Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares (29 page)

“And that clue was...?”

“The choice of location for the third bomb. Waterloo Station. A deliberate provocation. The venue has significance for the Hériteurs, deriving its name as it does from Nicolas Chauvin’s final battle and England’s last great victory over the French. That was when I realised that the bombers might have a different agenda, that this might after all be the handiwork of Frenchmen not Irishmen.”

“De Villegrand has been in the country some while, though,” said Holmes. “You have had ample opportunity to exact your vengeance on him before now, bombings or not.”

“I was not ready. My armour was not ready. And his downfall must be public, his every offence laid bare, so that the world will see right through his smiling façade to his rotten core. He must be brought down in such a way that his crimes will be known to all and sundry, the spotlight of infamy will be shone upon him, the man’s reputation will be shattered along with the man himself. His humiliation must be total, and he must live to see it. It is not enough that he faces justice. He must lose everything he holds dear, everything that makes him a man: his reputation, his dignity, his standing. The name de Villegrand must forever after be associated with ignobility and depravity.”

“Yet confronting him earlier would have spared a lot of people a great deal of suffering and hardship, Watson and myself included. Prevented deaths, what’s more.”

“What can I tell you? I am not perfect. I have put my own interests before those of others. I can only hope that the good deeds I have done in the East End outweigh my shortcomings elsewhere. If there is such a thing as a set of cosmic scales for each man’s soul, then I trust that mine are balanced in my favour.”

“Besides, you are hardly in a position to criticise,” I said to Holmes. “There have been times when you have turned down clients whose cases you should, all things being equal, have accepted. You have left the police to deal with affairs which you could have cleared up in no time, but which you chose to disregard because they didn’t sufficiently pique your interest. ‘Let he who is without sin...’ et cetera.”

“Watson,” said Holmes, “as ever you prick the bubble of my self-absorption and keep me grounded. I thank you for doing so. What would I be without you?”

It may have sounded like a fulsome tribute and apology, but my friend was quiet for some time afterwards and I could tell he was disgruntled. He did not like having his deficiencies pointed out to him. Who does?

We raced on. Dusk laced long mauve shadows across the countryside. We were, to the best of my judgement, well into the Midlands by now. The landscape had flattened out into a series of plains, with ribbons of low-lying hills running between, and here and there, like a splotch of manmade lichen, the grey expanse of a mining town or industrial city. We had yet to see a sign of the Royal Train, but we knew we were on the right track, as it were, since we had discerned no other trains travelling the rails below us. Mycroft’s edict banning all scheduled journeys along the Royal Train’s route was still in force.

The more time that passed, the better adjusted I became to being in the
Delphines Revenge.
What had started out as stomach-churning and miraculous had become, within a couple of hours, tolerable and even in a way monotonous. We were aboard an airborne vehicle. So what? Mankind’s great dream, to be able to fly like a bird, was here made real. But in becoming real it had become, perforce, mundane. I am writing this in an era when the great silver cloud of a Zeppelin is a common enough sight and people think nothing of boarding a passenger plane to travel abroad. Men have fought a world war partly in the skies and crossed entire oceans using aircraft. Any novelty, even one as remarkable as aviation, soon wears off. We are such a restless, never-satisfied species. It is our tragedy and our saving grace.

At any rate, I was beginning to drift off into a bored doze, as I might have done on any lengthy journey, especially on top of such a long, gruelling day and after so little sleep. Then Cauchemar announced that he spied something ahead. It was a plume of smoke, glimmering in the twilight haze.

But not a single plume.

There were two.

“It’s as I thought,” he said. “De Villegrand has his own locomotive, one to whose design I contributed, back when it was just a rough sketch on paper. The
Duc En Fer,
an Iron Duke to rival the fastest British engine of that name. Rival it and surpass it in so many ways.”

De Villegrand’s
Duc En Fer
was a sturdy black beast, big around the belly, with three huge driving wheels and two sets of bogies, fore and aft. It chugged hard along the rails, pistons pounding. Embers poured from its funnel along with the smoke, their glow lending the locomotive’s coachwork an infernal orange lustre. Behind trailed a single carriage that was enclosed on all sides and windowless, like a freight wagon.

