11. Charades

That is my Job

Holmes requisitioned the Library at the Travellers Club as our headquarters.

We extracted Mycroft and Billy from the party at Mycroft’s flat, and Holmes sent Churchill to Baker Street on the Goddess. Mycroft sat on a sofa and promptly fell asleep.

“We must let the Baker Street Irregulars know to report here,” said Holmes as he took a large map of London from a drawer and spread it across a table. “If the robbers go to the Russian Embassy and that energetic officer of Life Guards chases the gas van through the Embassy gates, which he will if he gets the chance, war is inevitable.”

He looked up at me with a predatory gleam in his eyes. “Thus far, the Russian involvement has been distant: carriages and horses lent, no more. I do not expect that they are entirely in the know. No, I do not think that the villains will take the Koh-i-Noor to the Embassy.”

“Let us hope that the Life Guards catch them on the street,” I said.

Holmes folded the map. “It may be disloyal of me, Watson, but I hope that they do not catch them at all; that is my job.”

I considered. “If we had gone straight up to the vault room at Buckingham Palace instead of chatting with the heralds, we might have caught the thieves red-handed, and prevented the theft, might we not, Holmes?”

“We might have; it was a possibility. But my dear friend, our first concern had to be the person of the Queen.”

Holmes glanced up, but he did not look me directly in the eye. I frowned a rather sceptical frown.

“Pass me the Shipping News, old chap,” he asked, after a long pause. I found the newspaper on a rack and passed it to him.

“There is one man in England who could have planned this, Watson; he is my evil doppelgänger, the Professor. There are perhaps four who could have carried it out. I fancy that any one of them would have made a better job of it. We are therefore up against a newcomer. This is his first caper at this level; He is Jonathan Dacre, a cadet, on trial.

“The aluminium ladder was a masterstroke. With its aid, they were able to continue the robbery even after the loss of their confederate. Two men stole one of the most valuable jewels in the world from the Queen’s apartments at Buckingham Palace. It shows how useless the Queen’s guards are when they are so easily gulled.”

“But why not just use the gas leak ruse to get under the window of the vault room, and then climb up and through the window? Why bother with the impersonation?”

“They did not know in which room the safe was installed. The fake Thakore picked door locks, found it and opened the window for his confederate. Even our dim-witted sentry might have been suspicious if two men had climbed up to the windows of the Queen’s apartments and forced them, gasmen or no. The impersonation gave them flexibility. And I can’t help thinking that young Dacre has a penchant for the dramatic.”

Holmes smiled and shook his head. “It is a fault.”

I smiled my own ironic smile as Holmes continued.

“The theft at the Travellers paid the thieves expenses. I am sure they received not just the price of the jewels, but much more for their political significance. They had the jewels, but they had to strike again to get the court clothes and invitation card to the reception.”

“Yes, I see that,” I said. “They did not take the clothes and invitation card in the first raid because they would have been missed. But why not take the emeralds, the clothes and the card in one swoop? And how did they know that Gondal wasn’t wearing the necklace that particular night? He said that he didn’t wear the emeralds because he was intending to visit a gaming house with his friends. It was a sudden decision; he wanted to cheer up his political adviser. How did the thieves know? And why did they take Kanji? Why go to the trouble of sticking the old fellow in the trunk and carting him out? What value does he have?”

“As so often, Watson, you ask the key questions. Why did they take him? Why did they not kill him? That would have unnerved the Thakore more than his kidnapping. The boy would have been in no state to go to a party. He might not have noticed the missing clothes and invitation until the next day. They have been strangely scrupulous considering the stakes. They are violent, but not murderous. It is as if someone, or something, is staying their hand.”

“Nothing rings true, Holmes. For the theft to succeed in its political dimension, the robbery must be made public. If Duleep Singh announces to the world that he is the reincarnated Lion of the Punjab and that he possesses the powerful Koh-i-Noor, who will believe him when the British government denies the fact and produces the brooch? The thieves saved the government some money by leaving a replica - well had saved until you broke it into several pieces.”

“Indian gemmologists will be able to tell that it is genuine and not a fake,” Holmes countered. “They are among the best in the world. However, you are right again, my dear friend; you focus on the crux of the affair. Who would believe them against the word of our government without confirming evidence?”

Holmes clapped me on the shoulder. “The plan was good, the execution unsteady; success trumped their mistakes. This young man will do well, after a period of apprenticeship. It is unfortunate for him that he came up against me so early in his career. I hope he is not the sensitive type.”

He called out through the Library doors for a pageboy. A boy peeked nervously around the door. “Coffee,” said Holmes. “Strong and black. Quick as you like, this is a national emergency.”

He drew up a chair to one of the Library desks and flipped through the Shipping News. He ringed an entry. “Wake Mycroft, would you, Watson? He will get snappy if I do it. We will need his help tonight.”

I shook Mycroft’s shoulder. He coughed and felt bleary-eyed for his pipe.

