The Wilhelm Conspiracy (A Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery) Read online

“The Colonel approaches,” said Holmes.

  “He will know the outcome. He and his men were on the platform. After they told me to return here, they were about to investigate.”

  The Colonel’s face was sombre. He shook his head, slowly and deliberately. He said, “At the hotel this morning we received an anonymous message. It said, ‘Harriet Radnar will be on the 7:30 train.’ We came as quickly as we could. My men saw everything. I wish that the two I had stationed at the platform entrance had stopped her, but she sprang up from her wheelchair and ran past them before they could react. Also, their orders were to prevent suspicious persons from going down the steps leading to the underpass and the southbound train.”

  “And she was running northward along the platform,” said Holmes.

  “My men and I simply watched her in astonishment, as did Dr. Watson here, though he has no doubt already told you. We saw her leap down to the tracks. Then she stumbled, as though she had been injured. The driver also confirms this. He applied the brakes, of course. Then the train drew closer and the front of the locomotive blocked his view of her, for his window was on the right side. Miss Radnar may have hesitated due to an injury. She may have been paralyzed by the fear of the huge steam engine that was bearing down on her so quickly. But the end result was that the driver could not stop the train soon enough.” The Colonel lowered his gaze. “After the initial impact, the locomotive ran over the body. There is very little that remains intact.”

  We stood silent for a long, nearly interminable moment. Lucy, tight-lipped and grasping her reticule tightly with both hands, turned to Holmes. He was looking out to the platform, where the express train still stood, its locomotive puffing black coal smoke into the air. His hawklike features shone with determination.

  “May we see the body?” he asked.

  “It has already been removed,” the Colonel replied.

  “How did you know it was Miss Radnar?”

  “Her name was embroidered in some of her clothing.”

  “We had to do that when we were at school,” Lucy said.

  “She was also wearing a purple scarf. It has her initials. I have it with me.” The Colonel opened a leather dispatch pouch and then a white cloth wrapper to display the scarf. The purple silk was bloodstained and bedraggled, but the initials “HR” were plainly visible.

  Lucy looked at it without flinching. “That is hers.”

  “She obviously was a woman of some spirit. Even drugged, she was determined to get free from the kidnappers. Had she been a few seconds quicker, she would have reached the other side in safety.”

  Holmes asked the Colonel, “Did you find the nurse?”

  “Regrettably, we did not. While my men were staring at Miss Radnar, the nurse apparently passed down the steps and through the underpass to where the southbound train was waiting. A thorough search has been made of the train, but so far it has not borne fruit.”

  “Was there anything unusual about the northbound express locomotive used on this morning’s run?”

  “It is the same locomotive I have seen pass through this station on hundreds of occasions,” the Colonel replied. “You may rest assured that the investigation will have my full attention, Herr Holmes. Now, may I ask why you are here?”

  Wordlessly Holmes held out a yellow telegram. It read:

  I HAVE ACQUIRED THE JEWEL BOX. CONTENTS APPEAR TO BE INTACT. KINDLY ARRANGE MILITARY PROTECTION AND ESCORT FOR TESLA, LUCY JAMES, DR. WATSON, AND ME TO RADNAR HOUSE, DOVER.

  S. HOLMES.

  As the Colonel finished reading the message, Holmes said, “This morning I sent this telegram to four persons, notifying each that a copy had been sent to the other three.”

  “And those persons?”

  “Ambassador von Bülow, His Imperial Highness Kaiser Wilhelm II, Lord Lansdowne, and Albert, Prince of Wales. I would expect that when you return to your station you will find your orders from the Ambassador.”

  “Where did you find the jewel box?”

  “It was here in the railway station, at the left-luggage counter.”

  “I shall need to inspect it.”

  “It is in a safe place. I am reluctant to disturb it,” said Holmes evenly. Not for one moment did his gaze flicker downwards, in the direction of the carpetbag barely concealed from the Colonel’s viewpoint behind Lucy’s dark wool skirt. Holmes went on, “I suggest you consult your orders before insisting on taking any unilateral actions on your own authority.”

