. Holmes enjoyed my amusement and Vidocq’s discomfort perhaps more than was polite. ‘Ah, Paris, the city of light. And of love,’ said he. ‘You have no doubt enjoyed yourself there, Vidocq, in a particularly close encounter.’

  ‘Ce n’est rien!’ snarled the Frenchman. ‘I have been in Paris. The rest is wild conjecture, Holmes.’

  Holmes paused. He sniffed the air pointedly.

  A maelstrom of expressions crossed Vidocq’s face. And then he understood.

  ‘Ah, Mon Dieu. Remind me to keep my distance.’

  I was still in the dark. Holmes turned to me. ‘Our friend’s frock coat collar is quite redolent of a certain perfume. Jicky, you remember, Watson?’

  ‘That proves nothing,’ said Vidocq. ‘That scent has taken Paris by storm. Many men and many women wear it.’

  ‘Really. And am I to conclude from your collar that you have been embracing many men and many women all over the City of Light? Random individuals, no doubt, and at considerable length?’

  Vidocq shrugged.

  ‘No, the evidence, while cir
cumstantial, I agree, is suggestive. We both know that Jicky is the signature scent of a certain Mademoiselle Emmeline La Victoire.’

  Vidocq smirked. ‘In France this is hardly a scandal.’

  ‘Perhaps you do not know that the lady is engaged. Her fiancé is as well connected in France as he is in England. The gentleman is a schoolboy friend of M. Reynaud, who is, I believe, your current employer.’

  Vidocq’s smile fell away and he stepped back in surprise.

  ‘A word to this fine man and your lucrative connections will vanish,’ said Holmes. ‘May I suggest you drop both your affair, and the dangerous game you are playing here, lest I find it necessary to intrude on your own personal liberties?’

  Vidocq’s retort was interrupted by the bronzed French policeman, who cut through a gathering crowd to stand with us. He spoke sharply in French, but Vidocq held up a hand.

  Holmes smiled and leaned forward. ‘Oh, and you are careless, Vidocq,’ he whispered. ‘Your coat pocket? The right one. Here, let me.’

  His arm flashed forward and he pulled a stick of dynamite from Vidocq’s pocket. The policeman started, and turned to Vidocq, grasped him suddenly by the arm, and called out for reinforcements.

  As several gendarmes ran forward to assist, Vidocq shook his head in annoyance.

  Holmes smiled, turned on his heel, and despite his ludicrous white countenance managed a dignified exit. I paused only a moment longer to enjoy Vidocq’s discomfiture, gave him a small salute, and followed my friend.

  The level of Holmes’s research never failed to surprise me. But then, it has always been a hallmark of his methods.

  Our return train to Nice that afternoon was less than pleasant. Unable to remove the dust fully from our clothing, we were forced to travel in the baggage car, seated on boxes covered with sheets and warned severely not to get our dusty selves on anything else.

  As the purser slammed the door shut behind us Holmes looked at me and burst out laughing. ‘Watson, you look like a man who has been frustrated by an encounter with the pastry dough.’

  ‘Holmes, this trip has been something of a disappointment. As despicable as Jean Vidocq is, I am appalled that you would stoop to planting evidence on him. It strikes me as beneath you.’