Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess (33 page)

“Miss Bickers is
afraid
?” asked Susan.

“Yes,” nodded Mirabella, feigning confidence.
 
“We must use it to our advantage.
 
You see, girls?
 
One can always change one’s course and thereby change the outcome.
 
It’s . . .
elementary,”
forced Mirabella, releasing her breath slowly.
 
Heavens above!
 
S
he should never have let them tie her up!
 
Now her chances of getting the girls out of this were just about nil!
 
She was a stupid, stupid girl who hadn’t learned a thing from her training.

“What are we going to do, Miss Mirabella?” moaned Gloria.

“We must plan our escape and the capture of our captors.”
 
She couldn’t count on Candice coming to the rescue in time.
 
The boat was moving much more quickly than she had expected.
 

All three of the little girls, seated on the floor tied to each other and to a long metal bar, turned to stare at her.
 
She herself was seated on a chair with her feet tied and her hands tied—and padlocked—behind her.

“True enough, we are all tied up, but there must be something we can do.
 
There’s always
something.
 
We must not let fear block our thought processes, girls!
 
We are all of us
brilliant scientists!
”
 
Thank goodness she was a fine actress, though it was doubtful if
anything
would make any difference at this point.

There was a small porthole from which she could catch a glimpse of the south bank of the Thames.
 
Only a small amount of the steam engine showed below decks, but from the heat in the room and the speed of the boat, it had to be a powerful engine:
 
they had to be doing fifteen miles per hour or better!
 
They would be out of London in not much over an hour.
 

Candice would never get anyone to them in time.

Think!
 
Think!
 
You can’t give up until it’s over.

Unlike herself, the little girls had their hands tied in front of them.
 
She knew she had to think of something soon; she had little doubt that Amity was correct in their eventual fate.

“Alright, girls,” she said, showing a confidence she was far from feeling, “Let’s put our heads together and formulate a plan to thwart these evil people!
 
What are our assets?”

“W-w-what’s an
asset?”
asked Susan, sniffing.

“That’s what we have that we can use against them,” explained Amity, adding in a confidential whisper.
 
“
Pretend
we’re not tied up—that will help you think.”

“I have a throwing knife in one of my boots, and a truncheon in the other,” Mirabella offered.
 

“A real one, or a
pretend
one?” asked Gloria.

“A
real
one,” replied Mirabella, sighing.
 
Oh, what had she been thinking
?
 
She was expecting three eight to ten-year-olds to get them out of a mess she herself could not save them from.

“A chrunchun’?” asked Susan.

“It’s a metal cigar.
 
Also, I have an amethyst pin in my hair, which, if I could only get into my hands, I could unlock the chains . . .” She felt herself wanting to cry, looking around her.
 
I mustn’t give in to the fear.
 
“Do you see the decorative stick in my hair?
 
It’s filled with a poison dart—if you blow in it and aim it at your enemy, it will put him into a sleep.”

“Do you have a gun?” asked Gloria.

“No.
 
I
did.
 
They found that.”

“She couldn’t get to it anyway,” Gloria wailed, a smudge of soot on her cheek.
 
“Her hands are tied!”

“I thought we were pretending they
weren’t
tied,” stated Susan, confused.

“We are going
so fast!
” cried Amity.

“Yes, we are,” murmured Mirabella.
 

“This is a
steam
engine, isn’t it?
 
With
gears
.” Amity’s eyebrows drew together in a studious manner.
 
“Why is it going so fast?”

“It must have been modified to go faster with some type of electrical mechanism,” Mirabella muttered, her heart falling in her chest.

“No one will ever catch us,” moaned Susan.

“What would make the boat
stop
?” asked Amity, thoughtful.

“Something would have to
jam
the gears . . .” replied Mirabella distractedly, without realizing the words had come out of her mouth.
 
But once she heard the utterance with her own ears, the words caught her conscious attention.
 
She pictured the open door into the steam engine where the coal was shoveled.
 
“If something were thrown into the gears so as to jam them . . . but it would require someone with
excellent
aim.”

“Sukey is the best badminton player
anywhere
,” considered Amity, looking up from her hands, suddenly hopeful.
 
“How big would the jammer-thingy have to be?”

“Oh, it could be as small . . . as small as . . .”

“A cigar?” asked Gloria, squirming under her cuffed hands.

“Yes, a cigar,” answered Mirabella dismissively.
 
“But it would have to be heavy and dense—of lead.”
 
She almost choked on her own words, hearing them.
 

“The
crunchin’
!” Susan exclaimed.

“Girls, we have a plan!” exclaimed Mirabella excitedly.
 
“If only our hands weren’t tied
.”

 
Bang!
 

 
“
Heavens!
 
It sounds like someone is shooting at us!”
 
She turned her head and glanced out the little porthole.
 

“What is it, Miss Mirabella?” demanded Gloria.

“
Oh, my goodness!” she barely whispered.
 
“It looks like . . . I think it is . . . Princess Elena!
”

“The Sword Princess,”
exclaimed Amity.

There, riding along the Thames in the heart of London like a bat out of hell, an Arabian warrior in all her glory, was the princess of Montenegro—carrying a
rifle.
 
Promenaders dressed by the most elegant French modistes were literally jumping out of her path, waving their parasols in hysteria.

“Yea!!!” the girls yelled in unison.
 
And for the first time Mirabella felt the
 

beginning of hope in the dingy, soot-covered room.

She could hear the men above deck, laughing and guffawing.

“Look at that!” Corbie’s harsh voice called out.

“She’s chasing us on a
horse
!” McVittie exclaimed.
 
“Is that a hunting rifle she’s holding, Minerva? It
is
!”

“I ain’t worried,” Corbie laughed.
 
