The Baker Street Translation (21 page)

That was an odd remark, and more than a little annoying. “You overestimate me,” she said.

“Shut up. Go across to the underground entrance on Haymarket. Buy an all-day pass for all zones at the automated server.”

“I have my own monthly,” said Laura.

“Good for you. Buy the pass anyway. Then go through the turnstiles on the left, and take the stairs down to the Northern Line, east platform.”

“And then where am I going?” I asked Laura. “I'm an excellent traveler, it would help so much if you would just tell me the destination.”

But the line went dead.

With her shopping bag in a tight grip, Laura joined the throng moving across Shaftesbury Avenue, past the statue at the center of the circus again, and then to the Piccadilly tube station on Haymarket.

She entered the tube station. She bought a day pass at one of the automated dispensers, as instructed. That took a couple of minutes, as there was a queue in the crowded station, but she managed to get through the turnstile and join the mad rush down the stairs for the Northern Line.

At the juncture between the passageway for the east platform and the west, a musician had set up against the tiled wall with his violin, its case open for contributions; he was playing fairly well, and Laura had been known on occasion to stop and toss in a few pounds, though it was not commonly considered acceptable in the fast-moving commuter rush to actually stop and listen.

In any case, not today. She pushed on down the stairs, at a pace fast enough, she hoped, to prevent anyone from charging up on her unseen from behind, but taking care not to knock over the elderly woman with the cane in front of her. Two thick-shouldered louts who should have known better came charging up the wrong way on the stairs and bumped her in their progress; but she saw them in time and pulled the shopping bag close in front of her.

Now she was on the platform. On a quiet day, at a quiet station, you could walk from one end to the other of the platform tunnel and actually be alone with your thoughts for a moment or two if you wanted, but not so here—not this station, at this hour. The entire length of the platform was shoulder-to-shoulder with commuters who had not been able to squeeze onto the previous train and were waiting for the next.

The tunnel public-address system crackled something about closures on connecting lines and a couple of stops that were no longer in service.

Now there was a single light and a rumbling and a disturbance in the air of the tunnel; a train was arriving. As it pulled in, Laura could see through the windows of the train that it was absolutely standing room only.

She was on the east platform. But was this the train she was to take? The voice hadn't said. Trains for different ultimate destinations arrived every two minutes or so when things were running properly. Was this the one? Was she exactly on time, or could it have been the one before, or the one after?

“Mind the gap,” said the recorded announcement from the train. The doors opened. The standing passengers who wanted to be at Piccadilly Circus pushed outward at the same time that the passengers on the platform who wanted to get away from Piccadilly Circus pushed inward. It was the usual thing, and manageable if you knew where you going and had nothing exposed to the crowd that you had to protect while getting there.

But Laura was at a disadvantage, not knowing where she was going. She was caught firmly in a squeeze, she was being pressed on all sides, and suddenly she realized that this ransom delivery was probably not about getting to the destination at all. That's why it didn't matter which train: The delivery was supposed to take place along the way.

Now she was bumped again from the left side. It was all right, though; she still had the bag gripped in her hands. She could still feel the weight of it—and then she looked down.

Yes, she still had the bag and the damned plush toy. But the folder of letters was gone.

She looked around. In front of her, people were pushing onto the train; in back of her, people were rushing into the tunnel for the stairs directly behind her.

Only one person was moving in neither of those directions; adroitly dodging his way through the throng, toward the exit at the far end.

Laura was about to cry out for help and point toward the thief. But from behind her, somewhere in the crowd, someone else cried out first, “Look! That's Laura Rankin! Right there!”

Many people didn't hear or didn't care, but a few did. A woman with two small children getting off the train saw Laura and stepped right up to her with a camera; a couple of others turned just casually to look, and in an instant the pedestrian traffic congealed, even more than it had been, and she was completely boxed in.

No one was cursing or shouting “Move along”; it was a mostly British queue, after all, and there was a polite custom to be observed.

But that couldn't last forever. And Laura had lost sight of the letter thief. “So sorry,” she said, edging back from the train as it now departed the station. She smiled and pushed through the platform crowd. “I'm very sorry. Thank you so very much.”

And finally she was able to join the throng moving back up the stairs.

She rushed up the stairs, into the main station, and then out onto Haymarket Avenue.

She looked about, though she already knew: She was far too late.

The sky was filled with the flashing display adverts and the lovely buildings that surrounded Piccadilly Circus. The streets were filled with chattering tourists, giddy teenagers, and intent commuters, and Laura Rankin had failed utterly in the one thing that she absolutely had to do.

For a moment she stood there, blinking in the morning sun, and trying to fight back tears.

She hoped this wasn't becoming a habit.

31

The bank employees in the Dorset House lobby who knew Reggie Heath at all knew enough when they saw his face this morning to stay out of his way.

And, in fact, Reggie had never been as angry with anyone as he was right now with himself.

Instinct had told him early on that something was wrong. Instinct had told him to get out of the car and go to Laura's door and demand again to know that everything was all right.

Instead, he had just waited and watched. Waited and watched, as if everything was normal, just because Laura had turned out the lights in the way she always did. Waited and watched, just because the security team was still in place and everything still seemed all right when he returned from the warehouse.

Waited and watched—until suddenly he was jolted awake in the early morning by a sound that was familiar but out of place. It came from directly outside the door on his side of the car.

He'd lowered the window and looked down, and there was Laura's cat—her indoor cat—at the break of dawn, meowing at his car door.

He had immediately gotten out of the car, gone to Laura's front step, rung the bell, got no answer, and then let himself in with his key. He ran up the stairs, and found the bed still made and Laura's usual windbreaker missing; ran back down the stairs, and found the tea unfinished on the kitchen sink; opened the kitchen side door—and then Robert Buxton's imbecilic security team had come barreling in through the front door.

