My Sherlock Holmes Page 36

  Was it merely coincidence? Divine revelation? Was the writer of the riddle some kind of seer, a Restoration version of Nostradamus? Or was the riddle itself a clever modern forgery? For all I knew of the process of dating paper and ink, the lines could have been penned a fortnight ago, drawn from an ancient legend. But a forgery to what end? It appeared that the riddle of Seven Dials had not yet given up all of its secrets.

  I stepped to the window. The sky was beginning to darken. Harry should be here soon, I thought. But an hour passed and I was still awaiting his arrival. Where on earth was he? After another anxious hour, my state of nervousness and impatience had become so great that I nearly jumped bodily out of my chair when the sharp knocking came to the door. Finally, Harry had arrived. “Missy, the door,” I called, and then remembered that she had gone. Stepping to the front door, I swung it open, only to find that it was not my diminutive friend standing there, but rather a tall, distinguished looking man of indeterminate middle age.

  “I’m from Chippenham’s, madam,” he said. “The coach is waiting out front.” It was not the same driver who had come previously.

  “Really? I take it, then, that Mrs. Ramsay arrived at the shop.”

  “Yes, madam, she is there now. I will take you there.”

  “Let me get a wrap first,” I said, leaving the man at the door while I went back inside.

  “And madam, I’m to make sure that you do not forget to bring the riddle with you,” he called.

  “Thank you,” I called back, throwing on a jacket. Then, after stopping to pick up the stack of papers from the table, I headed back to the door. Once outside the man led me to a common hansom cab. “What happened to the phaeton?” I asked.

  “In use, madam. Mr. Benbow arranged for this one.”

  “I see,” I muttered, starting toward the cab. Then stopped suddenly, feeling a chill inside me. “Mr. Benbow arranged for this, you say?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Is there a problem?

  Indeed there was. I spun around and started back for the front door. “I think I shall go back and telephone Chippenham’s to let them know I am on my way,” I told the man.

  “I think not,” the man said, rushing to head me off. From his pocket he withdrew a small silver pistol.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, striving for a defiant tone that was not supported by my emotions. “You are not from Chippenham’s.” Had the man in reality been an employee of the company, he would have referred to Harry as Mr. Beaumont, not Mr. Benbow.

  “Your questions will be answered in due course,” the man said. “For now, get in the cab.”

  “I could scream, you know.”

  “And I could shoot.”

  Deciding that reasoning with the brute was out of the question, as was any attempt at escaping, I had no choice but to do as he said. Stepping into the cab, I sat stiffly against the seat, feeling the barrel of his gun pressed into my side. He knocked on the roof of the cab and it lurched into action.

  “Give me the riddle, if you please,” he said, holding out his free hand, into which I placed the papers, including the vellum. He quickly shoved them into his coat pocket.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “To my castle,” he replied.

  “Your castle?”

  “Every man’s home is his castle, don’t you agree?”

  It struck me then. “You are Charles Ramsay.”

  The man nodded in agreement.

  “Where is your wife?”

  “That stupid creature I honored with my family name?” he spat, his voice rising dangerously. “You will not be hearing from her again.”

  “What have you done with her?” I asked, feeling chilled by more than the night air.

  “She betrayed me, Mrs. Watson, and I am not a man with a stomach for betrayal. No doubt she sobbed on your shoulder about me, told you that I was some kind of cold and heartless beast. I have reasons for my actions, just as I have certain established certain rules governing my home. The most important rule is that what is mine is not to be placed in the hands of others. That applies nowhere more strongly than to that piece of parchment she took from me and gave to you. Jane committed the unpardonable; she removed the riddle from the house without my knowledge and shared its information with others.”

  “She only wanted to make you happy,” I said.

  “I did not wed her for happiness, but for what she could give me. The common little fool never realized that.”

  I faced straight ahead as we careened through the narrow streets toward our destination. “What is going to happen to me?” I asked, my fear tempered with indignation.

  “You possess knowledge that I require,” he said. “After I have obtained that knowledge, you will have fulfilled your usefulness to me and will be discarded.”

  “Discarded?” I cried, indignantly.