“Now,” said Holmes. “The robbers will want to be in a safe haven, far from British jurisdiction, as soon as possible. That leaves the train - there are no trains to the Continent until the morning, and then they will be closely watched - or a steamer.”

“They expect to have fooled us with the fake brooch,” I suggested. “They think that they have time. Why should they rush?”

Holmes stood and adjusted his necktie in the mirror over the fireplace.

“What Sherlock is intimating by that little display at the mirror, Doctor,” said Mycroft with a dry chuckle, “is that the gang knows that the great Sherlock Holmes is on the case.”

“They have some respect for my abilities,” Holmes snapped. “Else they would not have tried to scare me - us - with the bomb. Do not pout, Watson, old friend. You know that when I say me, I mean you and me, and Churchill, of course. It is like saying England when you mean England, Scotland and Wales.

“The explosion was, like their other efforts, tentative and ineffective. I believe that they worried over and adjusted their plan. The first steamer leaving for the Continent tomorrow is the paddle steamer Biarritz, bound for Hamburg and Saint Petersburg. I am certain that they will be on it.”

“Russia!” I exclaimed.

“Not just Russia, the Imperial capital,” said Mycroft with a look of intense concern. “The Koh-i-Noor would impress Alexander. He knows its history and covets it. He will be afraid too: they say that it cannot be worn by a man without dreadful consequences. If he infiltrates Maharajah Duleep into the Punjab with the jewel, the consequences could be catastrophic. He could set the subcontinent aflame!”

“We must inform Lestrade and have the ship searched,” I said.

“On what grounds?” asked Holmes. “We have no proofs. And, according to the Shipping News, she is carrying despatches to the Russian Imperial Court.”

“There would be an immense scandal if the police boarded her and found nothing,” said Mycroft sharply. “It might trigger an incident that could have tragic European repercussions. We must have proof. Then, with the Prime Minister at my back, I can fire up the mandarins at the Foreign Office, conjure an excuse and have the paperwork arranged to detain her.

“And it will take time, rounding up the Powers-That-Be after Jubilee Day. It will be a Labour of Hercules. I cannot guarantee anything until late afternoon. Doctor Watson is right, Sherlock: the ship must be delayed.”

“We must make certain sure that our quarry is aboard her before we act,” said Holmes. “Act, act,” he said to himself. “I wonder?”

He pulled out a briar pipe and lit it.

The pageboy entered with a tray of coffee. I poured coffee as the Holmes brothers meditated over their pipes.

The clock on the mantel struck the quarter hour.

“A comic interlude,” said Holmes with a smile.

“A charade,” said Mycroft, nodding.

Holmes sat at a desk and began to scribble on sheets of Travellers Club notepaper.

Curiosity overcame my manners, and I peered over Holmes’ shoulder. “The second and third notes are perfectly illegible, Holmes. Anyone would think that you are the doctor. I shall rewrite them.”

“Hurry, the Biarritz sails in four hours,” he said. “Fetch me down the Almanach de Gotha.”

He flicked through the pages. “Ah, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; he will do. I laid bare a scheme by French scoundrels to blackmail his butler. He will not mind if I borrow his title in the Queen’s service. There, Watson, you must play a German.”

I gave him a snarl and a sneering look. “I shall require a monocle,” I demanded in a Prussian bark.

Mycroft chuckled and Holmes shook his head. “My dear fellow, you are too thoroughly an Englishman. It is an admirable trait. No, no, let me think; of course, you shall play a doctor. We need to find a proper foreigner, preferably a German or a Russian.”

“What about a Greek?” I suggested. “Mr Melas speaks Russian, and he is to hand.”

“Again, my dear fellow, you hit the mark. Pass me the notepad.”

Churchill reappeared with a negative report from the Irregulars. Nothing stirred at the Russian Embassy.

“You brought Bessie?” asked Holmes.

Churchill yawned and nodded. Holmes turned to me. “Bessie is the most powerful cyclist in our household, is she not?”

“At the moment,” I agreed reluctantly.

Holmes checked his watch. “Roads in Central London and the City are closed to commercial traffic until two. I need Bessie and Billy to deliver these notes with the Goddess. We will meet at our assembly point in two hours. I suggest that meanwhile we should try to get some sleep on the Library sofas.”

I was certain that in my state of nervous exhaustion I would not be able to close my eyes for a moment. The look on Mycroft’s face as he expressed his grave doubts as to our success; the terrible consequences of failure, in European and Asiatic terms, had chilled me to the bone. With modern guns and explosives, any war would be as bloody, or bloodier as the terrible recent conflict between the American states. Could England survive such a terrible war?

“Watson! Watson, wake up. It is time.”

Holmes, Mycroft and Churchill sipped steaming cups of coffee. They looked wan and dispirited in the yellow gas-light.