  After the Colonel and his men had departed, I recovered my hat and coat from the beggar, paying him with ten gold marks and returning his crutch, which Holmes had left standing just alongside the entry door. Delighted, the man scrambled to his feet and walked out of the station onto the pavement, to the astonishment of several passersby who doubtless thought he had achieved a miraculous cure.

  Holmes’s four messages had the desired result. Since high officials on both sides knew that Holmes possessed the jewel box, it was impossible for the Germans to keep it for themselves without overtly breaking their promise to the Prince of Wales. Before the morning was over, we had received the Colonel’s assurance that we might safely take the jewel box back to England.

  The remainder of the day was spent notifying the appropriate parties and preparing for the journey home. Whatever triumph Holmes might have enjoyed due to his recovery of the jewel box was lost in the sombre aftermath of Harriet’s death. Both Harriet’s body and the jewel box had to be secured. Lord Radnar and Lady Radnar had to be notified. Fortunately the German and British authorities cooperated on the details of the travel arrangements to ensure that on the morrow we would board a train in Baden-Baden with the jewel box and Harriet’s coffin, and then travel safely across the border, across France, and across the Channel.

  After supper that evening, and after Holmes had gone upstairs, Lucy asked me to remain with her in the hotel parlour. Her voice had a forlorn tone and there was a little catch in her throat, but the firelight caught the glint of determination in her green eyes. She said, “I feel as though I am overlooking something important in this case.”

  I felt a rush of sympathy. “This is not the time to analyse all that has happened. You have had a shock. You have lost a friend.”

  “Please let me explain. There is something else. The thought of Harriet’s body—” She broke off with a shudder.

  “Of course. It would distress anyone. It distressed me, even though I am accustomed to injuries. There is more tea here—”

  “Please. Just listen. It is the association of a similar image that I am unable to clear from my thoughts. For some reason it has put me in mind of another death, or to be precise, two other deaths. The first death occurred at a stable in Connecticut, when I was away at school. The other death was one that you recorded in the story of Silver Blaze.”

  I feared the shock had been too much for her. “I do not see the connection.”

  “Oh, you will understand the connection between the two other deaths readily enough. It is the connection with Harriet that I am so certain is of great importance. But I cannot fathom why I should feel so certain.”

  “I do not follow you. But I am prepared to listen for as long as you wish.”

  “Thank you. I know you are tired and the hour is late. I shall describe the event from my own life first. I alluded to it last November, while we were searching for my mother in London. Holmes wanted me to stay away from the flat that was owned by that horrible man Worth. I told him I was perfectly able to take care of myself, and that a man who had attacked me several years before had not survived the encounter.”

  “I remember. We were standing together on the pavement on Piccadilly. You mentioned Silver Blaze.”

  “The man was the master of the riding stables frequented by us schoolgirls one year, the year that Harriet had first arrived. Harriet had been the object of his . . . advances, shall we say. He was a handsome enough fellow, and quite a local lothario, according to the school gossip. She confided in me that she
refused to meet with him at the stables after hours, and she thought he was mistreating her horse as a way of getting back at her. The stables were forbidden to us girls at that hour, as was any other place on the campus other than the library or the dining hall or our rooms. So Harriet had good reason not to comply with his request. I suggested that the two of us teach him a lesson. She would pretend to accede, but at the appointed hour when he came to meet her, he would find she had not come alone. I would be with her, and the two of us would confront him. We would go separately to the stables, so that if he were following her, he would not suspect. However, things did not proceed as we had planned.

  “The sky was dark after the sun went down, and inside the stables I could barely see the horses. I was a little on edge because Harriet had not yet arrived. So when I got to the stables, I turned on the light switch. But the lights would not go on. I found a spot in one of the horses’ stalls where I could see outside. I could see the man as he came near the stables. I could see that he was holding something behind his back. He turned one way and I could see that it was a gun. I groped around in the stall and found a water bucket, a wooden one with a cast-iron band around the bottom edge. I picked it up by the handle. I was afraid, but I was angry too. I kept thinking that he had somehow found out about our plan and that he had done something bad to Harriet.

