I did not sleep much that night, and I had vivid dreams involving the cramped quarters of submarines. The baron was smiling and talking incessantly, with a treasure chest on a table before him and a golden crown on his head, but he was ignoring the fact that icy seawater was pouring in through the open hatch.
I tried to yell that we were sinking, but the words would not come out. The water was a yellowish-green, and rose up over my head. I knew I would drown and that I could not breathe, and a terrible panic came over me. I swam toward the hatch, desperate to get out, but I seemed to be going nowhere despite all my efforts. All about me was that greenish water obscuring and distorting everything. Soon we would hit the bottom, and I would be trapped inside. If only I could move…
My eyes jerked opened, and it took me a few seconds to remember where I was. I threw aside the covers and sat up. Yellow-white light glowed faintly from the overhead, and a clock on the wall showed it was half past four. I rose, put on a robe, and went to Holmes’s room.
The door was open, and he was lying on the bunk, still fully dressed in his tweeds, his head resting on his raised hands and the fluffy pillow. His eyes were open, and he smiled faintly. “Good morning, Henry.”
“Have you slept at all?”
“A little. And you?”
“Also a little, but I have had such terrible dreams.”
He lowered his arms and swung his legs around as he rose up to a sitting position. “Perhaps we should see if we can go up on deck. I believe we stopped moving a few minutes ago. We must have reached our destination.”
“That seems a good idea. Perhaps some air would clear my head. I’ll just get dressed.” I gestured with my hands toward my robe and nightshirt. “For such a short night, it was hardly worth putting these on.”
After I had changed, Holmes and I went down the wood-lined corridor to the central staircase. Dim light flooded in from the open hatch above, and the air was noticeably cooler and wetter, a faint pressure on my face rising and falling gently. A circular fragment of sky was gray, overcast, and featureless, but luminous—it was no longer night, but not yet day, either. Holmes started up, and I followed.
The wind felt much stronger outside, and the cool damp mist engulfed us and took the sharp edges off everything. We could see Massier and the baron a few feet away holding onto a railing, and further in the distance the white chalk cliffs could be made out, as well as the imposing structure of a lighthouse. It sat on the outermost and nearest rock, a tall pale gray tower with a thick black band painted around its middle, the contrast designed, no doubt, to make it more visible from afar. The iron frame of the glass-paneled and glowing lantern portion and its conical roof were also black. The light itself shone not white, but red, dulled, and obscured somewhat by the mist. Mercifully, the dark seas about us were nearly flat, the submarine swaying ever so gently. The deck was only two or three feet above the water. Off to my right, to the east, the sky was noticeably lighter as dawn approached.
I frowned. “Is there some reason the light from the lighthouse is red?”
“It has to do with the angle of approach of one’s ship,” Holmes said. “There are fixed shades that can color the lamp’s light, and one sees red if one is headed for rocks, or for the treacherous shallows with shingle. However, when you reach the right approach, the color will change from red to white.”
Suddenly the distant, cavernously deep clang of a bell could be heard, no doubt an audible warning from the lighthouse to any nearby ships.
“Ah, there you are! Good morning, my friends.” Lupin had come up the stairs, and I could tell from his tone of voice and his smiling countenance that he was in good spirits.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked.
“Like the proverbial baby. Oh, it did take me a while to fall asleep, what with all the thrumming and clanging, but once I had surrendered to the arms of Morpheus, nothing could wake me.” He stared past me. “That’s a very impressive lighthouse, isn’t it? We must have made good time. I wonder how far we are from Étretat.”
“I think it is about a hundred miles,” Holmes said.
Again the deep bell sounded. “Is someone actually ringing that, I wonder?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” Holmes said. “Typically, both the rotation of a Fresnel lens and the ringing of the bell are driven by clockwork mechanisms. In this case, it is true only for the bell. The lighthouse has a fixed lens, rather than a rotating one. You can see only the steady glow of its light, rather than a beam sweeping round and round. That is often the case with a first-order lens because they are so very heavy, over six tons or so, I believe.”
“But what exactly powers the bell?” I asked.