“Billy picked up a private cab on the way home and he persuaded the driver here at double fare,” said Holmes. “He and Bessie have done well. All my messages were delivered and the recipients have agreed to act with us. It is a wonder what can be achieved when one can request and require in the name of the Queen. Churchill brought your pistol and medical bag, my dear friend; we may need both.”

We filed downstairs, through the hall and past the doorkeeper of the Travellers Club. The Green Goddess stood behind the cab under a street lamp. Billy had wired an oil lamp to her and it still glowed fitfully. She had done well, I thought, but I was happy to climb into the cab and let horsepower do the work of leg power. My hams ached abominably, and I had felt a twinge or two from my war wounds. As we climbed aboard our four-wheeler, Churchill yawned prodigiously.

“Make an effort, Churchill,” said Holmes. “Try to look Greek.”

Cry God for Victoria!

The streets were dark and empty as we clattered south towards the River.

The Jubilee illuminations had been doused, and the revellers of the night before slept in their beds. I wished that I too were under a soft blanket in my bed in Baker Street.

We alighted at the entrance to the Savoy Theatre on the Victoria Embankment. The doors were open and gas lamps lit in the foyer. A tired-looking commissionaire sat on a chair just inside, smoking a cigarette. A pageboy leant against the wall of the foyer, asleep. He woke and jumped to attention as we entered.

“Smarten up, young man,” Holmes snapped. “Take us to the stage.”

We followed the boy through a side door and along narrow, dusty corridors to the wings. The stage was dark and empty. The bright-yellow theatre curtain was up, and the auditorium was dimly lit by gas lamps. I had an impression of several figures huddled in the first few rows of the stalls. Holmes nodded to a stagehand who sat at a complicated looking board, like one of the machines that one saw at the back of telegraph offices. It emitted a strange buzzing sound. The man pulled up a handle and electric globes ignited, bathing the stage in a brilliant white light.

Holmes strode to centre stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried in ringing tones into the auditorium. “I have called you here today on a matter of the gravest international consequence. A great conspiracy has been constructed against Her Majesty the Queen, against the Empire, and particularly against that magnificent jewel in the Imperial crown, India.

“We will endeavour to return to its rightful owner, the Prince of Gondal, the emerald necklace that is the emblem of the rulers of his state, and the source of that principality’s spiritual power.”

He bowed to where I could make out the young prince and his friend in the front row of the stalls. The Thakore of Gondal stood and acknowledged a smattering of applause.

“We intend to return another great jewel to Her Majesty,” Holmes continued. “To do so, we must pit our wits against one of the greatest criminal minds in this century of the world. His minions violated the sanctity of the Queen’s private apartments and stole a most precious possession. They intend to use it to incite treason and foment rebellion. What we do this morning may avert a tragedy of European proportions. Failure may mean a loss of human life on an unimaginable scale. The Russian bear is poised on our border in Kashmir; only we may turn him back. We must recover a literal jewel in Her Majesty’s crown, the symbol of that martial race, the Sikhs, and the key to the Punjab: the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”

Holmes bowed again, and I joined in a barrage of applause that, despite our thin ranks, seemed to fill the theatre. The house lights came up as man in a black frockcoat and high top hat walked down the aisle to the orchestra pit clapping his hands.

“Bravo, Mr Holmes,” he said. “I shall have to find a place for you in our next production. How would Captain Corcoran suit? We may revive Pinafore in the autumn.”

Holmes laughed. “You are too kind, Mr Carte.”

“That is Mr D’Oyly Carte, the impresario and owner of the Savoy Theatre,” I exclaimed.

“He is our director,” Holmes murmured.

“Beginners, please,” said Mr Carte looking at his notes. “We need the Greeks, man and boy, with nurse and servant girl.”

I took my chance to view the electric lights that illuminated the stage more closely. I had seen The Mikado in electric light the previous year, but I had not had the opportunity to examine a globe close up. I sat on a bench and peered at one. It looked like a small laboratory flask with a clear, bright flame in the centre. There was no particular smell. I blinked and saw strange flashes before my eyes; I felt dizzy for a second. I sat back, blinked again and looked away.

Mr Carte appeared on stage and marshalled his performers. “Mr Melas, is it, sir? Then yours is the plum part. According to my note, Mr Holmes wishes you to play a Greek nobleman. This boy, Winston Spencer-Churchill, is your son. You are in the pay of the Russians and spying on England. You are blown upon: suspected. English detectives dog you, etcetera and so on. You must escape to Russia. The Russian Embassy has given you documents that will convince the captain of the Biarritz to convey you to Saint Petersburg in secret. Good. I am happy to see, Mr Holmes, that there is no magic lozenge in the plot. If you decide to make it into a light opera, Mr Sullivan will have no objections. Willy will find suitable Greek clothing from the Wardrobe department.”

He looked around. “Where is Willy?”

“Here, sir,” cried a sweet voice, and an effete young man with a shock of ginger curls came out from the wings.

