The Empress of India (34 page)

One of the Thuggees leaped onto the couch, arm upraised, to throw a round black object into the guardroom. Margaret raised her little pistol, squinted over the barrel, and squeezed the trigger. The man fell forward, and the round black object dropped from his hand and rolled toward Margaret, sparks hissing from a short wick sticking out from the side. Without pausing to think, Margaret thrust the gun into her belt and swooped up the black object, which felt hard and cold and unaccountably heavy in her hand. She pinched the wick between her fingers, but it burned and stung and refused to go out. Time slowed down and it seemed as if she were moving through molasses as she took six steps back to the turn in the corridor, pitched the object as hard as she could toward the far door, and ducked back. There was a
thump
as it landed and then . . . nothing.

Margaret slid to the floor as though her muscles were made of rubber, her heart beating faster than it ever had before. Time continued to move slowly for her until what seemed like many minutes later—in reality
it was but a few seconds—there came a great, sharp explosion from around the corner, a bright flash of light, and then a palpable acrid smoke billowed up and filled the corridor.

At that moment the six lancers who had been trapped in the guardroom erupted from the door and joined the melee. The affair was over in five more minutes and nine thuggees were either dead, wounded, unconscious, or captured.

In addition to Moriarty’s wound, the Artful Codger had been shot through the hand, Peter had a badly scraped shin, although it was unclear how he had achieved this distinction, and Dr. Pin Dok Low, having been grazed by a bullet from somebody’s gun, was lying, unconscious, on the corridor floor.

Moriarty knelt by Pin and examined him carefully for wounds. “He seems to have been knocked out,” he said. “The scalp wound is superficial, and I can’t find any further signs of injury.” He leaned close to Pin’s head and said clearly: “Holmes! Holmes, can you hear me?”

“What’s that?” demanded the Artful Codger. “Holmes? What Holmes is that? Whom the blazes do you suppose he is?”

Rise! For the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armour,
And forth to the fight are gone.
A place in the ranks awaits you,
Each man has some part to play;
the Past and the Future are nothing,
In the face of the stern To-day.
—Adelaide Ann Procter

T
here was a loud clatter from the stairway at the far end of the corridor and thirty of the Duke of Moncreith’s Own Highland Lancers emerged up the stairs at a gallop. At their head, brandishing a sword in one hand, a pistol in the other, and with the cry of battle on his lips, was Brigadier General Sir Edward Basilberg St. Yves, Bart., I.C., D.S.O. It took him a moment to realize the altered situation in front of him, with those Thuggees left alive being tied up with their own scarves. He tried to stop the charge, but the rush of troops behind
him carried him along past the door of the guardroom before those behind had passed the order to halt far enough back for it to succeed.

“Congratulations, sir,” said Colonel Moran, coming to attention and giving the general a respectful salute. “I see you’ve managed to free your men.”

“Yes, ah, that’s s-so,” St. Yves stammered with proper British reserve and humility. “N-nothing much to it, actually. We managed to s-sneak up on the blighters.” He looked around at the hodgepodge of couch cushions, sacks of rice, and men scattered about the corridor floor. “What’s b-been happening here?”

“We have carried the day, sir,” Colonel Moran told him. “Carried the day.”

“Not yet,” Professor Moriarty reminded them, rising from beside the still-unconscious form of the man who had called himself Dr. Pin Dok Low. “We must prepare for the inevitable invasion, and we must do so at once.”

St. Yves gave a will-this-never-be-done-with? sigh and asked, “What b-bloody invasion?”

Margaret, who had been sitting with her head down in a dark section of corridor, stood up just then and said, “Daddy,” in a little voice. The small pistol was still in her hand.

St. Yves’s eyes widened. “Margaret, my dear,” he said, thrusting his sword back into its scabbard and striding over to her. “My dear child. How are you? How did you get here? You haven’t been harmed?”

“Oh, Daddy,” she cried, clutching the front of his uniform jacket and holding on to him as though he were a life preserver in a stormy sea. “Daddy, I think I’ve killed a man!”