“Typically a steel cable extends the length of the tower and has a very heavy counterweight on the end. One cranks up the weight and the cable using a winch with a lever. The weight then slowly descends, impelling all the various gears and cogwheels.”
“How clever!” Lupin exclaimed. “And that lamp must burn oil, I suspect.”
“Originally whale oil, and then lard oil, were used, but nowadays they have mostly switched over to kerosene.”
The baron turned to us, one hand still grasping the railing. “I can tell you must know as much about lighthouses as you know about naval vessels, Monsieur Holmes. It is good to have someone so well informed aboard. Let us go below and have breakfast. Afterwards the sun will be up, and we can visit the lighthouse and begin our search.”
Holmes gave him a questioning look. “Certainly we cannot go much closer by submarine. The sea is quite shallow near the lighthouse with dangerous shingle. In the old days, many ships ran aground there.”
“We will only go a little nearer, and then we shall take the launch over.” He gestured toward the front of the submarine. “It lies under some watertight doors just there. I’ll have my men prepare it while we are eating.”
We descended into the ship with the baron, and soon we were seated in the dining room, the surly seaman once again acting as our waiter. In honor of his guests, the baron had had his cook prepare a version of a hearty English breakfast, so there were scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, potatoes, and even some foul-smelling little fish that were apparently supposed to pass for kippers.
I didn’t have much appetite and ate very little, but Holmes and Lupin seemed determined to fortify themselves for our upcoming enterprise, and they consumed a prodigious amount of food. The strong dark coffee was very good and revived me somewhat. I wondered what new surprises the day might bring—or, in a more cynical frame of mind, what new insanities! Certainly, at breakfast the day before in Étretat, I had never expected to travel to the Isle of Wight by submarine, and breakfast underwater the next day.
The baron, Massier, and Lupin were obviously excited at the prospect of finding the treasure. Holmes and I were more reserved, but even for me, a certain wonderment stirred. Would this be the day in which a centuries-old fortune was finally uncovered? Or would the whole thing turn out to be mere nonsense, a long-running hoax perpetrated by some French zealots?
Shortly after dawn, a few minutes before six, we gathered on deck. The mists had faded somewhat; the lighthouse, the white chalk of the three rock formations and the higher, nearby coastal cliffs, appeared more visible, more tangible. I could also make out the individual blocks of the lighthouse wall, each one a varying shade of grayish white, save for that black band painted in the middle, which covered perhaps a quarter of the tower. Those blocks must be cut from some massive rock, like granite, which could resist the winds and waters which often assailed the structure. The bell still clanged loudly every few minutes, the sound resonating through the fog and resounding off the waters. We must have traveled a way further in, because the lantern now shone white instead of red.
The launch bobbed up and down alongside the Nautilus. A wooden craft, it was about fifteen feet long with four oars manned by brawny-looking sailors in navy wool coats and berets. Another sailor, also in blue but with a crew cap, was at the tiller to the rear. Metal treads were set into one side of the submarine’s gray hull, and we carefully stepped down. One of the sailors helped us in.
The boat was large and heavy, but I still didn’t like the way it swayed when I stepped in. Thank God, however, that this was nothing like a rowboat, which a clumsy passenger could easily capsize! It was four or five feet wide, and Holmes, Lupin, and I sat together on one sturdy wooden thwart connecting the two sides. All three of us still wore sturdy woolen tweeds, Holmes and I with overcoats as well.
Lupin and I had our cloth caps, Holmes his familiar wrinkled walking hat of fuzzy blue-gray wool. He smiled at me from under the brim, gesturing toward the lighthouse with his head. “A rather exciting way to begin the day.”
Behind us sat Massier and the baron. Chamerac muttered something, and a sailor pulled at a rope to withdraw it from a metal ring in the submarine hull. The oarsmen set to work, and soon the boat had swung around and was headed toward the lighthouse. The wind had picked up slightly, the water somewhat choppy, and I reflected how one always felt colder and chillier out in the open ocean.
“Do you know how tall the lighthouse is?” Lupin asked Holmes.
“About one hundred feet, I believe.”
I gave my head a shake. “You seem very familiar with it.”