“Greek nobleman and son, Willy. Now, Mr Melas, you will have to improvise your lines; the gist is a plea for help and a heavy bribe. We can go through the scene and block out the moves with me as the ship’s captain. The chief point is that your request for help is sustained by a banker’s draft for - how much Mr Holmes?”

“A sufficient amount, Mr Carte. I am arranging the paperwork.”

I joined Holmes at a small table that had been set up at the side of the stage directly under an electric globe. A short bald man sat at it surrounded by papers and inks. I nodded to Wiggins who stood behind him.

“No change at the Russian Embassy, Doctor, except that there’s a brigade of cavalry looking ugly and ominous through the gates. We rescued a window cleaner and his lad on a cart that was about to be spitted by the Life Guards. Let me introduce my uncle Josiah.”

The bald man half rose from the table and bowed.

“Uncle Josiah,” I said. “The forger who -”

Churchill poked me in the arm and nodded to where Lestrade and two police constables sat in the auditorium. He put a finger to his lips.

“These documents, Mr Holmes, sir,” said Josiah in a business-like tone. “Should they be in Russian or French?”

Holmes called across the stage to Mr Melas and repeated the question.

“French, Mr Holmes,” said Mr Melas instantly. “The Russians subjugate their serfs in Russian; they whip them in Russian. Aristocrats and men of power communicate in the language diplomatique.”

Josiah nodded. “I am thinking a personal note from Ambassador de Staal at the Russian Embassy to Captain Barshai of the steamer Biarritz. And a flimsy from some functionary at the embassy attached to a promissory note on the London and Counties Bank for a hundred pounds.”

“So much?” I asked.

“Let us not stint,” said Holmes airily. “Make it two hundred, in guineas.”

“Now, passports,” Josiah continued. “I’m afraid that I cannot manage a Greek passport in the time, sir. What I can do is a pair of British passports that would fox Lord Salisbury himself. I have some suitable forms.” He shuffled through his sheets of velum and found several sheets ready-printed with the Royal Arms.

“We’ll date the passport 1883,” said Josiah with a grin. “I’ll leave off the sixpenny stamp. The gentleman can say that the Russians faked it up for him, the hounds.”

“Very well, Mr Wiggins,” said Holmes. “I see that I can leave the documents in your capable hands. And may I trespass on your time a moment more when you have finished? I have some interesting documents on which I would like your professional opinion.”

I drew Holmes’ attention to a new arrival in the auditorium. The district nurse who had looked after Mrs Hudson earlier that year waved to me.

“Ah, Nurse Levine,” Holmes said. “Thank you so much for answering our call. I would ask you to play Churchill’s nurse or nanny. His actual one is far too volatile or we would have included her. Perhaps you could join Mr Carte up here for a run through? You need say little until the final act.”

Mr Carte sent the beginners off to costume and called for the players in Act Two.

“Inspector Lestrade,” Holmes called. “Pray come up with your men and join in our little travesty. You will play a Scotland Yard detective. You must try to conceal your natural shrewdness and investigative acumen. You must pretend to be easily gulled and a little slow; you must pretend to be a plodder. Can you do that, Inspector?”

“I will do my best, Mr Holmes,” said Lestrade looking doubtful.

“A seedy detective, eh,” said Mr Carte as Lestrade led his constables onto the stage to a general round of applause. “Yes, I think your present attire may suffice. Your men look moderately authentic. They need not be too officious; they might lounge about, looking insouciant. We do not want to frighten our bird too early.”

“Insouciant it is, sir,” said Lestrade. “I will apprise the constables.”

Mr Carte drew the police to one side of the stage and ran them through their parts.

The young man with the ginger curls appeared on stage again leading Mr Melas and Churchill. I found it hard to contain my laughter. A waxed Crown-Prince Wilhelm moustache with sharp, upturned points and a short goatee beard had replaced Mr Melas’ own moustache and beard. He wore a white, tight-fitting jacket, and grey pantaloons glittering with sequins. He carried two swords and had a dagger tucked into his stockings. On his head was a red fez.

Churchill wore a similar outfit made more ludicrous by gold slippers with curled toes.

“Tut, tut, Willy,” said Mr Carte after a moment of consideration. “Not one of your best efforts, I fear. They look like refugees from a Turkish bath.”

“That’s where we got the clothes from, sir; the one in Mitre Street that closed.”

“Ha!” cried Mr Melas. “Turkish!” He pulled off his fez and dashed it to the ground. He stamped on it and ripped his tunic across his breast with a wild cry in what I supposed was emphatic Greek.

“Excellent, Monsieur Melas,” said Mr Carte, smiling. “I see that you are already in character. Frock coat and orders, Willy.”

“Steamer trunk, is it Mr Carte?” he asked.

“No, they left in a hurry. Just a couple of Gladstone bags. Fill them with clothes. Let them be untidy and hastily packed. Money: they’ll need cash. A roll of sovereigns perhaps, Mr Holmes, for grease (not the country, I mean palm oil)? We have a bag of farthings painted gold that might suffice.”