“The chance she could actually ‘it us, at that disternce, bloody unlikely says I!”

“You fools!” yelled Miss Bickers.
 
“Don’ you see?
 
Someone is onto us!
 
If
she knows
, thar’ could be others!”

“Wull, that’s why we brought the insurance down below,” blared out the one called Sweeney.

“
Arggh
!”
 
A second later, a whizzing sound came down the hatch, followed by a loud “
Thop
!”
 
And then McVittie’s screams.
 
“I’m hit in me leg! Corbie, get them damn brats up here and line ‘em up in front of us!
 
Hurry
!
 
A’ fore I shoot you, too!”

Corbie came down the hatch like a bull for a matador and quickly untied the rope which linked the girls to the floor.
 
Yanking the little girls to their feet, he left their hands tied. “C’mon you lot!
 
Time fer some sightseein’!”

All three girls began screaming at the top of their lungs, rushing towards their teacher and surrounding her, some pretend crying and some crying for real.
 
All within ten seconds Mirabella felt the truncheon leave her left boot and something sharp land into her chained hand:
 
her amethyst pin!
 

Those girls had listened to every word she had uttered!
 
When she had thought they were only whimpering and crying.
 
Once again she was reminded of the difference between street kids and cosseted children.
 
It appeared the previous four minutes had been a gift from God.
 

She hoped it was enough.
 

Sweeney came stomping down the stairwell to assist Corbie, yanking Susan so hard that the tiny blonde-haired girl fell to the ground.
 

But when Susan looked up again there was something in her expression Mirabella hadn’t seen before:
 
a flash of anger in her pale blue-grey eyes to rival that of a tiger mama.

“She’s just a little girl, you chicken-livered swine!” yelled Mirabella, her country upbringing finding its way into her language as she forgot weeks of debutante training in an instant.

“I’ll show you who’s chicken-livered, you whore!” Sweeney yelled back, releasing Susan and moving towards her.

“That’s right!
 
Release me and fight me like a man—if you dare!” challenged Mirabella, ready to take him on as all her fear washed away with the attack on the little girl.

“Git yer ass over ‘ere and let her be!” commanded Corbie, and Sweeney reluctantly turned around.

Blast!
 
It had almost worked!

She calmed her mind as much as she could, and set to the lock with determination. From above, she heard Sweeney shout, “Shoot back at her, dammit!”

“She’s at least a hun-derd yards away!” Corbie shouted back, “All I gots is a pistol!
 
We’re gonna be a sight better orf wif’ these little chits lined up along the edge o’ the boat!”
 

“Look!
 
Har! Har
!”
 
McVittie gave a loud laugh. “She just ran out of promenade, ‘an the police are chasin’
her
!
 
They’s not chasin’ us but
her.
”

“Shut up, you fool!” exclaimed Miss Bickers.

“What the hell is that contraption?” asked Sweeney.
 
“Some kinda horseless carriage?”

“The police are chasin’
her
!
 
Har! Har!”
 
Corbie laughed.

“Stop laughing and help me tie up me leg!”
 
McVittie commanded.
 
He must be of some importance, Mirabella reflected, as he bossed the other two around as much as Miss Bickers did.

“It’s a pair ‘o men on bicycles,” snarled Miss Bickers.
 
“It’s of no consequence.”

“Those aren’t regular bicycles,” considered Sweeney.
 
“They’se movin’ awful fast.”

Corbie chimed in, laughing, “They ain’t movin’ near as fast as yer steam engine, McVittie!”

Click.
 
Mirabella heard the padlock fall behind her.
 
Quickly, she set at worming her wrists out of her chains.

“Oh,
shyte
!” she heard McVittie exclaim.

“That’s ‘im, int it?” Miss Bickers’ shrill voice asked rhetorically.

“
Who
?
 
Who is it ont the bicycles?”

“Sherlock
 
bloody
‘olmes and that doctor o’ his!”
 

Mirabella retrieved the throwing dagger from her right boot.
 
Once her feet were free, she ripped the beautiful chiffon and satin train from her dress.
 
She then started at her knees and tore the pencil-thin dress with her knife, providing some mobility and revealing her petticoats.
 

She couldn’t have cared less.

“Whot the . . . ? “ she heard Sweeney exclaim.
 
“Be thar some kinda’ motor on them things?
 
I ‘kin see ‘em peddling—but they be goin’ awful fast fer bicycles.”

“You idiots!
 
Stop worrying about the bicycles!”
 
Miss Bickers chimed in.
 
“Clearly the peddling charges the engine in some manner—an improvement on the scissor sharpeners.
 
It has nought to do wif us!”

“That rig may be fast,” McVittie crowed triumphantly, “but we don’ have to dodge th’ nobs & gawkers. They’re fallin’ behind.”
 
Mirabella could hear him dragging his leg, so it must have gotten it wrapped up.

“What ‘ar they gonna’ do on bicycles anyways?” Corbie exclaimed, laughing.
 
“Har Har!”

Mirabella snuck up the hatchway, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt.
 
It was one thing to play at fighting—but against men with guns this felt entirely different, wondering if she would still be alive in the next two minutes.

I don’t think it likely.

But there were children at stake—
her girls
—and she would die trying to save them.
 
Otherwise they were all dead anyway.
 
She was a fool for not seeing that earlier—but she had been so terrified.
 

She would never forgive herself for that.
 
Even in the grave, which she was no doubt headed for.

Maybe the incident at Miss de Beauvais had drained her of her courage.

The girls were lined up along the gunwale, and as she reached the top of the short stair, Amity looked directly at her.
 
Amity then turned to her sister and nodded very slightly with her chin.
 
Mirabella could see the fear in their eyes mirrored her own.