“Lighthouses have always interested me, Henry, and this is one of the more famous ones. Also, I think I mentioned that I have visited this part of the Isle of Wight before. I stopped at Osborne House on business, then went on to make a tour of the island.”
Lupin raised his hand in the direction of land and the rocks. “Are these cliffs the same sort of chalk as those at Étretat?”
“Indeed they are,” Holmes said. “Chalk is a particular form of limestone composed from the shells of marine plankton which lived millions of years ago during the Cretaceous period.”
Lupin smiled. “Perhaps it is only Gallic bias, but I find these rocks rather bland in comparison to those at Étretat. These—and their brothers at Dover—are more boringly and uniformly white, while the striations and the coloring are more apparent along the Alabaster Coast in France. Then, too, there are no elephant trunks plunging into the water to be seen here!”
The submarine had come in from the south, and the coast of the Island ran almost due east and west, so we could see the length of the three jagged rock formations jutting from the dark blue water and the adjoining shore of the promontory with its taller cliffs. The boat swung to the west, drawing ever closer, and soon we had come around so that the lighthouse and its rock were dominating the other two formations hidden behind them. So close, the outlines of the individual blocks were even more evident, and the structure seemed somewhat squat, but sturdy and unyielding. I could well believe that it could take any abuse the sea might hurl at it.
One could see that a landing and platform for the base of the tower had been cut out of the white chalk, and a sideways stairway descended into the waters. The boat drew closer, until finally one of the sailors, holding a length of rope, leaped about a yard to the steps. Iron rings were set above every other step, and the man put the rope through and pulled the boat abreast. Higher up on the platform was a stone bollard, and the sailor soon secured another rope to it.
The baron gestured toward the steps. “You three go first.”
The sailor extended his hand and helped Holmes ashore. I was next, then Lupin. It was only a small sort of islet, but all the same, I was greatly relieved to be on solid ground again! The baron and Massier followed, then two of the sailors, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders.
We came to the top of the stairs and walked onto a broad landing of concrete. Where the white chalk had been cut away, there remained two sheer white walls forming an L-shape near the tower. An iron door was set into the one with the great mass of the rock formation behind it; some sort of cave must have been hollowed out for storage.
I glanced back out toward the ocean, but could not see the submarine. The mists had mostly cleared, the light was yellowish, the blue trying to show in the sky. I realized I had not heard the clang of the bell in a while. They must have decided it was clear enough to dispense with it.
The substantial metal door at the base of the tower swung open, and a tall man came out and descended the three steps. He wore a peaked cap and an open double-breasted blue jacket with a row of four golden buttons on either side. A wild bushy growth of reddish-brown beard and mustache hid the bottom of his face. He could not have had a shave or a trim in months.
“Here now! What do you think you are doing? This lighthouse is off limits to visitors.”
The baron turned to Holmes. He wore clothing almost identical to the lighthouse keeper, but today his grandiose mustache was neatly waxed, the long ends curling slightly upward. Compared to the keeper, he appeared short and stout. “I think I shall let you conduct the search, Monsieur Holmes. After all, you are the expert and still in my employ.” He had spoken in French.
Holmes nodded. “Merci, monsieur le baron.”
“And you can deal with the keepers. Although… perhaps it would be best to simply tie them up for the duration.”
“Certainly not. The lighthouse must continue to function normally. Otherwise we shall soon have visitors come calling to see what is wrong.”
“Ah yes, I suppose that makes sense.”
The keeper had said nothing, but beneath the brim of his cap, his thick eyebrows had scrunched together as Holmes approached him. “What was he saying? And who are you?”
“We have come to search the tower. Do you by any chance speak French?”
The keeper stared at him for a second or two. “No.”
“This gentleman is the Baron of Creuse. And as you can see, his two associates are armed.” The two sailors, hard-looking scoundrels, the both of them, had unslung their rifles and held them ready. “The baron is—” Holmes smiled faintly “—something of a blackguard. It would be best if you let us come into the tower and have a look about.”
The keeper folded his arms across his chest. “And what if I say no?”
The baron obviously heard the word “no” which is nearly identical in French. “Tell him,” he said in French, “if he does not cooperate fully, we shall simply enter and smash his precious Fresnel lens to pieces.”