  “As soon as I felt his presence and heard the rustle of his steps in the hay, I swung the water bucket. I caught him right across the shoulder with the bottom edge. It hit with a pretty significant wallop, but he didn’t flinch. He held his gun on me. He motioned that I should kneel down in front of him.”

  Her face tightened, as if she were recalling the contempt she had felt for the man. “I did kneel. But I braced my foot in front of me instead of kneeling fully, and then I grabbed his ankles and yanked his feet out so he went down on his back. I grabbed the bucket by the handle and hit him again—just as he tried to bring up the gun to aim it at me. I got him just above his ear. He dropped the gun. I picked it up and held it under his chin with one hand while I felt under his jaw for a pulse. There wasn’t one.”

  “He did not survive the encounter.”

  “Exactly.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and then she shrugged. “As I told you last November, I had just read your story of Silver Blaze in The Strand Magazine, and it came to me all at once exactly what I ought to do—I had to make it look as if he had been killed by one of the horses. I scraped up some blood from the floor and smeared it on the front hooves of Vixen, one of the wilder horses, and then I lifted the man’s body and dragged it into Vixen’s stall. I saw a knife in his belt, so I put that into the hand that had held the gun. Then I dunked the bucket into Vixen’s water trough and rinsed off the blood, and pumped in more water to fill up the water trough. I scattered fresh straw around where we had fought. I slipped away. I was grateful I had my black wool cloak to put over my head. I threw his gun into the river. Then I went up to the school chapel, in time for our rehearsal of Messiah. Harriet was there, already in the choir box. I sang the soprano solo.”

  “What did you tell Harriet?”

  “She told me that she’d lost her nerve and hadn’t come down to the stables. So I told her the same. I haven’t said a word about what happened until just now.”

  “Perhaps talking about it now has done you some good.”

  “Oh, I don’t feel guilty about it, if that’s what you’re getting at. I know it was a clear case of self-defence, if ever there was one. But what I can’t seem to get hold of in my brain is why I should connect that memory with what happened today at the railway station.”

  “Harriet was involved on both occasions.”

  “But she wasn’t. At least, she wasn’t at the stables. Just as I can’t get the story of Silver Blaze out of my thoughts, I also keep thinking that. She wasn’t at the stables. She wasn’t there!”

  Lucy closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, pressing her fingertips into her eyebrows as if to force her memories and associations to comply with her will.

  “Perhaps the connection will come to you.”

  She nodded. “Maybe it has to do with what happened just after. She wasn’t there at the stables, but she was at the chapel, where we were singing hymns.”

  “You are thinking that she is in a better place now.”

  “She may very well be,” said Lucy, “but that thought gives me no comfort. I just keep going back to the stables in my mind, thinking about my waiting for her to come, and her never arriving. Maybe it is because there is so much uncertainty here. Someone is manipulating things. There is a traitor, as Holmes keeps reminding us.”

  “I agree. Someone is behind this.”

  “And wherever we look, that someone is not there.”

  43. SUCCESS AND FAILURE

  For the thirty-six hours that followed, I never once saw Holmes relax his vigilance. He remained brooding and uncommunicative, sunk in thought. Yet his sharp grey eyes were ever watchful, whether we were in a train station, a taxicab, or a railway carriage, or on the Calais dock or, at last, the ferry that took us across the Channel waters to the Port of Dover. Even at the port, when we were on British soil once more, he did not relax his vigilance.

  Upon disembarking from the ferry, we were met by Lieutenant Fitzwilliam, the robust young officer who had been with us at the garrison. He told us his commander had assigned him to be our personal escort, and that we might call on him for anything we required. No fewer than five soldiers escorted us to our waiting military carriage. They surrounded us and the jewel box as if it contained the actual crown jewels rather than an untried electrical apparatus.