Willy led Mr Melas and Churchill off the stage as the pageboy handed out glasses of brandy from a tray.

“Let our cast assemble for dress rehearsal of Act One,” said Mr Carte. “Mr Melas, nurse, maid and son alight on the dock from a furiously driven four-wheeler. Mr Melas goes aboard and demands to see the captain. Madame Levine and the maid help the boy up the gangplank. Master Spencer-Churchill may cough; he has succumbed to the putrid exhalations of London.”

Mr Melas mimed jumping from a cab. He now wore his own frockcoat and top hat with a scarlet sash across his breast covered in glittering orders and medals. He and Mrs Levine helped Churchill, clad in his sailor suit, out of the carriage. A young girl carried two bulging bags.

“My dear Spencer-Churchill,” said Carte. “You may not swoon in such an eighteenth-century fashion; be a brave little trouper. Try to look a little more Greek.”

Carte played the Captain. He and Mr Melas concluded their discussion and a heavy leather purse changed hands. The boy, Churchill, was hustled offstage to a cabin. After a short interval, the police arrived in the person of Inspector Lestrade and his men. His men lounged most effectively as Lestrade braced the captain and insisted on going aboard the ship. He said that they were searching all outbound vessels for a man and boy, with servants. He gave a poor description of the fugitives and was unclear regarding the reason that the Greeks were sought. Rebuffed by the Captain, he retired stage right.

“Not too bad, considering,” said Mr Carte as he shrugged on his frock coat. “They’ll do. The police inspector is a natural. He has just the right ratty expression, and a perfect wheedling voice.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Mr Carte,” said Holmes shaking his hand. “Not only for your directorial skills, but also for the loan of your theatre at this ungodly hour.”

“The Queen, my dear fellow,” Mr Carte said with an airy wave. He took a fresh brandy from the tray and raised it in salute. “God bless her. Are you quite comfortable with the Third Act and Finale, sir?”

“I believe so. I want it to be fresh. We will have a short run-through at the dock.”

Carte nodded. “Break a leg, Mr Holmes.” He drank his brandy and strode out of the theatre to general applause as Mycroft Holmes arrived.

“Ah, Brother,” said Holmes. “You know your part?”

“I do, Brother. I am leaving immediately. I believe that if you can hold the Biarritz until noon, I will be able to gather enough members of the Judiciary, dead to the world and hung-over though they will be, to sign an order to detain and search her. If she sails before then, we are lost.”

He marched to the door, then turned in the doorway. “You achieved your ambition after all, Sherlock,” he said with a sly smile.

“Ambition, Brother?”

Mycroft smiled again and left with the two Indian princes. I saw them to the entrance of the theatre and into a cab. I looked a question as Mycroft settled himself.

“Sherlock wanted to be an actor at one point in his childhood, an actor manager, in fact. He likes to be in charge.”

I waved goodbye as Wiggins passed me with his uncle. I shook their hands. “No change at the Russian Embassy, Doctor. The Life Guards is having a quiet smoke.”

Holmes gave me a narrow look as I joined him again on stage. I said nothing.

“Did you hear that Wiggins’ uncle refused to accept a fee, Watson? We are a noble race, from top to bottom. I shall send him a Dundee cake.”

Holmes darted on to the stage. “Gentlemen and ladies to the carriages outside. We will have a final rehearsal at the wharf.”

I ushered everyone outside the theatre, then I remembered that I had left my gloves and stick on a bench at the side of the stage. I hurried back inside. The electric lights were extinguished, and an old woman was dousing the gaslights in the empty auditorium. A single forgotten spotlight lit a small section of the stage. As I stomped down the aisle, a blue-uniformed figure stepped into the limelight.

Holmes lifted his arm to the gods.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot;

Follow your spirit: and upon this charge,

Cry God for Victoria, England and Saint George!

Just be yourself

“What is my part, Holmes? I have not rehearsed.”

We walked arm-in-arm across the Embankment towards the Thames. Holmes was dressed in a naval uniform I did not recognise.

“You do not need to, old chap. You play yourself. Ah, here we are.”

A steam launch waited at the pier. Two heavyset men in bowlers sat huddled at the stern. The engineer nodded to Holmes and we started downriver at an easy pace. He did not introduce the men and I was too tired to ask who they were.

We passed under Waterloo Bridge, along the Embankment and slowed as we negotiated the congested steam packet wharf at London Bridge. The engineer did not increase speed until we were through the piers of the hideous opening bridge under construction at the Tower. Most contributors to the letters columns of the Times had expressed distaste for the design. It is as much a blot on the manly face of London as Monsieur Eiffel’s monstrous iron mast would be on the gentle visage of Paris.