The keeper’s eyes opened wide, the entire circles of blue irises showing against white, his horror obvious. “You could not!”
Holmes gave an abrupt nod. “Ah, so you do speak French?”
The keeper had managed to regain his composure. “A little, perhaps.”
“What is your name, sir?”
“Martin. I see.” Holmes smiled as he gave the name its French pronunciation with a nasal i at the end. Indeed, Martin was a very common surname in France. The man had no French accent, but he could well be of French descent.
“I regret this intrusion, sir, but it would be best if you went about your business and ignored us as best you can.”
Martin’s eyes had a grave expression. “What are you after?”
“I suspect you know.”
His eyes changed every so subtly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Joe? What’s going on?” Another man’s voice rose over the murmur of the sea. The other keeper stood warily near the open door. Wearing a similar cap and jacket, he was shorter with a black beard, curly, but less luxuriant than his companion’s.
Martin hesitated. “They have come to do a search.”
The other keeper stiffened. “We can’t allow that!”
“We have no choice. You see those two thugs with rifles. And their leader threatened to smash the lens.”
“What! Would they really do such a thing?”
“I don’t want to find out.”
We all started toward the doorway. Holmes stopped before the other keeper. “And what is your name, sir?”
He regarded Holmes suspiciously. “Bernard. Jack Bernard.”
“Bernard. Of course. Another French surname.” He glanced at Lupin and me. “So many English are descended from the French, no doubt because of the Norman conquest.” A sardonic smile played about his lips, but the two keepers were definitely not amused.
Martin gave him a hard stare. “Who might you be, anyway?”
“Sherlock Holmes?” Obviously Martin had heard of him. “I thought you were a detective—not a thief.”
“Nor am I. My companions and I are here under duress. Is there something here worth stealing?”
Martin seemed to realize he had blundered. “Not at all.” His eyes shifted briefly to the baron. “You are welcome to search the tower. What you might be after is a mystery to me. There is certainly nothing here of great value.”
Holmes was smiling again. “Well done.”
“Tell them to go about their usual business,” the baron said. “And tell them my two armed sailors will be watching their every move.”
Holmes did so, then turned again to Martin. “We shall be searching the tower, but we shall try to create as little disorder as possible. I doubt that there is much that is under lock and key.”
Martin gave a brusque laugh. “What would be the point on a lighthouse with only two men?” His look soured. “And normally, no visitors whatsoever.”
We all went through two doorways, the first heavy door made of metal, the second of wood, and found ourselves in a circular room dominated by a huge tank with pipes attached. Coiled ropes were stacked about, and a small rowboat stood on its end leaning against the wall.
“That must be the fuel tank for the lamp,” Holmes said, and Martin nodded. Holmes turned to the baron and switched to French: “We may as well start at the top and work our way to the bottom.”
His last word was dessous, and he gave Lupin and me a knowing look. It took me a second or two to recall that the old guardian had said le phare and then dessous.
“Bernard and I need to go up top to the lantern,” Martin said. “Unless there is good visibility, even during the day we must keep the light burning.” He added, grudgingly. “I can give you a sort of tour, on the way, I suppose.”
Holmes nodded. “Thank you. That would be most gracious.”
We started up a staircase that wound round the circular tube formed by the lighthouse wall. Martin explained that the second floor was a storeroom for various spare parts, and the provisions required for the two men. The third floor had a big round oak table with matching chairs, and off to one side, stood an enormous black cast-iron stove, which gave off a welcome warmth. A worn-looking brown leather sofa stood nearby.
“This stove is the main source of heat for the lighthouse,” Martin said.
On the fourth floor were four bunks, two on top of each other. The beds were framed in beautiful varnished oak, sort of cubby holes, with a cloth curtain that could be drawn for privacy. Each floor, except for the ground storeroom, had thick square windows on opposite walls to provide light.
Martin glanced back at us before starting up the stairs. “The lantern is next up.”
And indeed, when we stepped out, we could see that the upper part of the circular room was all of glass, framed in steel, which revealed grayish sky all around us. A massive iron pedestal in the center, which must support the lens, dominated the space. Charts and papers were spread out on a wooden table, alongside a glass-fronted bookcase, and instruments hung nearby. A tank was off to the side with pipes running up through the open steel grating which circled the lens.