  Holmes nodded his approval at these precautionary measures. “Something will happen,” he said. “I do not know when, but we must remain on our guard for the moment that it does. I am hopeful—but I will not go into that at present.”

  We had gathered in the entrance hall of Radnar House. He continued, “Now that the jewel box is under guard in the Kerren House conservatory with its companion apparatus, we have fulfilled our mission for the moment. Tesla is expected to arrive on the morrow. I suggest we get settled in our respective rooms and meet again at breakfast.”

  There is something peaceful about sea air and being home in one’s own country, and I expected to sleep well that first night in England. But I did not. I kept seeing the events of the previous visit to Dover. I saw the explosion of the balloon and its fiery death as it plunged into the sea. I saw the blackened horror of the charred body on the beach. I saw in my memory the sergeant bleeding in my arms. I saw his broken neck as he lay dead where I had left him to heal.

  Tesla, too, seemed out of sorts when he arrived at Kerren House just after noon. “I must return almost immediately to New York,” he said. “Preparations are under way for the inaugural transmission of electrical power from my Niagara Falls generator to the city of Buffalo. The distance is more than seventeen miles. It will be the farthest transmission of electricity ever created by mankind and will prove to history that my alternating current is far more practical and effective than Mr. Edison’s direct current. I must ensure that everything is in order for complete success.”

  “But you have an excellent commercial opportunity here in England,” said Holmes. “Lord Lansdowne is on his way to meet you and to discuss the arrangements for patenting your apparatus—as soon as it is proven successful.”

  “It is another man’s apparatus, not mine,” said Tesla.

  “But you will help,” said Lucy.

  “I will help for the sake of the scientific community, and for the promise of a world at peace under the rule of a nation that possesses the world’s most powerful weapon.”

  We walked together into the conservatory, where the jewel box had been placed on a table beside the larger machine. Upon opening the jewel box, however, Tesla’s eyes widened with curiosity and surprise. He said, “I see now why Kerren was so anxious to have me at his side. Look here!”

  He pointed to the thr
ee metal discs, and then to a fourth piece of equipment attached to each. This latter piece was a clear glass tube attached to a metal base. Wires ran from the three metal discs to the metal base. Inside the glass tube we could see an array of thin metal wires and rods.

  “This is a ray transmitter tube. See how the end panel of the jewel box is hinged, enabling it to fall open so that the tube is not blocked by metal. This weapon will not produce a lightning bolt at all. It will emit invisible rays, which, if focused and driven by sufficient electrical energy, would be able to penetrate through the flesh and bone of any living creature. This is the mechanism I discussed with Kerren when we were together in New York. It is the very same concept that Röntgen and Marconi have employed in their experimental devices for photography and communications. Without giving me proper credit, I might add.”

  “So Kerren and you were thinking along the same lines?” Lucy asked.

  “That is a kind way of putting it,” Tesla said. “However, I very much doubt whether this configuration will work. As I told Kerren when we were last together, when I envisioned this weapon for the first time, its barrel had a length that was thirty feet long, far greater than this one. The longer barrel can focus the rays more intensely, and thus more accurately, in the same manner that a long rifle focuses the path of a bullet more accurately than a short-barrelled pistol.”

  “Nonetheless, will you use your best efforts and skills to get this apparatus to work?” Holmes asked. As Tesla continued to look sceptical, Holmes added, “We shall see to it that you receive all the credit that is due you, if this machine can be made to perform properly.”

  Holmes’s promise seemed to sway the Serbian inventor, for Tesla worked diligently over the next few hours. Lucy, Holmes, Lieutenant Fitzwilliam, and I assisted as he tried various combinations and settings of the equipment. He positioned and repositioned the three discs and the firing tube—the radiating wave gun, Tesla called it—in the larger sphere that Kerren had left behind. He rotated them on the metal circle. He fiddled with the connections to the six transformer coils and argon tubes in ways that I did not begin to understand.