The hundreds of barges moored out from the southern, Bermondsey, side of the River created a logjam that narrowed the fairway. We clung to the northern bank, manoeuvring between cargo vessels and avoiding numerous skiffs and ferries.

I must have dozed, as I woke with a start as the launch nudged against a small pier opposite the Surrey Docks at Wapping. Holmes and I stepped off. He pointed to a large paddle-wheel steamer berthed at a quay fifty yards downstream. We could see in the light of a blazing naphtha lamp that her gangplank was down.

“Biarritz.”

“Good Lord, Holmes. She is huge.”

I followed him along the waterfront. We saw nobody on the dock. We ducked into an alley between two warehouses and crossed a railway line. A four-wheeler waited beside an empty signal box. Standing by it were Churchill, Mr Melas, Mrs Levine and the maid.

Another carriage drew up and Lestrade and his constables alighted. Holmes lit a cigarette and checked his watch. “Two minutes.”

He turned to Churchill. “Try to look sad.”

Churchill instantly burst into tears.

Holmes nodded, puffing on his cigarette. “Good.”

“Oh, my dear fellow,” I said softly, putting my arm around the boy’s shoulder. “There is no need to be worried. I am sure that Holmes has everything in hand.”

“I was thinking of my first school. I was unhappy there.”

“Oh, well, you will be at Harrow next year. I am sure that will be great fun,” I said doubtfully.

Holmes stamped out his cigarette half-smoked. He nodded to Mr Melas, and he and his group, including Churchill, boarded the cab. Holmes opened an official-looking briefcase and took out a brush, a tin and a small bottle of water. He poured the water over the cab horse’s back and shoulders. He opened the tin and stirred the contents with the brush.

“Your shaving powder,” he murmured. “I got Billy to pick it up from home.” He applied the powder to the damp patches on the horse and produced a foam as if the horse had been driven hard and fast. The horse looked back at him with a puzzled expression and its ears flicked anxiously back and forth.

“Very well,” he said to the driver. “Drive like fury.”

The cab rumbled away, gaining speed as it followed the road curving across the railway tracks towards the dock.

“We wait.” He lit another cigarette and passed me the packet.

I imagined the scene at the Biarritz: Mr Melas striding up the gangplank followed by his ailing son and followers, his interview with the captain, the palm grease applied and a cabin procured. That was what I hoped was occurring.

“What if there are no free cabins, Holmes?”

“Melas will offer a further inducement for ship’s officers to double up and make one of their cabins available. I have done so myself on two occasions.”

Holmes checked his watch. Lestrade watched him nervously. Holmes leaned towards him and whispered something in his ear that seemed to buck him up. He and his men climbed into their carriage and set off at a spanking pace, turning across the rails in a shower of sparks. They passed the empty four-wheeler coming back.

The cabman reported that the Melas family had boarded the vessel and that he had seen nothing untoward. Holmes gave him another bottle of water and the man washed the foam from his horse.

“So far so good, Doctor,” said Holmes. “We have given the Melas story some reinforcement. You are on in about twenty minutes. Yours is the crucial performance.”

“What did you say to Lestrade, Holmes?”

“He plays a seedy detective. I told him that the secret of great acting is to be yourself. It is almost dawn.”

I heard a far-off screech and a woman ran across the tracks ahead of us. As she got closer, I saw that it was the maid who had been with Mr Melas. She ran up to us, panting.

“Gawd love us,” she said in a surprisingly deep voice. “Anyone got a fag?”

She looked at me and winked. I saw to my astonishment that under the rouge and powder was Willy, the costume attendant at the Savoy Theatre.

“Monsieur Melas sends the maid for a doctor,” said Holmes. “His young son is feverish. She runs to the Port Authority Office.”

I offered Willy a cigarette from Holmes’ pack.

“Now, Doctor,” said Holmes, “what disease strikes the greatest fear into every man’s soul?”

“The plague,” I said without hesitation.

“We must therefore give Churchill the plague.”

“Do you think that I carry plague-ridden rats about my person, Holmes?” I asked stiffly.

“No, my dear fellow. Kindly instruct Mr Willy how he may simulate that dread disease with his paints.”

I blinked. “I don’t understand. How will Churchill having the plague stop the ship from sailing? They will throw the Greeks off and depart on schedule.”

“They will be in quarantine,” said Holmes.

“Quarantine for a ship leaving a port?”

“A new medical inspection agency for London Port was formed this year,” said Holmes. “The new regulations are not well known. I intend to trade on that uncertainty and make a departure inspection. I am an official of the newly formed London Port Sanitary Authority. You are a doctor co-opted to the Authority. You simply diagnose the plague, I am sent for and I issue a quarantine notice. Britain does not want the Russians to be infected with the plague. You know how much we regulate and nanny the world. I have the forms here, courtesy of Wiggins’ uncle Josiah.”

“Holmes, a deliberate misdiagnosis? It is sailing close to the struck-off-the-medical-register wind. I am not sure -”

“It is a play, Watson, a badinage. You are not you; you are Doctor Ambrose of the LPSA.”