“The lens itself is just above,” Martin said.
Holmes glanced back at our group from the submarine and spoke in French. “I very much doubt anything could be hidden up there, but it is surely worth having a look at the lens. They have a gigantic first-order Fresnel, made in France, of course, by Henry-Lepaute.”
“Oh yes,” Lupin exclaimed eagerly, “we must have a look!”
Martin looked very stern. “I’ll come with you.” He raised one slender hand. “And please—do not touch anything!”
The other curving stairways had been enclosed within finished walls, but this one was an open construction all of metal with a metal railing. Martin climbed up first through the opening in the grate, then came Holmes, Lupin, myself, the baron, and Massier last. Before us, with the narrow metal walkway surrounding it, was a gigantic sculpted creation all of glass—something every bit as spectacular as a grand crystal chandelier—and lit so brightly that I could not stare into its center. Shards and diamonds of yellow-white light glowed and shifted along its circular bands as we started around it. The lens had sections vertically framed in metal, bronze by the look of it, but its core was a central horizontal band, with smaller angled bands above and below—prisms, no doubt, all of which helped amplify the light. The center portion was perhaps three feet high, with even more dramatically angled glass bands rising and falling below it. Both the top and bottom sections were about another three feet high, and their prismatic bands tapered slightly inward, so that the lens as a whole rather resembled a pine cone.
“Don’t look into the center,” Martin said. “You can damage your eyesight.”
“Incredible!” I said. “I had no idea it was such a work of art. It is truly beautiful.”
Lupin smiled. “It is grand, is it not? And so tall, almost three meters, I’ll wager.”
Martin nodded. “Yes, it’s around nine feet tall and six feet wide, and it weighs some six and a half tons. A first-order lens is the largest size Fresnel generally available. This one has been here since the lighthouse was constructed in fifty-nine.”
Holmes gestured toward the middle. “This is the beauty of Fresnel’s design. Instead of a single massive nine-foot lens which might be three feet thick and very precarious, the lens is collapsed down into circular layers which function the same but with much less weight. Also, the additional glass itself would block some of the light, so a Fresnel lens is actually brighter. A rotating Fresnel lens is even more spectacular-looking: each section has a bullseye of circular glass which focuses the light into a separate beam.”
Even the baron seemed impressed. “And this was, of course, made in France. We are the masters at this sort of construction.”
“Indeed you are, monsieur le baron,” Holmes said. “Indeed you are.” He resumed walking around the curving platform, admiring the lens. He stopped to gesture at some sheets of red glass going from floor to ceiling on the seaward side. “Henry, this is what made the light appear red out on the ocean.” He pointed toward the forward gap in the red glass panels. “And when one is at the correct angle from the bare space here, the light appears white, and you know you can safely head inland.”
Martin gave an appreciative nod. “Very good, Mr. Holmes. I could not explain it better myself.”
Lupin stared at Holmes. “You said it is unlikely that our… object is up here, but could some part of it not be hidden inside?”
Holmes shrugged. “One can open the lens to access the lamp itself, but there is not much room inside. Then, too, the chronology of the lighthouse’s construction makes it unlikely. It was finished in 1859, but our… ‘collection’ was moved more recently, after the Franco-Prussian war, in the early seventies. Trying to modify this elaborate structure to hide something would likely put the lighthouse out of service for days, and the authorities would certainly notice the interruption. Moreover, it would require a great deal of technical knowledge and expertise. If all else fails, we might have a look—but at the end of our search, not the beginning.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Lupin said.
We all trooped back down the stairs to the lower floor of the lantern. Holmes turned to Martin. “Before we begin our search, might we have a look from the parapet? It is still hazy, but the view should be spectacular.”
“Certainly.” Martin led us to a door and opened it. The others went out, but I hesitated.
Holmes gave me a sympathetic smile. “Come now, Henry! I know your problems with vertigo, but that parapet around the tower should comfort you. Notice that it stands quite high and is made of solid granite, which, from the look of it, is nearly two feet thick. You certainly could not fall by accident over such a barrier!”
