The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [217]
“And the letter?”
Holmes shrugged. “We can search, but we will not find. You will have noticed my silence on the way here. I had reasoned that the cross with the leg indicated eleven o’clock, since nine o’clock, with the leg on the other side, would hardly have been practical with the man of the household leaving at that precise hour, a deduction which the Baroness was fully capable of appreciating I would surely make. We were meant to arrive too late, Watson.”
“She would hardly have connived at her own murder, Holmes,” I protested.
“The game was planned to a different end, Watson. Had Meyer not been the evil monster he is, I have little doubt we should have arrived, only to have the cook hand us a note from the Baroness mocking us for our tardiness. As it is –” He broke off, as the door opened behind us.
“Good morning, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson.” Lestrade’s eyes went to the bodies. “A pretty pickle,” he remarked after a moment.
“Meyer has preceded us both, Lestrade. I have no doubt that a certain rotund milkman I observed on his cart was he.”
“Shall I set my men after him, Mr Holmes? We can hold him and search his house.”
“And he will have the letter safely stowed elsewhere. He must hand it to his European masters.”
“Every port will be watched. Even callers to the Legation.”
“Good, good,” Holmes muttered absently.
“Suppose he sends it to von Holbach by mail or smuggles it by boat?” I asked.
“Such a prize is too valuable for that,” Holmes replied. “No, he will hand it over personally.”
“Then it won’t be in Germany,” Lestrade declared stoutly. “And we’ll be watching lest von Holbach comes here, and hold him.”
“On no account do so, Lestrade. Von Holbach is known to us, an agent who would then doubtless be sent would not be. Let the game continue.”
The days then weeks passed, while Holmes fretted. The newspapers carried a short paragraph about an unfortunate stockbroker who had returned to find his home full of police constables, and his cook together with a total stranger, who was as yet unidentified, lying murdered on his floor.
As June opened, a heightened sense of excitement swept through London as it prepared for Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee on the 22nd of the month. Carpenters were already at work on a huge stand in Whitehall, another in the churchyard of St Martin’s Church, and a colossal one by St Paul’s churchyard. Large sums were being demanded of the visitors now flocking into London from all quarters of the globe, for space at windows. From the eleventh of the month when the official programme was published, the sole topic of conversation wherever one walked or dined was Jubilee Day. Everywhere, that is, save in our Baker Street rooms, where my friend paced in silence save for a few days when he disappeared, and, I suspected, disguised as a beggar or postman, tramped the streets of London in search of his prey.
Even Mrs Hudson’s patience wore thin, as the air became thick with smoke, and meal after meal was returned uneaten. Pursuing the fiction of his illness, he avoided going out save in disguise, keeping the curtains drawn much of the time.
Of Adolph Meyer there was no sign whatsoever. Lestrade swore he had not left the country, but he was not to be found in London. His servants professed not to know his whereabouts. A watch on the Legation ensured he had not sought sanctuary there. Towards the end of the week of the 13th, decorations began to blossom all over the city, transforming grey stone into a veritable bower of flowers and coloured flags. Favours sprouted in buttonholes and hats, and bicycles and carriages streamed with red, white and blue.
Returning to Baker Street