“I’m not at all sure -”

“The Queen, Watson,” he said sternly.

I sighed my own, almost Continental, sigh.

“Very well.”

Holmes pulled out his watch. He nodded to the cabman, and Willy and I climbed aboard the four-wheeler.

Our cab took off at a spanking pace, rattled over the railway lines and turned onto the wharf. We stopped at the gangplank of the Biarritz. Close to, the ship was even more massive than I had thought when I first saw her. Holmes and Willy followed me up the gangplank and onto the main deck of the ship. A young officer saluted us and ushered us up a steep ladder to the bridge, where an imposing Russian officer awaited us.

Captain Barshai was everything I could have expected. He was well over six feet tall, and powerfully built. He had white hair under his cap, a large, white, spade beard and twinkling blue eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. He shook my hand with a manly grip.

“Good morning, Captain,” I said. “I am Doctor Ambrose of the London Port Sanitary Authority. Where is the lad?”

He pulled out his watch and showed it to me. “We sail in forty-minutes, Doctor,” he said in heavily accented English. He gestured for me to follow the maid - Willy.

Willy and I descended two decks down. The smell was a strange combination of coal, turpentine and stale tea. Willy opened the door of a starboard-side cabin and revealed Churchill on the lower of an arrangement of twin bunks, groaning softly. He grinned up at me and let out a long gasp of pain. Mr Melas sat in a desk chair with his legs crossed, smoking a cigar in a holder; he looked very Greek. Nurse Levine sat on a sofa quietly knitting.

Willy pulled a box of make-up from a Gladstone bag and looked expectantly at me. I tried to recall my medical training of so many years ago.

Fifteen minutes later, I made my way up on deck. The Russian Captain chatted with Holmes.

“How long has that boy been aboard?” I asked the Captain in as stern a voice as I could manage.

“One hour, or less,” the Captain answered.

I shook my head. “Come with me.”

Holmes and the Captain followed me down to the cabin. I instructed them to make masks from their handkerchiefs and I made a mask of my own. The Captain gave me an anxious look.

“Do not enter the cabin; hold your breath,” I instructed as I opened the door. Churchill was still in bed, attended only by a white-faced Nurse Levine. On my nod, she pulled back the bedclothes.

Churchill was covered from neck to navel with putrid, red sores. They oozed white matter. The boy groaned expressively. Holmes dry-retched and staggered outside. The Captain bent forward and examined the sores with interest. He said something to himself in Russian. I pulled him back into the corridor.

We made our way up to the top deck again. I made a show of flinging my handkerchief overboard.

“I have to inform you, sir,” I said to the Captain, “that your passenger is exhibiting symptoms of a dangerous disease: it is the plague.”

He crossed and recrossed himself in the Russian manner. “I see in Riga. Next will come the -”

He mimed lumps on the skin.

“Buboes,” I said. “Yes. The disease is extremely contagious.”

The Captain shrugged. “In Riga, they shoot.”

“I regret that we are not empowered to employ such draconian measures in the Port of London,” said Holmes.

Mr Melas came up on deck with his cigar. He smiled cheerfully. “Ah, Doctor. How is young Philip? It is one of those childish fevers, I make no doubt. The sea air will blow it away in a trice.”

“I have bad news for you, sir,” I said, feeling stiff, uncomfortable and foolish. “Your son is very ill: he has the plague.” Mr Melas threw his hand to his brow and staggered to the ship’s rail. He choked back a tear and clung, quivering, to a stanchion. Holmes and I exchanged nervous looks. His acting was of the melodrama variety, with gasps and pale vapourings. He gave us a final, tortured look and rushed down the stairs. I avoided Holmes eyes.

The Captain seemed unperturbed by Melas’ behaviour. I recalled that Mr Melas not only played a Greek, he was in actual fact Greek. His English accent was so precise that it was easy to forget that he was, after all, irredeemably foreign. I turned to Holmes.

“Anyone who has been in contact with the boy must be isolated.”

Holmes nodded solemnly. “The steamship Biarritz is hereby placed under quarantine by order of Her Majesty’s London Port Sanitary Authority, I am serving you, Captain, with this Quarantine form - please sign here and here - and by the power vested in me I require you to proceed to the Quarantine Wharf at Gravesend where your papers will be examined. What is your cargo, sir?”

“Mixed: wool and cotton goods, machinery parts, ten thousand rifles, million of ball ammunition. I carry twenty passengers with servants and Russian Embassy valise diplomatique.”

“I will arrange a pilot boat to guide you to the Gravesend jetty,” said Holmes. “Failure to adhere to the regulations may result in forfeiture of your ship and cargo, sir.”

The Captain’s face paled under his beard. He crossed himself again.

“I must inform the authorities,” said Holmes. “Will you stay, Doctor?”

