Frank Thomas - Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword

"What is our next move, Holmes?"

"We've gained considerable time, which is fortunate. The Chinese had a delivery wagon on the roadway. With their cargo they are making for here by the branch road you mentioned, and the Sacred Sword will ride into London on the early morning freight whilst they return via the Follonsbee Road. It will mean that Gilligan and Styles are following a dead trail, but no matter."

Holmes's voice dwindled away and I shot him a quick glance, noting that his brow was furrowed. Then the lines disappeared and he was looking at me with that boyish half-smile.

"Merely anticipating, Watson. Do keep an eye cocked for the delivery wagon, like a good chap."

Again he dropped from the saddle and glided swiftly across the open ground towards the small building that seemed the nerve center of the junction. His movements reminded me of descriptive passages I had read regarding the American Indians' amazing ability to flit from one object to another when engaged in a stealthy approach.

Fandango gave indications of a whinny and I reached quickly forward, placing the palm of my hand over her nose. Really, that horse was most intelligent, and she curbed her desire to communicate. Then I saw, vaguely, a wagon coming round a bend in the distance. I hastily dismounted, holding both our steeds by their bits in an attempt to keep them silent. Suddenly, Holmes was at my side.

"If you ever wish to incriminate me, Watson, you have me dead to rights, for I have just stolen an object from the Great Eastern Railroad. I note our Chinese are on the scene, so let's get in the saddle once more."

He was displaying a piece of marking chalk as he spoke, standard equipment with freight handlers. I forestalled Holmes's move towards Mystique.

"Look here, I've been leaping on and off for half the night, Holmes, or so it seems. Would you be kind enough to give me a leg up?"

"Certainly," he replied, intertwining his long fingers. With one toe in his hand-cradle and his shoulder as a fulcrum, I managed to get astride of Fandango once more. As my friend swung upwards with a grace that was revolting, I saw the moon glisten on his white teeth and realized that he was laughing at me, but his words brought me up short.

"I've said before, Watson, that you occasionally display a pawky humor. I'm not fooled, you know, being convinced you are descended from Attila the Hun himself." So it is that reputations are born.

With Holmes leading the way, we progressed a distance away from the junction but parallel to the rails that were the feeder to the main line.

"The Chinese have arranged to have their crate placed in one of the freight cars, of that I am sure. This train is carrying naught but foodstuffs, so when the object is removed, it should be readily spotted. However, we shall facilitate the process."

Holmes had reined to a stop now and was looking back at the junction, and my eyes followed his. The wagon had drawn adjacent to one of the freight cars. Here in the valley the moonlight was quite bright, and I noted that an object about four feet in length was passed from the wagon to one of the railway roustabouts, who took it towards the line of freight cars. I looked at Holmes and realized that he was counting from the engine back.

"The twelfth freight car, Watson," he said happily.

Of course he was enjoying the whole thing, as he always did. Especially when he managed to keep one step ahead of the opposition.

Now he reined round again and we traveled further towards the main line. Drawing to a halt in the shadow of a clump of small trees, we waited, and then came the methodical and lugubrious chug of the locomotive as it slowly gained momentum with the cars behind it jerking into motion like reluctant children making for school in single file. Every thrust of the steam-driven pistons increased the speed of the metal serpentine, and it was proceeding at a good rate when it passed our place of concealment.

"Hold fast, good Watson," said Holmes as he broke from the trees, gigging Mystique to a fast gallop. I saw now that he had chosen the location carefully, for it was a stretch where the roadbed was level with the adjacent ground. Without realizing it I was counting cars, and then Holmes swerved his mount in close to the swiftly moving train and, leaning forward and out, he reached with one long arm to chalk an "X" on the twelfth freight car. Then he guided his mount away from the train and raced for the shelter of the trees.

As the train disappeared round a bend, I rejoined Holmes to find him patting Mystique with all the affection of a highland horseman for his bonny steed.

"Now that the pace of our nocturnal adventures has diminished, you might explain to me what is going on," I suggested.

"Things are going swimmingly, and now we shall make our way to Litchfield. This freight makes frequent stops along the line. We can catch the one o'clock flyer from Litchfield and reach London before it. I assume we can follow the rails to the rural hamlet."

"I've done so."

"Capital! Upon arrival, you make for the station and secure tickets. I will roust the cable-office attendant, for a message must precede us to London. A message to Deets will not be amiss if only to locate his horses for him."

Not long thereafter, I lowered myself gingerly into the seat of our compartment on the morning flyer with a deep sigh of relief. Stretching my aching legs, I mentally forced strained and knotted muscles to relax. There was the familiar click of wheel on rail and trestle. At last we were headed back to London, far more suitable surroundings for two staid, middle-aged bachelors, one of whom was intent on a steaming tub positively alive with Epsom Salts. Holmes had been right, of course, about the schedule of the flyer now hurtling through a countryside covered by the blackness of night. The man's knowledge of trains, both in Britain and on the continent, was positively encyclopedic, and I drowsily made mention of this.

"Ah, Watson, those ribbons of steel that are the warp and woof of the tapestry of transportation so indispensable to the empire. . . ."

At this point, I fell asleep.

It was Holmes's long, violinist fingers on my shoulders shaking me gently that summoned me from the land of Nod.

"Come, ol' chap, we are pulling into Waterloo, and the curtain has not yet fallen on this playlet."

It is with chagrin that I confess to a small, nay mean, streak within my nature, for it was pleasing to me that my companion seemed to arise from his seat with a hesitant manner as though testing the steadiness and capabilities of his extremities. I sprang upright, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I suppressed an exclamation of anguish. But my tottering legs stiffened at the quick glance of surprise tinged with envy that the sleuth flashed my way while unlatching the compartment door to the high-pitched background music of grating brakes as the train came to a halt.

My friend's firm hand on my arm guided me through the station and into a carriage without. Holmes's directions to the sleepy-eyed driver were inaudible to me, but at this point, I had lost interest in our next destination.

It proved to be a vehicular bridge over the vast checkerboard of Great Eastern rails converging towards the hub that was the transportation empire's London station. Holmes's suggestion that I remain with the carriage was accepted with alacrity. He removed himself to stand on the walk-across of the bridge, his eyes in the direction of Surrey. The appearance of his cigarette case and the lighting of one of the Virginia blends that he fancied suggested a lengthy vigil, and I fell asleep again.

Possibly it was the sound of an approaching freight or the peculiar tocsin that alerts us in some mysterious manner when action is imminent, but my eyes blinked open to catch Holmes watching the cars of a freight train passing beneath the bridge. At a particular moment, his white handkerchief waved in the half-light of the early morning. Since this was obviously a signal to someone positioned further down the line, I now understood the cable that he had taken pains to dispatch from Litchfield.