St. Yves paused, frozen for a second, not sure what to say. Best to be casual, unconcerned, he decided. “Come, now; with that little contraption?” he said with a slight laugh, taking the pistol from her grasp and shoving it into his pocket.

“It was one of the Phansigar,” she told him. “He was throwing a bomb and I shot him. I had resolved to do so, but I didn’t know that I’d feel—this way—afterward.”

“Where did this happen?” he asked.

She pointed. “Over there,” she said.

“Well.” He considered. “Let’s go see what damage you did.”

“I’d rather not,” she said.

“All right, you stay here,” he told her. “I’ll go look.”

Peter Collins, who had been standing mutely next to them, joined St. Yves as he examined the man. A minute later they both returned. “You didn’t kill the blighter,” her father told her. “And what you did was extremely brave—throwing the bomb and all.”

“You only wounded him in the thigh,” Peter said. “I’ve tied it off to stop the bleeding.”

“He’ll live to hang,” St. Yves said grimly.

“Oh, thank goodness!” said Margaret.

St. Yves turned to Moriarty. “What’s this invasion you speak of?”

Moriarty explained to him their theory about the Thuggee ship that must be right now trying to locate
The Empress of India
to retrieve the gold.

“Yes,” St. Yves agreed. “That must be their plan. There weren’t enough of them here to transport the gold, and they don’t seem prepared to open the vault. They must be expecting further assistance.” He hopped up on the overturned couch. “Men!” he called.

“Tenn-hup!” came the bellow of a sergeant from somewhere amid the milling troop, and the men snapped to various forms of rigid attention.

“Each of you pick up your weapon from the guardroom along with ten—no, twenty—rounds of ammunition and form up on the port side of ‘A’ deck,” St. Yves told them.

“Excuse me, sir,” a ruddy-faced corporal said, making a quarter turn to face his general, “but which side is that?”

“The side you’ll find me on,” St. Yves told them. “Now hop to!”

“Troop!” the sergeant called. “Get your weapons on the double and report! Dismissed!”

A rapid but orderly exodus began as the men grabbed their Martini-Henry carbines and ammunition packets from the guardroom and followed St. Yves up the outside ladder.

Pin Dok Low groaned and pushed himself up to a sitting position. “Where the devil am I?” he demanded, looking around. “What am I doing here?”

Moriarty squatted down next to him. “You’re on
The Empress of India,
” he told him. “A passenger vessel of the Anglo-Asian Star steamship line, bound from Calcutta to London by way of Bombay and Port Said. Do you know your name?”

“What do you mean?” Pin asked. He paused for a minute, looking puzzled, and then his face cleared. “My name is Holmes—Sherlock Holmes.” He shook his head and peered at his interlocutor. “Moriarty! It’s you! I should have known you’d be up to some devilry or other. What have you done to me?”

Cooley the Pup leaned over the sitting man. “Ooo the deuce did you say you were, mate?” he demanded.

“I’m Sherlock . . .” Holmes groaned, held his head, and looked up. “Cooley the Pup,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” the Pup growled. “Sherlock Holmes, are you? A fine story you’ve been handing us these weeks!”

“And what is it you’ve done with the real Pin Dok Low?” the Artful Codger added from where Margaret St. Yves was doing a professional job of bandaging his hand. “I knew you didn’t look like no Chinaman.”

Holmes looked away from his two recent confederates and glared at Moriarty. “What have you been up to?” he demanded. “Why are these people here? Why am I here?”

“As near as I can tell,” Moriarty said, “you’ve followed me across two
continents and half of another. Why this should be, I have no idea. Pin Dok Low, is it? How’s your head?”

Holmes raised his hand to the wound, winced, and lowered it again. “I saw a flash of light,” he remembered, “and then—”

“You were shot,” Moriarty told him. “A near miss. Or perhaps I should say a near hit. The bullet just grazed you above the ear. The left ear.”