We went outside, and immediately I could hear the rumbling murmur of the ocean and the cry of gulls, even as the moist cool air touched my face. The door faced the landward side. Stepping slowly and warily to the parapet, I could see the rest of the white chalk rock formation upon which the lighthouse sat, then the sharp tips like jagged teeth of two more rock islands, and finally, off to the right, the high sweeping cliffs of the Island itself above a small sort of bay with the dark blue waters of the ocean sweeping in onto a beach.
We walked around the lantern, taking in the view from every angle. The breeze was strongest to the seaward side, cold and damp from the ocean. It had cleared somewhat, but out toward the west along the distant sea near the horizon, clouds were forming.
Lupin stood smiling out at the ocean, his hands resting on the massive curving parapet. “I think I might enjoy being a lighthouse keeper. To have such a view always at one’s command!”
Holmes raised one hand. “Ah, but you forget that the lighthouse is often battered by storms with winds and crashing waves.” He glanced at Martin. “How high do the waves actually reach?”
“Their spray sometimes splashes the glass up here of the lantern.”
Lupin gave a theatrical shudder. “Perhaps not, then. There would also be the lack of female companionship to reckon with, although if your wife could accompany you…?” He was looking at Martin.
“That is not allowed at solitary lighthouses like this one. There is enough physical work to occupy two keepers. However, for some lighthouses situated on the coast rather than a remote rock, the keeper’s family resides close by.”
“Are there not three keepers, one of whom is always out on relief?” Holmes asked. Martin nodded. “And what is the surname of your other keeper?”
Martin stiffened. “Never you mind.”
Holmes smiled. “As you wish. No doubt it is also one of French ancestry.”
The baron stared sternly at Holmes. “We have wasted enough time with idle sightseeing. Let us be about our search.” Holmes nodded, and we all went back inside. The baron spoke to his two men. “Duboeuf, Phillipe, you stay up here with these two men and watch them carefully. Make sure they do not try to do anything suspicious.” He turned again to Holmes and gestured toward Massier. “Let us begin. Louis can assist you. He is very good at this type of endeavor.”
Massier gave a slight bow. “It would be an honor to work with you, Monsieur Holmes.”
Lupin had a certain lunatic grin. “I, too, am very good at this sort of endeavor. Before, we descend, we had best have a good look around this part of the lantern.”
Holmes nodded. “And so we shall, although no likely candidates jump out at me.”
Lupin lowered his gaze. “I shall examine this metal floor and make sure there are no suspicious cracks or fissures.”
I smiled faintly. “And with so many experts at work, I shall simply try to stay out of their way!”
The three searchers set to, and after fifteen or twenty minutes, they were convinced nothing was to be found on that level.
Before departing, Holmes stopped by the work table and grasped a beautiful brass bullseye lantern by its wire handles. “Might I borrow this, Mr. Martin? I shall return it when we are done.” Martin only shrugged in resignation.
We took the stairs down to the next floor with the bunks and the keepers’ quarters. The many drawers and cupboards offered many possibilities. Holmes and Lupin proceeded to pull out all the six-foot wide drawers below the bunks, one by one. They went through the contents, and using the bullseye lantern, looked carefully inside the empty cavities. Meanwhile Massier opened the doors and carefully examined the closets where coats and jackets were hung. Holmes shone the light all along the ceiling, which was very high. One could see massive cross-beams which supported the floor above, so nothing could be hidden up there. I followed all this with great interest, but the baron seemed quite bored with it all, his earlier excitement dissipating.
Soon we descended to the kitchen and dining area. This seemed to me a highly unlikely place to store the great treasure of France! And indeed, the room was more open and had fewer hiding places. Some cupboards were pantries stacked with brightly labeled cans of beans and tomatoes, larger glass jars of pickles, sauerkraut, or preserved meat in gravy, as well as tin containers of flour, sugar, and rice. There were also stacks of various dishes, plus pots and pans. A closet next to the warm stove was heaped with coal. Again, our searchers examined the floor and ceiling carefully with the lantern.
