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"You've
got him," stated Frisbee.

"I'll
need your help." Holmes removed his gaze from the fire in front
of him and regarded Frisbee
keenly.

"You
have but to ask," was the prompt answer.

"No
news of the matter must leak out now. I wish
to
catch Hananish completely off guard, for it
might
unnerve him. In fact, let us spread a false
trail.
Let it be known that you are paying off the
policy
on the gold shipment. You could arrange an
appointment
for me to deliver the Inter-Ocean
check
to Alvidon Chasseur tomorrow, could you
not?"

"What
check?" sputtered Frisbee, again alarmed.

"There
will not be one, but I have a little matter
to
settle with Mr. Chasseur. Relative to a disagree
ment
between us as to who is the world's leading
detective."

Frisbee,
who had heard enough about the meet
ing
between Holmes and the railroad tycoon to
know
what was going on, readily agreed to
Holmes'
request and made ready to depart, looking considerably more
relaxed than when he had
arrived.

Secretly,
I groaned.
Here
we go again
, I
thought.
Holmes
accused me of having a pawkish humor,
but
he was not above a prank or two himself on
occasion.
I still shudder when I recall the hoax he
perpetrated
on Lord Cantlemere relative to the
great
yellow Crown diamond. The aged peer, who
became
one of Holmes' staunchest supporters, still
contends
that my friend's sense of humor was
perverted.
^*

^*
Surely,
in his later recording of this case, Watson became confused, for it
is virtually
certain that the Adventure of the Mazarin Stone took place
after
the turn of the century. It is obvious that this matter occurred
some
what
before 1900.

I
was helping
Frisbee with his coat when Holmes
posed
a question.
"Have
you had any dealings of late with the
Deutsche
Bank?"

Adjusting
his muffler, Frisbee regarded the sleuth
with
surprise. "Strange you should ask that."

"How
so?"

"They
are solvent, all right. Their national econo
my
is booming. Most of the pottery you buy now
comes
from German kilns, you know."

"Most
of the waiters in our restaurants are
German,
for that matter," commented Holmes, for
what
reason I could not fathom.

"That
so? One of the P.M.'s aides had a little talk
with
the banking commission recently about the
size
of German investments over here. They've
been
getting their fingers in a lot of things. Couple
of
steel firms in Birmingham were in need of
financing
but a while ago. The Deutsche Bank made
overtures
and the government had to step on the
negotiations,
diplomatically, of course."

Standing
next to our visitor, my confusion must have been apparent. Holmes
chided me for having
a
mirror-like face as regards my inner feelings.
Frisbee
took pity on me.

"It's
been a spell since we were allied with the Prussians and ever since
Bismarck unified the German states, their empire has been gaining in
strength. If Kaiser
Wilhelm ever calls back the Iron
Chancellor
from Friedrichsruh and reinstates him,
we
could really be in trouble."
^*

^*
Proof
that this case predates 1900, since Otto von Bismarck died in
1898—unless
Watson got mixed up with dates, which he did tend to do on
occasion.

Frisbee
pondered for a moment on his words,
then
turned toward the door, only to turn around
again
toward Holmes.
"You
know, we do have a number of Germans over here. A bit of a sticky
thing if there's ever a
war.
Matter of intelligence, you know."

Holmes
knew and so did I. As I let Claymore
Frisbee
out of our sitting room with a farewell, I
thought
of what he didn't know. Namely that
Holmes'
brother headed up the espionage depart
ment
of the British government and was the second
most
powerful man in England. Holmes had never
told
me point-blank of his brother's real function;
but
ever since I had first met Mycroft Holmes in
connection
with that Greek interpreter matter in
'88,
I had realized that he did not just audit books in some of the
government departments. I knew
what
special branch Holmes had in mind relative
to
Hananish in Gloucester.

Fatigue
prompted me to sponge such thoughts
from
my mind. With the departure of our relieved
client,
I decided to retire for the night. The prospect
of
a return trip to Gloucester caused me to mouth a
somewhat
peevish complaint before doing so.
"Most
of our time on this case has been spent in
train
travel, Holmes. It will be a relief to stay in
London
for a change."

My
friend was staring into the fireplace, his mind
I
knew not where, but he responded.
"It
all started with a train robbery, you know."