Holmes was silent for a moment. And then he put a finger to his nose and said, “Thuggees.”

“That’s right,” the Artful Codger agreed.

“I remember now,” said Holmes. “Thuggees—the ship—gold—the Bank of England—Watson! I must send a telegram to poor old Watson—and my brother, Mycroft.”

“Hard to do,” Moriarty reminded him. “We’re in the middle of the Arabian Sea. What do you remember?”

Holmes thought hard for a minute, staring down at the deck and rubbing his head, wincing once when he inadvertently ran his hand over the fresh wound over his ear. He looked up at Moriarty and grinned ruefully. “You were right,” he said. “I was pursuing you. And you were—are—after the gold shipment. Are you not?”

“And you and your, ah, companions, raced from London all the way to Bombay in order to board this ship and prevent me from, ah, acquiring the gold?”

“Well,” Holmes said, doing his best not to look embarrassed, “you see, I was after it myself.”

“Really!”

“That is, Pin Dok Low was determined to acquire it. And I was Pin Dok Low.”

“I’m shocked,” Moriarty declared. “And I note that even as Pin Dok Low you did not let up in your continued efforts to harass, even to harm me.”

“I did?” Holmes asked.

“Your agents,” Moriarty reminded him. “In various locations throughout Europe. I was shot at, bashed at, and pushed in front of moving vehicles.”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Holmes said, frowning. “But it does sound awfully like Dr. Pin Dok Low.” He smiled. “The doctor did have some good in him after all!”

“Very amusing,” said Professor Moriarty.

Margaret came over and knelt by Holmes. “Let me see your head,” she said. “I found a bottle of MacGregor’s Eight-Year-Old in the guardroom which I’ll use to cleanse the wound. If you’d like to take a couple of quick gulps before I begin, it might serve to deaden the pain.”

“No, thank you, miss,” Holmes said. “My head is spinning around quite enough without the aid of MacGregor’s Eight-Year-Old.”

Holmes gritted his teeth and stared intently at the far wall while Margaret poured a couple of jiggers of Scotch over the wound and patted it dry with some clean cotton bandaging, which she then tied around his head. “That should do it,” she said, standing up to admire her handiwork.

Holmes thanked her and attempted to push himself to his feet. After two tries he slumped back down. “Perhaps I should remain here a bit longer,” he said. A volley of gunfire sounded from on deck, and then another and another. Then the gunfire became sporadic, as each man reserved his fire for a visible enemy.

“The missing ship has arrived,” commented Moriarty.

“We should go up there,” Peter said, shoving a clip into the magazine of the carbine he had just snatched from the guardroom.

“We’ll join you shortly,” Moriarty said. He and Margaret helped Holmes into the guardroom and onto one of the wooden chairs. “You’re really Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the detective?” Margaret asked.

“I believe so,” he said. “Although I haven’t been for the past few months. The mind is more of a frail and fallible thing than I would have thought previous to this experience.”

“Let’s hear it,” Moriarty said grimly. “Why have you been following
me about disguised as a Chinaman dressed as a middle-European businessman?”

“That’s who I believed I was,” Holmes explained. “Tell me, have you some nefarious scheme to make off with the gold? And if not, what are you doing here?”

“I’ll ask the questions for the next little bit,” Moriarty told him. “However; no, I have no plans to acquire the gold. As to what I’m doing here, that will have to wait.”

“Why should you think that Professor Moriarty is after the gold?” Margaret asked.

“Because he is Professor Moriarty,” Holmes explained.

“Let us not wander off into bright byways of speculation,” Moriarty said. “What do you mean, you thought you were Pin Dok Low? Is it not just one of your less puerile disguises?”

Holmes blew a thin whistle of air between his pursed lips. “Let me try to clarify my thoughts,” he said. “I was asked by the director of the Board of Governors of the Bank of England to help safeguard a shipment of gold.” He paused and looked around. “Presumably this shipment of gold.”

Moriarty arched an eyebrow. “Yes?” he said. “And then you went down a manhole into the London sewers.”