I shook my head. “There is nothing that I can do. I have provided his nurse with opiates. She will make the boy as comfortable as possible. We must let nature take its course.”

Holmes shook the Captain’s hand. “The pilot boat will be here in a few minutes, Captain. You may contact your company by telegraph from our offices in Gravesend.”

They saluted. The Captain held his salute as I held out my hand. There was fear in his eyes. I followed Holmes down the gangplank and along the wharf towards our launch.

“Well done, Doctor!” Holmes murmured. “And well done the Savoy Theatre. Churchill looked to be at death’s door. Ha! How will Captain Barshai break it to our kidnappers and jewel thieves, I wonder? They will not be pleased.”

“I am unhappy leaving Churchill with them, Holmes. Remember Riga!”

It was grey dawn as we boarded our launch. The two strange men were back in their places in the stern. Holmes told the engineer to pass the Biarritz and hold just off her bow as he hailed her and instructed the Captain to follow the launch at seven knots.

I heard shouts in Russian, clanking chains, the screech of steam whistles and the throb of heavy engines at work. We watched as the ship’s twin bow anchors were wrested from the mud of the riverbed. I heard the, at first soft, then growing, and finally thunderous sound of her huge paddle wheels beating the water into a tumult. She backed away from the wharf in clouds of spray, spun ponderously to face downstream and followed meekly as our launch led her towards Gravesend.

“We are sending the Russians arms and ammunition on the eve of a possible war, Holmes.”

“I had not considered the diplomatic bag, Watson,” he said. “That was remiss of me. If they put the jewels under embassy protection, that could be awkward. I will have to discard all except two of my backup plans.”

“I may be dim witted, Holmes,” I said. “I may miss a thing or two -”

Holmes held up his hand in deprecation.

“No, no. I do not claim to be your equal in intellectual matters, but is not this plan deuced complicated?”

“On the contrary, my dear friend,” Holmes said with a smile. “I had five separate plans to get us on board the steamer. This is the second simplest.”

Our small launch led the huge ship like a porpoise frolicking at its bow. The mist from the paddle wheels mixed with our funnel smoke and drifted over the River. We negotiated the tight curve at Greenwich, tooting our steam whistle to warn barges and ferries of our advance. We were part of a long procession of ships leaving the Port under sail and steam. There were cargo ships of all kinds and several large passenger steamers, both paddle and screw driven. We passed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ships in the docks on either side of the River. Their mast tops, and those of the cranes, glimmered with the first rays of the morning sun

The noise on the River grew as the light increased and the city awoke. I heard hammering and clanging from the factories, the thrum of paddle wheels, the muffled steady beat of engines and unintelligible yells and screeches from shore and ship.

The quays were crowded with men threading their way among huge stacks of cork, pyramids of barrels and bundles of raw cotton and made-up fabrics.

The stink of the River was overlain by that of the contents of the warehouses and ships that we passed: tobacco predominated, then coffee, creosote, rum and the stench of hides. I turned to make a remark to Holmes and I paled.

“Holmes!” I cried, pointing. “The Biarritz!”

The prow of the ship was directly behind us, coming up fast, her paddle wheels tossing up two huge clouds of spray like a pair of monstrous wings. Our engineer turned and held up his arms in horror. Holmes leapt for the tiller and heaved on it with all his might. I sprang to his aid. Our two mysterious passengers jumped up in alarm.

The launch turned slowly, slowly.

“Speed, damn you,” cried Holmes.

The engineer ran to the engine and opened the throttle wide. He blew his whistle repeatedly: there was no answer from the Biarritz. The towering bow cut behind our stern with a foot or less to spare. We rocked and almost spilled as the bow wave caught us. I heaved a sigh of relief, until I followed Holmes horror-stricken gaze and saw the massive paddle wheel churning towards us. It slashed past us splintering the rudder to pieces and soaking us all. Our launch bumped along the stern of the ship and spun behind her into her wake. The two men had pulled out revolvers and discharged them at the Biarritz.

“Stop that this instant,” I cried. “Our friends are aboard her.”

Bruiser Bonner, the bare-knuckle boxer, nodded to me and put his hand on the arm of his companion.

We had no control, but we floated; we drifted with the tide.

“Sorry, Doctor,” said Bruiser. “Me and Joe got carried away, like.” He introduced his companion, Joe Heenan, the Mayo Mauler.

I shook hands with them wearily. Water slopped over our stern and we had no means of propulsion or steering. It seemed ludicrous to go through the forms of politeness when we were in grave danger of sinking or being run down by the dozens of ships passing at speed in both directions.

One ship, a large, twin-funnelled, tall-masted paddle steamer with a ram bow headed directly towards us. The engineer and Holmes were in consultation in the stern. I ventured to tap Holmes on the shoulder and point out the oncoming vessel. He shaded his eyes and stared.

“Perhaps, my dear fellow, you would be so kind as to toot a welcome on our whistle while we still have steam?”