A mile or so up the track, the Royal Train was also making good speed. Its rolling stock comprised four carriages and a brake van. I pictured the royal family within one of the carriages, seated in sumptuous saloon accommodation. Their mood would be apprehensive, perhaps, but they could little realise how imminent the danger was, how an implacable foe of Britain was even now snapping at their heels.

The
Duc En Fer
was gradually gaining on the Royal Train, eating up the remaining distance between them.

“But where did he build the thing?” I said. “And, more to the point, how did he manage to get it onto the track? Didn’t Mycroft see to it that no other trains were allowed on this route but the Queen’s?”

“Here, I fear, is where we may detect the malign influence of Professor Moriarty exerting itself,” said Holmes. “He implied to me that he has some stake in the bombing campaign and its ultimate outcome. In order to further his own ends, he has been helping the Hériteurs de Chauvin from the sidelines. I wouldn’t put it beyond his abilities to bribe or threaten railway officials to look the other way while de Villegrand’s train takes to the rails and to switch points so that it would have a clear run. As for building it, de Villegrand must have done so somewhere in England. He could hardly have exported an entire completed locomotive across the Channel, not without arousing attention. On the other hand, a rail shed somewhere, perhaps one owned by Moriarty, part of an extensive property portfolio... It’s the most plausible explanation. Do you not agree, Mr Tilling?”

“I don’t know as much as you do about this Moriarty,” said our pilot, “but I have heard whispers, and if he is half the scheming genius people say he is, then he and de Villegrand are a match made in heaven. Or rather, hell.”

“A finger in every pie, has Moriarty,” Holmes muttered, “and the pies all laced with arsenic.”

Cauchemar poured on acceleration, and at the same time pumped air into the ballonets so that the
Delphine’s Revenge’s
neutral buoyancy was reduced and the airship began swiftly to descend.

“What is our plan, Mr Tilling?” my friend demanded. “I defer to you because you know more about the
Duc En Fer
than I do. I imagine you have some means of putting it out of action.”

“The
Delphine’s Revenge
is equipped with a pair of modified self-powered recoil-operated Maxim guns, firing point-four-five-inch rounds at a rate of six hundred a minute. Simply put, I intend to disable de Villegrand’s locomotive by blasting away at it until it cannot go on. And,” he added, picking up his helmet and fastening it on his head, “it is not ‘Mr Tilling’ any more – it is Baron Cauchemar.”

“Very well,” said Holmes, rapping his knuckles on that metal cranium, which still bore the dent from one of de Villegrand’s bullets. “Then aim true, my good man.”

The
Delphine’s Revenge
levelled out. Cauchemar brought us in right at the rear of the
Duc En Fer.
He flicked a couple of switches, and the stocky barrels of the Maxim guns eased out in front of the viewing portals. A lens with crosshairs descended from the ceiling on the end of a telescopic arm. Cauchemar put his helmet’s demonic face to it, sighting on the train. We were close enough now that I could just make out a pair of figures in the cab of the locomotive: one at the throttle, driving; the other shovelling coal for all he was worth. Both were silhouetted against the glare of flames from the open firebox flap, so that their faces were lost in shadow, but I nonetheless recognised them by their physiques and profiles. They were Torrance’s associates from the Stepney graveyard, Gedge and Kaylock.

The absence of de Villegrand and Torrance on the locomotive gave me pause. If they were not immediately visible, then where were they?

I was about to give voice to my puzzlement when it happened.

The covered carriage opened up, roof and sides drawing back like the mouth of a snake when baring its fangs. Hinged metal plate folded against hinged metal plate, concertina-fashion.

“Oh,” said Cauchemar. “That’s new.”

In the space of a few seconds, we were no longer looking at a freight wagon. Rather, it had become a flatbed truck on which was mounted one of the largest pieces of field artillery I had ever seen. The retracted plates which had been concealing this now formed a housing, within which two men, a loader and a gunner, stood alongside a stack of shells.

Torrance and de Villegrand.

