Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

"And the day, Holmes?" I was by amazed at the depth of my friend's knowledge of the underworld.

" 'The circle has a cross'. A tramp sign conveying that the householder is religious. A little more obscure, but let us take the religious connection. We lack a date and Ascension Day is tomorrow, Thursday the 20th."

"Suppose it implies Whitsun?"

"Would the gentleman of the house then leave it at nine o'clock? He would be in church or at breakfast. No, no, it is tomorrow, and surely today the last piece of the jigsaw must fall into our hands."

At this moment Mrs Hudson brought in the daily newspapers and with an eager cry Holmes sprang across the room to receive them from her hands. Mrs Hudson cast one look at the state of the room, then wisely departed without comment.

"I have it! See here,Watson.The cross gains a leg." In triumph he added it in pictorial form to his list. "Eleven o'clock."

"Should we not ask Lestrade to seek out the Baroness?"

"And lose the only hope we have of recovering the letter? No, Watson, we shall attend this auction sale. We are permitted to bid any sum, but I have other plans – I recommend you bring your pistol."

His pipe then claimed his attention, and it was not until the cab was taking us to Charing Cross station that I was able to ask Holmes why the Baroness had gone to so much trouble to disguise the rendezvous.

He answered readily enough. "Because I know our good friend Lestrade is hot on the track of both the Baroness and Meyer, though he has orders not to take them up. Why else did the first message, 'The circle contains a stop' appear? It conveys: `Danger of being quodded'. The Baroness feared arrest and that is what gave us our second chance, Watson, the delay between the messages. There must be no question of failure now."

We descended from the London, Chatham and South-Eastern Railway train at half-past ten at Blackheath station, whence it was but a short drive up from the village to the wild heathland and the Dover Road, and then to Shooter's Hill. All conversation had ceased, and one might well have imagined us

as Scarlet Pimpernels in a desperate race to Dover. Indeed, our own mission was of even more importance. Our driver halted at an old mounting block near the summit of the hill and no

sooner was he paid than Holmes was striding eagerly down the hill back towards London, ignoring the dust thrown up by

passing vans and carriages. A milk cart swayed dangerously

near, its measuring cans almost catching my friend, and its driver grinning infuriatingly. The air was sweet and fragrant

after the smoke of London, and in the villa gardens late tulips, giving way to the blue and purples of May, made a pretty sight after the grimy and blackened buildings bordering the streets of London.

However, we had no time to linger over such pleasures. Already Holmes was striding up the path that led to the tradesmen's

door of a sizeable villa. I struggled to keep abreast of him, but

by the time I reached the door he was already rapping upon it for the second time. When no answer came, he thrust it open,

having found it unlocked. I patted the pistol in my pocket for reassurance, as I followed him in. There was something about the place I did not like. Perhaps it was its silence, its grey coldness. We walked into a surprisingly large and airy kitchen, and the sensation of an empty house intensified.

"We are somewhat early," I commented, merely for the sake of breaking the silence to counter my unease.

"Hush." Sherlock Holmes walked through into the main house, and hard on his footsteps, I came to the parlour door. This too was open.

The house was empty of life indeed, but the appalling sight that met our eyes told us that life had not long fled from it.

My hand was at my pistol even as my eyes took in the terrible

scene before us. Sprawled on the Persian rug before the hearth was a woman's body, clad in black bombazine, and its sightless,

staring eyes turned horribly towards us; blood covered the

carpet and was splattered on the walls. There was no weapon to be seen, only a profusion of blood to suggest a stab wound

in the chest. But there was worse. By the window overlooking

the rear garden lay the body of another woman. This one was of a somewhat younger woman, perhaps forty, old for the mob

cap and print gown she wore. The maid had died in the same appalling way as her mistress, whom I presumed to be the cook-housekeeper. I hurried to confirm what I knew must be the case, that there would be no pulse to be found in either.

"Is there life, Watson?"

"In neither, Holmes," I replied quietly, rising to my feet after a brief examination of both bodies. "What devilry is this? To stab the housekeeper and the maid?"

He made an impatient gesture. "You see, but you do not observe, Watson. This may well be the housekeeper, but that is no serving maid. What maid could afford such kid boots, or keep her hands in such fine condition? See the nails – and this." Gently he removed the cap and long, well-cared for auburn tresses tumbled from it. "No maid's face either, Watson. It is that of an adventuress who has lived by her wits these last few years and now died by another's. The Baroness did not deserve such a fate, of that I am sure. The maid's outfit was doubtless to give her anonymity until she could be sure of the identities of any bidders."

"And the letter?"

Holmes shrugged. "We can search, but we will not find. You will have noticed my silence on the way here. I had reasoned that the cross with the leg indicated eleven o'clock, since nine o'clock, with the leg on the other side, would hardly have been practical with the man of the household leaving at that precise hour, a deduction which the Baroness was fully capable of appreciating I would surely make. We were meant to arrive too late, Watson."

"She would hardly have connived at her own murder, Holmes," I protested.

"The game was planned to a different end, Watson. Had Meyer not been the evil monster he is, I have little doubt we should have arrived, only to have the cook hand us a note from the Baroness mocking us for our tardiness. As it is -" He broke off, as the door opened behind us.

"Good morning, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson." Lestrade's eyes went to the bodies. "A pretty pickle," he remarked after a moment.

"Meyer has preceded us both, Lestrade. I have no doubt that a certain rotund milkman I observed on his cart was he."

"Shall I set my men after him, Mr Holmes? We can hold him and search his house."

"And he will have the letter safely stowed elsewhere. He must hand it to his European masters."

"Every port will be watched. Even callers to the Legation." "Good, good," Holmes muttered absently.

"Suppose he sends it to von Holbach by mail or smuggles it by boat?" I asked.

"Such a prize is too valuable for that," Holmes replied. "No, he will hand it over personally."

"Then it won't be in Germany," Lestrade declared stoutly. "And we'll be watching lest von Holbach comes here, and hold him."

"On no account do so, Lestrade. Von Holbach is known to us, an agent who would then doubtless be sent would not be. Let the game continue."

The days then weeks passed, while Holmes fretted. The newspapers carried a short paragraph about an unfortunate stockbroker who had returned to find his home full of police constables, and his cook together with a total stranger, who was as yet unidentified, lying murdered on his floor.

As June opened, a heightened sense of excitement swept through London as it prepared for Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee on the 22nd of the month. Carpenters were already at work on a huge stand in Whitehall, another in the churchyard of St Martin's Church, and a colossal one by St Paul's churchyard. Large sums were being demanded of the visitors now flocking into London from all quarters of the globe, for space at windows. From the eleventh of the month when the official programme was published, the sole topic of conversation wherever one walked or dined was Jubilee Day. Everywhere, that is, save in our Baker Street rooms, where my friend paced in silence save for a few days when he disappeared, and, I suspected, disguised as a beggar or postman, tramped the streets of London in search of his prey.