I
could summon no retort to this and made my
way
to the upper story.

Chapter
17

The
Return to Fenley

THE
BELLS of St. Mary-le-Bow were striking the
hour
when I suddenly sat upright in my bed. The
room
was pitch-black and from the state of my
bolster
I knew that my sleep had been fretful.
Something
had been prodding at my subconscious,
something
I should tell Holmes. Then it came to
me.
The three men on the hill who had fallen before
the
American's flaming gun were unfamiliar to me.
On
that morning, not long ago, when I had been spirited away from the
entrance to the Red Grouse Inn, I gained but a fleeting impression of
the two
men who had taken me so neatly
and then, by
intent, had left a broad
trail behind them. But I
knew they were
not of the trio that had met their
fate
in Essex and were now being shipped to the
morgue
in London. This meant that Hananish had
other
bully boys at his beck and call.

The
thought that had plagued me did not seem of importance when viewed
with cold logic. Though
my logic had
acquired no fame, the room was
cold—that
I could state firmly. I knew that if I
huddled
under my blankets, sleep would prove the
coquette
indeed and but flirt with me through the
remaining
dark hours. Rather than waste my blan
dishments
on the fickle mistress of the night, I searched with inquisitive toes
for my slippers.
Grateful for their
fleece lining, I rose with a creak
and a
groan and trembled my way to the backless stool and my robe that
rested on it. There was that
silence
that breathed at one, like a tangible thing rather than a total
absence. A chill ran across the
back of
my shoulders, and I clutched my robe
around
me, stumbling in the darkness toward the
door
of my bedchamber. Down the back stairs I
went
with the thought that the dying embers of the
hearth
fire would be a welcome comfort. There was
a
dullish glow within the ashes of the back log that
I
stirred with the poker and then searched out the
wood
box for a length of birch. The bark of the soft
wood
was cooperative and soon there was a small
but
merry flame, which did little to offset the chill
of
the room but did raise my spirits slightly.

Throughout
those untold generations before the wheel, the candle, the coming of
the mechanical age, man had sought the healing balm of the
unconscious when the sun departed from
the west
ern sky, sallying forth
from caves when it reap
peared in
the East. Artificial light and a work cycle
that
could be altered to suit individual taste had
turned
night into day; but it was the memory of the
genes,
the schedule established through the evolu
tionary
curve, that dropped one's metabolism to its lowest ebb during these
eerie hours of early morn
ing and
prompted disjointed thoughts and errant wisps of vague memory as
though from another
life. A gleam caught
my eye and I noted, in a
sudden flaming
of birch sap, the chambers and
handle of
the Colt gun shining at me from its
leather
holster on the bookshelf where I had placed
it.
For no reason I found myself composing a
clumsy
chanty and, more ridiculous yet, I sang it
standing
bent over the fire like a cackling Scrooge
who
had gone daft.

Five
shots near the mountain,

They
did the deed well.

Five
shots near the mountain,

Three
men went to hell.

Enough
of this
, I thought, crossing to the
sideboard. The great silver urn felt warm to my hand
and
I poured a cup of coffee almost with anger.
Here
I was, by training a savior of life and, because
of
that meeting long ago, now embroiled in the
danger
and violence that was kith and kin to the
profession
of my most intimate friend.

In
times past those twin footpads, blood and
death,
that tiptoed behind the world's only consult
ing
detective had been shriveled in my mind's eye by the blinding light
of my boundless admiration
for Holmes'
uncanny ability at observation and
analysis,
surely equal to the fabled tales of myth
ological
necromancers. Now, had not the inroads of
time,
advance guard for the grim reaper my friend had mentioned to Frisbee,
taken their toll? Fat and
short-winded,
could I now stand firm on the deck of
that
police boat roaring down the Thames in
pursuit
of the launch
Aurora
—firing
my service
revolver at that bestial
native of the Andaman
Islands and his
master, the one-legged Jonathan
Small?
Could I now press the muzzle of a pistol to
the
head of one such as Patrick Cairns and force
him
to surrender? My self-doubts had me dizzy
with
recriminations, and the cup began to shake in
my
hand. Might I not be placing Holmes in danger?
That
one moment when he depended on his com
panion
of the years, might I not let him down?