A Study in Murder (24 page)

‘So, she intends to do what, exactly?’

‘She isn’t stupid or careless enough to share her entire scheme with me. She has an MI5 man, Robert Nathan, wrapped around her little finger and I am certain he doesn’t know
the whole picture. But she plans to thwart the exchange of Holmes by preventing him from travelling. Or she did.’

‘But you fooled her?’

‘Nathan, not her. But yes, I went along with my brother’s plan, not knowing the gravity of the situation.’

‘And Sherlock is where now?’

‘We don’t know,’ Mycroft admitted. ‘We’ve got his picture and description at every railway terminus and port. All we can be certain of is that he is heading for the
continent. To Holland.’

‘Holland?’

‘That is where the exchange is most likely to take place.’

‘Any idea where?’

‘There are a number of likely spots. There is a bridge north of Venlo that they have favoured of late. Where Germany bulges into Holland. Place called Knok, on the Meuse.’

‘Holland?’

‘Yes,’ said Mycroft irritably. Had the man taken leave of his senses? ‘Holland. The Netherlands. Just over the North Sea.’

‘I know where Holland is, Holmes.’ He paused. ‘You know we can’t allow Sherlock to fall into German hands?’

‘That’s why I am here,’ said Mycroft glumly.

‘And so why doesn’t Sherlock appreciate this?’

Mycroft gave a sigh that shook his frame. ‘Sherlock is not a political animal. Oh, I know he did political favours for both of us from time to time, but the political wasn’t why he
acted. It was the challenge of the case or, as I said, as a personal favour. He will not have thought this through. He will only have thought of saving Watson.’

‘I admire the man’s loyalty, but it is misplaced. Now, tell me everything else you know about these shenanigans.’

Mycroft did as instructed and, when finished, gave Churchill the telephone number at the Diogenes Club where he could be contacted. After he had departed Churchill smoked his cigar for a while,
staring into the flames as he considered his options. Holland. His old friend Jackie Fisher at the Board of Invention and Research could help him there. He rang for a manservant and instructed that
a telephone be brought in and was eventually put through to the School of Observation at Bisley. He knew the man he needed: Major Hesketh-Prichard, whom he had met in France, but who had been
posted back to set up a version of his training school back in Blighty.

‘Prichard?’ Churchill asked when he came on the line. ‘It’s Churchill.’

‘Sir. How are you, sir?’

‘I’m vexed, Hesky, vexed.’

‘I am sorry to hear that, sir. How can I be of assistance? Although I must warn you I’m due back at Lingeham any day now.’ This was the original sniper school in France, where
Prichard had made his name.

‘It’s not you I require, Prichard. I simply need your finest sniper.’

Prichard laughed. ‘I don’t think you do. You’ll have to settle for second best.’

‘Do I seem like a man who settles for second best?’ Churchill boomed into the mouthpiece. ‘Who is your finest sniper?’

‘Well, you won’t like this, but the man who holds the top score here is actually a Hun sniper.’

‘German? Who goes by the name of?’

‘Bloch. Ernst Bloch.’

‘I’ll be damned,’ Churchill muttered under his breath.

‘You know him, sir?’

‘Bloch? He’s a prisoner because I damned well captured him.’ When he was on the Western Front Churchill had led many a patrol out into no man’s land to bring back
prisoners for interrogation. Bloch, one of the German army’s best sharpshooters, had been one of them. ‘Where is he now?’

‘You won’t turn him, sir. He came up here and shot bull after bull but refused to pass on any technique or tips. Wouldn’t help the British kill Germans, he said.’

‘Well, that’s perfect then.’ In other circumstances he might have chortled at the irony of it all, but they were dealing with a man’s life here. A friend’s
life.

‘How so, sir?’

‘Just tell me where Bloch is. I don’t want him to kill a German,’ Churchill said. ‘I want him to kill an Englishman.’

I need him, he thought with great regret, to shoot Sherlock Holmes.

The term headache was woefully inadequate to describe the crushing feeling Watson had in his temples. As the alcohol and goodness knew what else leaked into his bloodstream
invisible fingers tightened the clamp around his cranium and his heart was replaced by a big bass drum, pounding its rhythm in his ears. His tongue felt as if it had been coated in sand and a
raging thirst meant he emptied his water jug down his parched throat within a few minutes.

He moved over to the wicker basket and cocked an ear. Silence. The rats had stopped moving.