That standoff—and the ensuing chaos and cacophony of accusations about who was watching whom and why—had lasted about ten minutes before the two more thuggish of Buxton's team finally backed down. They had personalities uncannily similar to that of their employer, but without even Buxton's modest intelligence.

The team leader—the one named Alex, whom Reggie had spoken to before—finally herded the others back out through the front. Alex said something then, not too loudly, about leaving these things to the professionals, and before Reggie could respond to that, the entire team had gotten back in their Range Rover and roared away, out of Laura's quiet little Chelsea nook and onto King's Road.

Then Reggie's mobile had rung. It was Lois. There'd been a bit of a ruckus. Lois was very sorry about it; it had all happened earlier, before she arrived. Apparently, an American had gotten bruised in a discussion with Nigel. And then Laura had run off without a word, and now she'd come back, but she was not happy.

And now Mr. Rafferty was there, and he had said that perhaps it would be good if Reggie dropped in.

Now Reggie was back at Dorset House. He entered the lobby, noticed that Hendricks was not at his guard station, and then took the lift up to his chambers.

When the lift doors opened, Reggie saw Lois standing at her desk at the other end of the corridor, keeping lookout. She called out when she saw Reggie, and she hurried toward him.

“They're all in the conference room,” said Lois. “They just went in.”

“Who did?”

“Nigel. Laura. Mr. Hendricks. Two Americans. And Mr. Rafferty. I think it was Mr. Rafferty called the meeting.”

“These are my chambers. Rafferty can't call a meeting in my chambers.”

“Well,” said Lois. “They all went in the conference room anyway.”

“To do what?”

“To conference, I think. All the fighting stopped hours ago.”

“Is Laura all right?”

“Yes. A little frazzled, I think.”

Reggie started toward the conference room.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Lois?”

“Do you still want me to find that thing that Mr. Liu bought in Piccadilly? I've called all around, and I think I've located one.”

“Yes, fine, thank you,” said Reggie without much thought, and he went on to the conference room.

Reggie opened the conference room door and looked in.

He saw Nigel and Laura seated together at the middle on one side of the oblong table.

Seated at the head of the table—Reggie's usual position—was Rafferty. Next to him was a worried-looking Hendricks.

At the middle on the other side of the table was Stillman, the lawyer from Texas. Next to him was a slightly larger gentleman, highly tanned and sunburned about the nose and neck, but not so much that two red welts on his neck and a bruise on his throat did not stand out considerably.

Laura looked in Reggie's direction as he opened the door.

Reggie had never seen her so bedraggled.

He went immediately to her side and sat down next to her—protectively flanking her, with Nigel on the other side—in anticipated opposition to the two Americans across the table.

Clearly, there was some sort of formal conversation already under way.

“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Heath,” said Rafferty, as though Reggie were late for a scheduled meeting.

Now Rafferty turned back to address everyone.

“Mr. Stillman has some items to address that I believe concern all of us,” said Rafferty.

“Thank you, Mr. Rafferty,” said Stillman, just a little grandly, standing as though he were about to address a court.

Reggie found it annoying.

“Just sit down, won't you?” said Reggie. “We can all hear you with no difficulty.”

The man shrugged and sat, then grinned his self-confident grin again.

“You're right,” he said. “No need to get formal. I'm sure this won't take long. I just want to wrap up a couple of things before Mr. Darby here has to fly back to Houston. I'm not sure all of you have met him, I know some of you have. Mr. Darby is a great-nephew to Mrs. Clemens, and until very recently, he was one of the two beneficiaries of her will. So. Which do you want to do first? The matter of Mrs. Clemens bequest to Sherlock Holmes? Or Mr. Darby's lawsuit for assault and battery and false imprisonment?”

“You're out of your bloody mind,” said Nigel. “It's your client who committed the assault and battery.”

“Not true, and if it were true, it would be hard to prove. No one from this office saw fit to call the police. The only reason I can imagine for that is you knew you were in the wrong. So I think the relevant thing will be to look at who has the injuries. Now, Mr. Darby here has severe and obvious bruising about the neck and throat. You, on the other hand, have—well, nothing apparent.”

“Doesn't matter,” said Nigel. “He started it.”

“No, I didn't,” retorted Darby.

“Yes, you did,” said Nigel.

“No, I didn't,” repeated the American, with a straight face.

“There, you see?” said Stillman. “You see how that goes? We have one word against another. The only thing we know for sure, the only thing we have witnesses for, is that Mr. Hendricks here zapped my client twice with a Taser.”

Hendricks looked quite miserable, and more than a little confused.

“I guess you must have a license for use of that weapon, Mr. Hendricks, because I know that is necessary, and not easy to obtain, on this side of the pond, and Miss Rankin here—I regret dragging you into this, Miss Rankin, and I hope it doesn't mean you won't have dinner with me before I return to the States—”

Laura rolled her eyes.

“Don't even think about it,” said Reggie to the American, quite out loud.

Stillman didn't miss a beat.

“—but business is business, and Miss Rankin did, in fact, threaten my client with that very nasty-looking letter-opening device. So I think we can all see where things stand.”

All this while, Rafferty had said nothing, just sat there, fixing his eyes on some imaginary point in the middle of the conference table. But now he looked up.

“What is it you want?” he said.

“Good question. That brings me to the second thing. First, understand that it is American law, specifically the laws of the state of Texas, that will determine the disposition of the will of Mrs. Clemens. That is where the will was made, that is where Mrs. Clemens resided at the time, and it doesn't matter that the document itself arrived here in London.

“That said, it would be a shame for all of us to go to a whole lot of time and trouble over this when we know that the end result will be that her bequest will be invalidated. And so I'm here to—”