So more quickly this time, we went on to the floor below: the storeroom. It was even more of a jumble than the kitchen. Some shelves had still more canned goods. A great variety of tools, wrenches of various sizes and shapes, pliers, and saws, abounded, along with scrap wood and segments of differently sized, galvanized pipe. Some small chests contained various metal fittings and instruments. A huge assortment of flares and rockets stood well apart with a cloth draped before them which said DANGER, NO SMOKING. A curious assortment of furniture, chairs of different shapes and sizes, tables, and a desk, were also stored there.
The search went on, but they had to move things around to have a good look at all of the floor and the walls. Massier had thrown himself into the effort and was a hard worker. However, the baron was by now thoroughly bored and sat at the opposite side of the room from the rockets smoking one cigarette after another.
Holmes and I struggled to move aside a massive old oaken wardrobe, and then he smiled wryly. “Do you know Poe’s story ‘The Purloined Letter’?”
“Oh yes, of course. Isn’t that where a missing letter is lying out in plain view, so obvious that it is simply ignored?”
“A pity that our conspirators did not follow that example and leave a casket somewhere in this mess for us to discover!”
Lupin sighed. “That would be agreeable, but I don’t think it is likely. Given all that we have seen thus far, they enjoy hiding things!”
At last they had finished, and we trooped down to the ground floor, which was, thankfully, much less messy than the storeroom. The big storage tank of kerosene and an upturned boat were the two main objects, although ropes and life preservers were piled about, and hung on hooks on one wall were various forms of rain gear, including the classic hooded yellow slickers. I had begun to wonder if the dying old man had been merely raving. The same thought was obviously worrying the baron.
He stared gravely at Holmes. “Are you sure you have told me the truth, Monsieur Holmes? If you have led us here on—how do you say it in English?—“a goose chase” there will be a price to pay!”
“I do not make a habit of lying about important matters. Besides, I did not really expect to find the treasure in the lighthouse.”
Massier looked surprised. “You did not?”
Now the baron looked angry. “You will regret this!”
“I did not say the treasure was not at the Needles, quite the contrary.” Holmes and Lupin exchanged a knowing look.
“Enough of these riddles!” the baron explained. “Explain yourself.”
“Did you notice the entrance to a cave set in the rock wall behind the lighthouse?”
The baron’s frown became quite ferocious. “Cave? What cave.”
“I think we are about finished in here. Let us go have a look.”
Holmes opened first the wooden door, then the watertight steel one. Outside, the wind had picked up, and the clouds out at sea had thickened. We could hear waves crashing against the rocks near the landing. Just before us, opposite a bare expanse of pavement, was the sheer white cliff where the chalk had been cut away, forming two walls in an L, and set in the one with the bulk of the rock formation behind it, was an arched steel door. Holmes raised his slender hand and pointed.
“There, I suspect, we shall have better luck.”
“Dessous,” I murmured.
Holmes nodded. “Exactly.”
Massier started forward eagerly. The door had a metal latch and was, of course, not locked. What would be the point on an offshore island with only two occupants? The entryway was at least a foot thick, cut, no doubt, like the entire cave, out of the white chalk of the rocky isle, and all of us except the baron had to stoop slightly to get in without bumping our heads.
Inside it felt even colder and damper than out. Some light streamed in from the doorway, but Holmes had the lantern, and he shone it all around the chamber. Two big metal tanks dominated the room, along with more ropes, and some shelves with stacked bottles, probably of beer or wine. The walls and ceiling were of rough-hewn white rock, but the floor was covered with planks of dark brown, almost black wood, no doubt soaked in creosote for preservation.
Holmes, Lupin, and Massier advanced in a row toward the back of the cave. The side walls seemed somewhat curved, but the back one was smoother and more vertical, forming near right angles at either side and at the top and bottom. The back was also rough and ragged, but the cuts had vaguely rectangular shapes.
Holmes tossed his hat aside, then went to the left side of the wall and brought the lantern very near the rock. Slowly he examined the surface, going from top to bottom. Lupin stooped slightly, obviously mimicking Holmes’s inspections with the greatest interest. Massier also seemed fascinated.
After about ten minutes, only half the back wall had been perused, and the baron was obviously bored again. “I shall go outside and have a smoke,” he said. No one acknowledged his comment.