He retreated to the cot bed and lay down, trying to concentrate on something else, anything else, but his mind refused to focus. He thought he had pinned down Mrs Gregson but her features were
hazy and he realized with a sense of despair he couldn’t really recall what she looked like. Holmes was moving in shadows, flitting from doorway to doorway, like a man who doesn’t want
to be found. Mary was there, dear Mary Morstan, the woman whom he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, until fate cruelly snatched her away during those years when Holmes, too, was
missing after the affair at the Falls with Moriarty. Holmes had been restored to him, to the world, but Mary was consigned to loving memory. Yes, at his low points he had been drawn to try a
séance to contact both of them, but he was repelled by the characters involved in what he knew, in his heart, was fraudulent. He had left before it had even commenced. How he had hated
Holmes for his deception about the Falls.

Was he such an unreliable friend that some kind of cryptic note, a hint that Holmes lived, was too much to ask? Had he not shown loyalty and discretion – so much discretion – over
the years? And again in the Von Bork business, vanished for years, without thinking to tip him the wink. Of course he didn’t put the anger or frustration on the page in ‘The Empty
House’ when he reported Holmes’s re-emergence after the Reichenbach Falls. As always, the story was about Holmes, not his own sufferings. But sometimes, he wished he could knock some
compassion into Holmes’s skull, some small concern for the feelings of others. He imagined raising his walking stick and bringing it down on that great dome of a—

‘Dr Watson! Dr Watson! Wake up, sir.’

Watson’s eyes snapped open and he found himself smacking dry lips, a sound that reminded him of a hungry baby. Harry was standing over him, shaking his shoulders. The headache was still
there, but the marching band had moved on. He could feel the cranial band loosening moment by moment.

‘Harry . . . sorry . . . My God, what time is it?’

‘Bedtime. I was just bringing you some cocoa and we all heard you shouting. I came in and you were thrashing about.’

‘I was having . . . having a dream?’

‘Didn’t sound like no dream. Didn’t look like no dream. It was more . . .’ His eyes widened and he leaned in, reeling back from Watson’s corrosive breath.
‘You didn’t?’ Harry looked around the room and caught sight of the empty jar. He picked it up. ‘Dr Watson, you . . . why would you do that? I thought them rats was . .
.’

He went across and unlatched the lid of the basket and gently raised it. No sound came from within.

‘Dead?’ asked Watson.

‘Sleepin’ it off, more like,’ Harry laughed bitterly. ‘They are alive but blotto. I bet they have a tuppenny hangover tomorrow.’

Watson reached out for the cocoa on the floor and almost fell as the world spun.

‘Here, let me get that.’ Harry put the mug to his lips. The beverage was tepid, but all the better for it and Watson slurped greedily. ‘You are butter upon bacon, you are, Dr
Watson. What did you hope to achieve with all this malarkey? See, if it was poison, you’d be dead.’

‘I’m not sure I’m not,’ Watson croaked.

‘And if it wasn’t, well, you just get a price on your head like them rats there.’

‘I don’t think you’d get a farthing for this,’ Watson said, tapping his temple and wishing he hadn’t. ‘I was wondering if it was some kind of hallucinogen, a
potion to help give the illusion of talking to the dead.’ He had recently had experience of powerful drugs at Elveden in Suffolk, where they had been used to kill and control men.

‘And did it, sir?’

Watson thought about the muddled dreams and the threat of violence to Holmes. ‘Is this liquor common in the camp?’

‘Well, it comes and goes. I mean, sometimes there’s a lot, sometimes it’s scarce. But there’s those that loves it and will pay through the nose for it.’

‘Does everything in this camp have a price? My head excepted?’

Harry thought about it. ‘Mostly. Food, drink, sex—’

‘Sex? You mean there are women here?’

A thick silence settled into the room.

Watson reddened. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘Doctor, you aren’t telling me you don’t know about—’

‘Of course I know about such things. Why, I am sure you heard some base rumours regarding my relationship with Holmes that have sprung up in recent years. Idle, malicious gossip from
people who could not envisage the true nature of the friendship we shared.’ He shook his head. ‘A sign of more cynical and prurient times, I feel.’

‘Nobody’d say such a thing in my earshot, because they’d know what they’d get.’ Harry balled a fist and shook it. ‘But you have to think on, Doctor, some of
these men haven’t seen a Judy for a long time now. Even those that aren’t that way inclined, and there’s some of them that are a bit oopsy before they get here, they might find
themselves turned by a pretty subaltern. Or maybe even a servant,’ he added quietly.

