The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [113]
Yet I am afraid to tell you what happened.
It was a cold night, and the winter winds cut like bayonets through cloth. We were at the docks. Kangee and Mary and you, William Chaska, a baby. You were a happy baby. I remember that.
I was saying brief goodbyes. It was hard – I had grown attached to all of you, but you in particular, Orphan. It was not my intention…
There was nothing I could have done. Do you understand?
Kangee held you as he and Mary went onto the deck. I waited on the quay, and waved.
I didn't even hear the shot.
I heard Kangee scream. I heard the splash of water that was Mary, falling into the sea, dead before she hit it. It was the first time in my life that I was glad of not being able to see.
Across from us, in the top floor of the East India Company's warehouse, Tiger Jack was packing away his rifle. He had done his job.
Kangee came down with you in his arms. It was the only time I ever saw him cry. He was a broken man. How? he said. How could he know? Only the three of us knew of the plan. How did Tiger Jack know to wait when he did, where he did?
That was when I knew, Orphan.
It was the Bookman.
He had gone into my mind, had found the information there. It was he who set Sebastian Moran for the shot.
And that's when I knew, Orphan. It was only then I realised.
Mary's death was my fault.
Gilgamesh's figure was fading.
"It was my fault, Orphan," Gilgamesh said again. His voice was becoming fainter.
"What happened to… to Kangee?" and he thought, What happened to my dad?
"He tried to bring you up. Perhaps, if you weren't there, he would have sought revenge. But Sebastian Moran disappeared, gone to India, and there was you, a baby… He continued to work as a sailor, and you were kept by a succession of other sailors' wives while he was gone. When you were two years old, he went on a voyage, on a trading ship. It went to India… He never came back. They said he fell overboard, drunk, but your father was rarely drunk, and never on board ship."
"Was he murdered?"
A shrug, small and helpless, and Gilgamesh was fading even further, became the bare outline of a man.
"There was only you left… an orphan. I always kept my eye on you." The last things to remain of Gilgamesh were his eyes, blindly staring into nothing. "But so did the Bookman."
THIRTY-FOUR
Simpson's-in-the-Strand
I met him by appointment that evening at Simpson's, where, sitting at a small table in the front window, and looking down at the rushing stream of life in the Strand, he told me something of what had passed.
– Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes
Time passed slowly in the cells. Orphan and the other. Each was wrapped in his own thoughts.
A sound woke him up. It was the sound of someone quietly opening and shutting the door above the stairs, and doing so stealthily, not wanting to be noticed or observed. He waited, and for a moment could hear nothing. The other, he saw, was wrapped in a blanket; he seemed asleep.
The sound came again, different this time. Like feet stepping softly against the stairs, but growing louder, coming down into the cells.
He tensed, waited. There was someone there! He thought of raising the alarm, but who would listen? He opened his mouth–
"Hello, Orphan," said a familiar voice.
Standing on the other side of the bars was Irene Adler.
Orphan stared at her. So she had got his message after all. He said, "Inspector!" and received a tired smile in return, and a shake of the head. "I'm no longer an inspector, Orphan."
Irene Adler looked tired. There were new lines on her face, around her eyes. Her skin seemed almost colourless, her hair straggly, and Orphan wondered, with a sudden pain, what had happened to her since he had left. He said, "You got my message?" and saw a look of surprise flitter across Irene's face. "What message?"
"The two policemen who arrested me…"
Irene laughed.