A few minutes later Holmes was methodically sweeping the lantern from side to side when he abruptly froze. After a long pause, he murmured to Lupin, “Do you see it?”
“A crack, you mean? Yes, I do.”
Holmes slowly moved the lantern downward. “I think it resumes just here.” He pointed. “A door need not have straight sides. And notice there at the right side of the wall, at its corner—it appears different from the other side.”
“There is a seam the length of the wall.” Lupin sounded elated. “A gap. We have found the secret door, have we not?”
“I believe so.”
“But how does it open?” Massier asked.
Holmes rubbed briefly at his chin. “That, of course, is the question. There must be some mechanism which activates at a press, a touch, or a pull.” He set down the lantern and began to feel about the wall. Lupin immediately did the same to the right side where the back and side walls met, while Massier hovered about them eagerly.
However, half an hour later, I was despairing that we would ever find the secret of the blasted door. Massier had started poking about the rest of the cave. Holmes and Lupin were down on their knees examining the line between wall and ceiling.
“I would swear it is about a meter wide,” Lupin said. “Again, there is a slight gap between the wall and the floorboards.”
Holmes nodded. “I agree. But how…?” He stood up and went to lean against the wall, but some curled ropes were in his way. “Blast it,” he murmured, then stopped abruptly. He raised the lantern and shone it on the adjacent wall. Someone had set a metal plate about three feet wide with three hooks into the wall, and the ropes and a jacket were hanging from them.
Holmes eagerly threw everything aside, clearing the metal plate, then tried moving variation combinations of the three hooks. Lupin watched briefly, then seized his arm. “Let’s try pressing all three.”
Holmes nodded, then took the first and second one, even as Lupin took the third. The hooks had thus far been unyielding, but now they all jerked downward, triggering a sort of clanking grinding sound from within, even as a section of the back rock wall swung inward perhaps three inches on the left side.
“Eureka!” Lupin cried.
Massier and I grinned at each other. “I’ll fetch the baron,” he said.
Holmes took up the lantern, then pushed the door further inward. It was clever sort of thing, constructed of metal, with a slab of rock all along the face. Three sides were straight, aligned with the floor, ceiling, and right wall, while the left side was completely uneven and followed the rough shapes of rock shards along that edge. Inside was another smaller cave—a cave within a cave—and dominating the space were three large, antique-looking, dark wooden chests reinforced with black metal, sitting upon the wooden planks of the floor.
“My God,” Lupin murmured. “We’ve found it, after all.”
Holmes smiled triumphantly at me. “Oh very good!” I exclaimed.
Nothing could have stopped Lupin. He stepped inside, yanked open one lid, then another and another, even as Holmes shined the lantern on the contents. The first two were piled with gold coins, and the third—the light lingered there on heaps of gems and jewelry—red rubies, green emeralds, clear glittering diamonds, blue sapphires, of every size and cut, alone and unadorned, or set in gold or silver bracelets and necklaces. It was like some fortune from the Arabian Nights, from the cave of Ali Baba himself.
“How beautiful!” Lupin cried.
The baron and Massier crowded in behind me. “You were telling the truth, after all, Monsieur Holmes.” The baron sounded faintly surprised.
Lupin ran one hand through the jewels, then withdrew a large diamond and glanced at Holmes. “Let’s have a look!” Holmes raised the light, and Lupin held the gem in its beam. He frowned in concentration as he turned it slightly, and behind the lenses of his spectacles, his eyes grew almost stern. He glanced up at Holmes, and some unspoken communication seem to pass between the two of them.
“Put that back, Beautrelet!” the baron exclaimed.
“In a moment. Don’t worry, I won’t steal any of your precious treasure.” He and Holmes turned off to the side, and Lupin had his back briefly to us, blocking the light. I heard him sigh, and then he turned again. “I happen to know something about jewels, I can assure you that it is a perfect stone. It is flawless.”
“I wonder…” Holmes murmured, even as he swept the light all about the smaller cavern. “Well, obviously the three caskets are the only thing in here.”
Lupin made a grandly exaggerated bow toward the baron, cap in hand. “Congratulations, monsieur le baron. You can go ahead and build your fleet of submarines, and then conquer the world!”