Frank Thomas - Sherlock Holmes and the Treasure Train

Doubt was dominant in my mind, and expression as well, for muscle weighs more than fat and I judged that Orloff tipped the scales at fifteen stone. Sensing my thought, he nodded. "There's another way." Suddenly he sprang for the window, one hand grasping a bar. Orloff never jumped, for in motion, he always resembled a ballet star. With part of his weight supported by one hand, I sensed what he had in mind and got his legs around my shoulders, standing beneath him to provide some support. Even with Orloff taking most of his weight on his arm of steel, my leg muscles began to tremble after a while and I was forced to let my rescuer down several times so that I could recover. I knew what he was doing, of course. Using the lens of my monocle to reflect sunlight, he was sending intermittent signals toward passing boats in hopes of attracting someone's eye. Finally, our efforts were rewarded.

"We've been spotted," he said. "A boat is swerving in toward shore."

"Thank heavens for that," I said, my shirt soaked with perspiration and my breath coming in gasps.

Orloff signaled for me to allow him to drop to the floor. "Providence has been doubly generous since it is Holmes," he stated, returning my monocle. Again he sprang upward but this time he had two hands free and was able to hold himself at window-height with ease.

While I wondered what had alerted the sleuth to use the river, Orloff kept me informed as to happenings. "Evidently he commandeered a river tug and she's fast closing on us." The throb of powerful engines was an accompaniment to his words but they suddenly diminished and I sensed the riverboat was near to shore.

"Holmes, it is Orloff," called the security agent.

"What of Watson?" Though from a distance, I thought I sensed a tremor in my friend's voice.

"With me and all right."

"Anyone else around?"

"Don't know. If they are hidden out front, this noise must have alerted them. I'd keep an eye cocked."

After a short pause, Holmes spoke again. "I'll work my way around to the road and try and release you."

"Wait," I cried. "There could be too many of them."

"I've another thought," called the security agent to Holmes, "if you've a stout line available and the means of getting it to us."

There was a mumble of voices from the river and then Holmes replied. "That can be done. You've a mind to try the window."

Orloff did not answer but motioned for me to stand clear of the aperture, though I was well below it. Perhaps my nerves were playing me tricks, but I thought I sensed movement from beyond the door to our place of confinement. Suddenly Orloff pulled himself as close to the window as possible and his right hand snaked between the bars, reaching outward. In a moment it reappeared with a round object clutched in his fingers. I recognized it as the weighted end of a heaving line as Orloff dropped to the floor, reeling in the light line. Motioning toward the other angle bar of the demolished bed frame, Orloff pulled in the end of a hawser to which the heaving line had been attached with a running hitch. He took the piece of the bed frame from me, running the hawser around it. The sound of the tug's engines had picked up tempo and I sensed that she was being maneuvered around to present her stern to the shoreline. Orloff had the hawser secured around the angle bar with an anchor bend and he pulled himself up to the window, placing the bar across the width of the opening. There was the sound of a key turning a lock and the door behind us opened slightly but the crossbar held it firmly and there was a muffled curse and then a crash as a body tried to force it inward.

"Full speed," shouted Orloff. There was a deep-throated roar from the tug's engines and the hawser tightened, pulling the frame piece of the bed against the window bars. Outside, the boat's engines were protesting with wheezes and clankings, trying with twin screws to force the tug into motion. Orloff, hanging from the window by one hand, reached down and grasped me under the arm with his other. Suddenly I was in the air.

"Grab 'round my neck, Doctor, and hold on for dear life."

How he got me up to where I could obey his order I'll never know. There were repeated crashes at the door to our rear and suddenly there was a rending sound and a section of the wall including the window and bars gave way to the power of the tug's engines. We were in the open air with stone and the dry dust of masonry around us and plunging toward the water below. All I could do was cling to Orloff, who in turn kept his grip on the bars, which were attached to the hawser. We hit the water but were not allowed to sink, for the tug, released from the anchor that had held it, was racing from the shoreline at high speed and dragging us behind it. Suddenly the ship's engines were cut and a stubby man with a mahogany face appeared at the stern of the craft and began hauling us toward it. There was the crash of an explosion and then another one and I made haste to swim toward the tug, sensing that the ruffians had broken down the cell door and were firing on us. When Orloff and the short man helped me aboard, I saw Holmes standing by the wheelhouse with a long-barreled revolver, firing methodically toward the shore. Coughing up river water, I cast a glance toward our rear. Fully a third of the wall of an aged blockhouse was torn asunder. As I watched, a face appeared in the aperture and ducked promptly as Holmes' revolver barked and there was a spurt of dust and the whine of a ricocheting bullet.

He's got them pinned down , I thought. Orloff and I have escaped, and Holmes is alive and well. Merry old England will survive.

Chapter 11

Back to Baker Street

IT WAS several hours later that I lay luxuriating in a steaming hot bath. Holmes had secured fresh shirts and undergarments from the local haberdasher, and the innkeeper's wife was ironing my sodden suit. The river tug had deposited us at the Fenley docks, and when Holmes had pressed a considerable payment on the captain, he met with some resistance. That worthy confessed that he had not enjoyed himself so much since he helped run down two escaped prisoners from the Coleford jail who were making for Cardiff in a stolen launch. Holmes had been insistent and had given the lively old sailor a personal card with a number penned on the back.

"Should there be questions from the local authorities," my friend had said, "have them contact this number at Whitehall."

"Pshaw," the mahogany-faced captain had responded. "I'll just show 'em your card and that will shut 'em up." Such are the benefits of fame.

By the time I had toweled off, Orloff joined us in our suite at the Red Grouse Inn. He appeared as calm and polished as though he had spent the morning lecturing the local ladies' sewing circle on the care of ailing cats. Holmes had me swathed in a blanket with a tot of Irish whiskey in my hand, and his solicitude drew a small smile from the security agent and a tinge of warmth entered his normally cold, unemotional green eyes. With Orloff on hand, Holmes bustled off to secure my suit, which allowed me to pose a question or two. Mycroft Holmes' right-hand man and his most feared agent always treated Sherlock Holmes with deference, for he was so good himself that he could recognize greatness in others. With me he exhibited flashes of humor and actual friendship, something I would reveal to no one, for I would be courting disbelief. The shadowy enforcer of the espionage system that officially did not exist was reputed to have all the friendly tendencies of a prowling Bengal tiger. Why he should present a different face toward me was a mystery I was incapable of solving.

"I say," I mouthed as a curtain raiser, "you never did tell me how you chanced to be down this way."

"The matter of gold and the solidity of the pound is of interest to Her Majesty's government," he replied, igniting one of the small black cigars he fancied. He was just talking and knew that I saw through his answer that answered nothing. Holmes had asked his brother for Orloff, and Mycroft Holmes had complied as he had done in the past. Now I could identify the associate of Holmes that the mysterious Wally had referred to in the taproom the previous afternoon. Which brought me to the matter I really wanted to touch upon.