Watson tried not to look shocked. But Harry was a handsome boy. ‘Oh. I see. Well, far be it from me . . .’

‘Not me,’ Harry said firmly. ‘Just that I know some officers and servants whose relationship goes beyond simply fluffing his pillows. If you get my drift, sir.’

‘Well enough,’ said Watson curtly.

Harry stood. ‘Takes all sorts, Dr Watson. Takes all sorts. Can I get you anything else?’

‘Some water, please. And thank you, Harry. You’ve been a rock.’

‘Just like the old days. Do you still think the men at the séance deliberately killed themselves? If you don’t mind me asking.’

‘Not at all, Harry. But I don’t know. All I do know is, there wasn’t enough blood.’

‘What’s that?’

‘On the table, the chairs. It had been cleaned up, but the rough wood had absorbed enough to show the extent of the staining. There was simply not enough blood for three men to have died.
And no sign of it beyond the confines of that immediate area. If they had severed an artery, then one would expect a spray of blood. No, it doesn’t smell right to me.’

‘But what would be the motive for murder? Here of all places?’ Harry asked softly.

‘It seems to me that this place is no different from any metropolis – there is greed, drunkenness, gluttony and, as you say, sex. Add to that the imperative to stay alive and get
back home at all costs . . . it’s almost as heady a brew as that filth I recently drank.’ A wave of weariness washed over him, trailing a little nausea in its wake. ‘I need a
clearer head, though, to speculate much more. Please fetch me the water and I’ll sleep it off, Harry.’

And do try not to fantasize about bashing my brains in, Watson.

But he didn’t dream about detecticide. Instead his swirling imagination was haunted by a woman who seemed to be a chimera of Mary Morstan and Georgina Gregson. One moment the former
– sweet and compliant always – had the upper hand, a second later a forceful stridency took hold and he knew that Mrs Gregson has thrust herself to the fore. Whoever or whatever this
creature was, Watson had performed acts with her that would cause him to blush whenever he recalled them. Never again, he swore, would he imbibe liquid of unknown provenance.

Harry came in with a cup of tea to wake him and enquire how his night had been. A little fevered, he admitted. But he felt relatively refreshed. Harry reminded him that he had a surgery after
breakfast, with more than two score men wanting his treatment and advice. He asked Harry to make a running order for him and set about washing and shaving.

‘Any more thoughts on the dead men, sir?’ Harry asked as he laid out Watson’s razor.

‘Not worth sharing,’ he admitted. ‘Why’s that?’

Harry looked uneasy.

‘Come on, man, out with it,’ said Watson, accepting a towel.

‘Just that . . . I enjoyed our little chat last night and, I know I can never be what you were to Mr Holmes, but . . . it was pleasant to be treated as an equal, sir.’

‘I see.’

‘I don’t mean to get above myself,’ Harry said hastily. ‘But, well, any change of routine, even if it is sad that three men lost their lives . . .’

Watson examined his face in the mirror and used a sliver of soap to try to create a layer of foam over his chin. Many men in the camp had stopped shaving altogether, but doctors, he felt, had to
keep some kind of standards. ‘Well, Harry, I would welcome a sounding board. Often that was my only role with Holmes, you know. Do you remember Mrs Hudson’s brother, Alfred? About ten
years younger than me. Red-headed chap.’

‘I do, sir, very well.’

‘He stood in for me with Holmes when I was detained with medical matters. Said he felt he could have been one of those cigar shop Indians for all the use he was. I told him Holmes liked to
play his thought processes out loud, and that he would have been invaluable. But we must attend to the patients first, Harry. Do you have duties elsewhere this morning?’

‘Usual. Rec room. Nothing a few camp marks to the right place won’t fix.’

‘Allow me to settle that bill,’ said Watson taking the razor. ‘It would be good to have you on board.’

Harry said nothing, but his smile almost split his face. What a shame, thought Watson, as he made the first tentative strokes along his bristles, that Mrs Hudson didn’t have a red-headed
brother called Alfred or anything else for that matter.

The powder-fine top layer of snow was being swirled across the camp by a keening wind. Watson tramped through the fresh deposits, enjoying the feel of his boots penetrating the
crust, treading where no man had gone before. Within fifteen minutes, when
Appell
was called, it would be trampled into mush.