The cottage was some five miles from Holmes’s original home on the South Downs. Nathan had told her he had moved because journalists had begun to seek him out to ask his opinion of the war and to wonder why the ‘Greatest Mind in England’ was not doing more for his country. Holmes had kept the new address even from MI5, insisting he could be reached via the classified advertisements of The Times if they ever needed his services. Which was unlikely. All at MI5, and its sister organization, MI6, knew that Holmes was a spent force, his remarkable energy exhausted, seemingly permanently, by his exposure to the Black Sands of Foulness. The man deserved his retirement and a peaceful twilight with his bees.
The cottage was modest but handsome enough, single storey, whitewashed, thatched – albeit in need of patching – with a small front garden, but a generous walled area to the rear, which was, perhaps, where he now kept his bees. Mrs Gregson asked the motor-taxi driver to wait and proceeded to knock on the door. It had been a long, slow train journey from London to Lewes and she felt a surge of disappointment when there was no immediate reply.
She gave a holding sign to the cabby and walked round the side. There was a wooden gate to the walled area and, when she tried the latch, it opened. The space beyond contained a few fruit trees and, at the rear, a row of hives, shut down for winter. The lawn needed a scything, but it was by no means overgrown.
She walked round the rain butt and tried the handle of the door that led to the kitchen. It turned freely, she leaned her shoulder against the glass and the swollen door broke from the frame with a squeak. It swung back on oiled hinges.
‘Mr Holmes?’ she hissed. ‘Are you in there?’ Then again, louder. ‘Mr Holmes? It’s Mrs Gregson. Georgina. May I come in?’
She took a breath, aware of her heartbeat thumping in her ears. Steel yourself, Georgina. He’s an old man and he lives alone. Anything could be waiting for her within. There was a slight tremor in her voice when she spoke again. ‘Mr Holmes?’
It was dark within the thick-walled cottage. The deep-set windows admitted little light. There was no sign of electricity. She found an oil lamp and a box of matches and lit it. She checked the temperature of the stove. Cold. As was the kettle. There was a dish in the sink, unwashed, the food crusted on hard. Mr Holmes had not been there for a day or two at least. She walked through to the sitting room, as stuffed full of books and magazines as she had expected, although a large stack of unopened brown boxes suggested there were more to see the light of day. She could smell pipe tobacco.
An oblong table dominated the room, a fine piece of oak made for a much larger, grander dwelling. Several books lay open on its surface, and the matching chair had been pushed back, as if the reader had recently got up and moved to another room.
She crossed to the fireplace. Again, the embers were cold, a few nuggets of charcoal, topped by a pile of burned, flaked paper. She sat in an old armchair, its red velvet seat and headrest shiny from use, one side darkened by smoke from the fire.
‘What are you doing, Mr Holmes?’ she asked herself. ‘Where are you?’
She felt her body sag with weariness. The tension was exhausting her, she knew, though she had the resolve to go on. But why? She hardly dared explore her feelings fully, for she was ashamed of herself. Ashamed at how she was toying with Robert Nathan, using whatever feminine charms she still possessed to jerk him around like a puppet. But it was in a good cause. It was for Dr Watson, the man she . . .
She what? She certainly held strong feelings for him, but once again she backed off from examining them too closely. Watson was twenty-five years older than she, at least. Yet he didn’t think or act that way. But could she imagine a life with him, after all this was over? Again, doubt clouded her vision of the future. But one thing was clear – if he died in some camp over there, she would never get to find out what she truly felt. And she would never forgive herself if she believed there was more she could have done to free him. It was, she knew, a selfish motivation, but if the end result was freeing Watson, who would complain? Not John.
The cabby’s horn parped with a brittle impatience.
Should she wait until Holmes returned? Perhaps take lodgings nearby? Or seek out Bert Cartwright? What she wanted was information on this Von Bork. Nathan had done her a service by uncovering the circumstances under which Holmes, Watson and Von Bork had met, near Harwich on the eve of the war. Clearly, Von Bork harboured some grudge against Watson, which was why he had struck him off the repatriation list. But what, exactly? Nathan had said the written records were sketchy in the extreme. All he knew was that a German spy ring had been broken just in the nick of time.
If only Watson were here to explain what role he had played in this particular adventure. Breaking spy rings didn’t sound like the John Watson she knew. No, it was Sherlock Holmes who would have been the prime instrument of espionage. It was he who liked subterfuge and disguise, not Watson. This Von Bork was simply lashing out at anyone involved in his defeat, when he should have been after Holmes . . .
Holmes! Perhaps he was the ultimate target.
She moved the lamp closer to the fireplace, to the embers she had touched. She picked them out one by one, trying to discern a scrap of writing, a postmark, any solid piece of evidence that could give truth or lie to her new suspicions. But there was nothing. The papers had been thoroughly burned.
She moved over to the desk and examined the books. There was one on beekeeping, a pamphlet on blood typing, a guide to the birds of England, a pre-war Baedeker, La Hollande et la Belgique. As if anyone would want to be a tourist in Belgium these days. Holland, though, had at least been spared the worst effects of the war, but again few tourists . . .
She snatched up the book and rifled through the pages, until she found what she was looking for. Or, rather, didn’t find it. The map at the rear of the book had been torn out, an act of vandalism that suggested a man in a hurry.
Holland. Sherlock Holmes was going to Holland. And she knew what the motive was – she even understood it, after a fashion. But she also knew that Holmes had to be stopped. Yes, John, she was certain, would want her to stop him. No matter what the cost.