The artillery piece’s barrel angled upwards until it was pointing straight at the
Delphine’s Revenge.
The three of us in the gondola stared into the rifled aperture as though into some pitiless Cyclopean eye.

De Villegrand had the nerve to offer us a wave – bidding us adieu, I’ll be bound.

Then he yanked the lanyard and the big gun fired.

“Brace yourselves!” Cauchemar cried, and he thrust the steering column to the side as far as it would go. The airship canted steeply to starboard -

- an immense ripping sound -

- a rumble as of thunder -

- a terrible splintering and shuddering -

- and then the
Delphine’s Revenge
was spiralling helplessly through space, like some airborne whirligig. Holmes and I were tossed about inside the gondola, battering ourselves on hard surfaces and bruising each other with our elbows and knees. The world through the viewing portals was a smear of green and grey, land and sky careening madly around us.

Cauchemar fought to regain control of the aircraft. He steered against the rotation of our spin, directing the rudders and elevators to counteract it and powering up the propellers to apply a braking force. With much shaking and straining, the
Delphine’s Revenge
gradually stabilised. He brought us about to face the
Duc En Fer
again.

“A glancing blow,” he said. “She’s still airworthy.”

“Not for much longer if you don’t take evasive action.” Holmes pointed. “Look. De Villegrand is busy finding our current range.”

The artillery piece was revolving. Torrance hoisted a fresh shell, one-handed, into the breech. De Villegrand cranked the barrel higher, taking aim.

Cauchemar raised the airship’s nose sharply. I heard the shell launch and come screaming towards us. I felt a huge pressure bearing down on me as our pilot throttled up and we shot skywards. There was no impact this time. The shell passed harmlessly below us.

“Enough of the ducking and scurrying,” Cauchemar said. “Now we take the offensive.”

The
Delphine’s Revenge
switched from climb to dive in a single lurching manoeuvre, twisting and plummeting at once. My stomach ended up somewhere near my mouth. For a few disagreeable seconds I felt all but weightless.

Cauchemar lined up the Maxim guns on the artillery piece and opened fire. Parallel jets of bullets raked the flatbed truck, the wheels, the big gun itself, and the housing within which de Villegrand and Torrance sheltered. The two men were safe behind several thicknesses of metal plate. As for the artillery piece, it was of sturdy construction. The bullets bounced off, ricocheting in all directions, leaving dents and scratches but inflicting no serious damage.

“Damn it, I need to get closer,” said Cauchemar.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Holmes said, but the enquiry fell on deaf ears. Cauchemar seemed to have forgotten about his passengers. He was focused exclusively on de Villegrand.

“First I shall cripple your gun, Thibault,” he said. “Then you.” His amplified voice sounded eerily uninflected and detached, as though once he had his full armour on he ceased to be wholly human.

The
Delphine’s Revenge
zeroed in on the speeding train. Cauchemar swerved right and left in order to throw off the vicomte’s aim. The nearer we got to the big gun, however, the larger a target we presented.

He let loose with the Maxims again, strafing the truck from end to end. De Villegrand, with something like nonchalance, continued adjusting the artillery piece’s direction and elevation. All at once a third shell was sailing our way, and this one hit dead-on.

I don’t think I shall ever hear a noise as heart-stopping and stomach-turning as the sound of that projectile tearing through the balloon envelope of the
Delphine’s Revenge.
I picture it like a harpoon penetrating the blubbery hide of a whale. The rending of sailcloth and steel strut was akin to a scream of pain.

The entire airship recoiled, like a man when punched. Rivets popped from the gondola’s seams. A reinforcing brace by my shoulder buckled.

“She’s fine,” Cauchemar maintained, but the
Delphine’s Revenge
was not fine. Even a novice aeronaut like me could tell that. Cauchemar struggled with the controls, but for all his valiant efforts with the throttle and steering column he was getting little in the way of a result. We were aloft but adrift. I could feel the airship sagging, losing altitude.

“Set us down,” Holmes urged. “It’s the only way.”

“No,” said Cauchemar. “No, I can regain mastery...”

“You cannot! Don’t be an idiot, man. The vessel is doomed. Find somewhere to land safely while you can, before the option is taken out of your hands and we crash.”