  He pushed the pistol deeper into my side. “Careful, madam. You would be wrong to assume that I will not shoot you if I have to, whether I have retrieved your information or not. Mr. Benbow has told me enough about the solution to the riddle to convince me that I could piece together the rest myself.”

  “Where is Harry?”

  “He is safe. For the time being.”

  I glanced up at the ceiling, but the wretch beside me seemed to read my very thoughts. “Do not waste your time wondering if you could alert the driver,” he said. “I have taken the liberty of telling him that you were mentally unstable. He has been instructed—and paid—to ignore whatever he might hear emanating from inside the cab.”

  We drove on in nerve-racking silence for another three-quarters of an hour, and then the cab began to slow. “Here we are,” Ramsay said. “I appreciate the fact that you did not try to do anything foolish. A woman with common sense is a rare thing these days, Mrs. Watson, and I congratulate you.”

  “You may keep your congratulations to yourself!” I bristled.

  My rising anger made Ramsay smile. Or perhaps it was my rising helplessness. “Now then,” he said, “I will get out first, keeping the pistol trained on you, and then you will emerge slowly and walk beside me, straight to the door.”

  I remained silent as he stepped out of the cab and, hiding the pistol from the driver, paid for the ride. Then following his demands, I slowly stepped down and remained at his side. Together, we watched the cab disappear down the dark street, which was empty, except for the presence of another hansom that was stopped at the curb several houses down. I knew that any attempt to race down the street and alert the driver of that cab would meet with disaster.

  Ramsay’s “castle” turned out to be a modest brick dwelling in Lambeth, into which he ushered me. As soon as we were inside the house, I heard Harry’s voice calling: “Amelia, are you all right?”

  Another voice bellowed, “Shut up, you!” That was followed by the sound of a hard slap.

  “Harry!” I shouted.

  “He is in there,” Ramsay said, nudging me with the pistol. “Go on.”

  I stepped into a comfortably furnished, though dimly lit, room. Harry Benbow was tied to a chair, his hair plastered against his forehead with perspiration. Standing over him was a young girl whose face bore a scowling expression, and who was looking at me with the most lifeless eyes I had ever seen.

  “I’m sorry, Amelia,” Harry moaned. “They forced me to tell ’em where to find you. I’m sorry for everything, ducks.”

  I directed my gaze back upon the girl. “You are Mary Ramsay, I presume.”

  The girl sneered.

  “Mary, show some manners,” Ramsay commanded, prompting her to perform a parody of a smile, one that revealed large, crooked teeth. “How d’you do?” she growled.

  Ramsay pulled a chair to the center of the room and pushed me into it, and instructed the girl to tie me up as she had Harry. All the while he kept the pistol trained on me. Mary Ramsay carried out her task with deliberate roughness, and the ropes painfully chafed my wrists. “Must they be so tight?” I groane
d to Ramsay.

  “They must,” he replied. “I am a not a man who can afford to take chances.”

  “You are not a man at all, you are swine,” I riposted, but then cried out as the girl grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked it, wrenching my head backwards.

  “I don’t think you know who you’re talking to,” she said. “You should be down on the floor, scraping before your sovereign, the rightful King of England!”

  Thankfully, she let go of my hair, and I rested my pained gaze upon Ramsay again. “You are the rightful King of England?”

  He bowed. “As was my father, and his father, and every male member of my family since the time of William of Orange, the usurper who turned the country inexorably away from the True Church.” He paced before me, taking slow, measured steps. “I am a direct lineal descendant of James the Second, the last Catholic King of the realm, and the last true monarch. Even though my family name is not to be found on any accepted genealogical chart, my descent from James is a fact.”

  “In other words, your ancestor was illegitimate,” I said.

  “I could tell right off he was a bastard,” Harry added, then with an abashed glance to me, added: “Pardon my tongue, Amelia.”

  Poor Harry’s misplaced concern with propriety in the face of such grave danger drew from me a helpless, mirthless chuckle. Unfortunately, the wretched girl behind me mistook my laughter as a comment on her father’s statement, and grabbed my hair once more, giving my head a vicious twist.

  “Mary!” Ramsay shouted. “How many times must I tell you: noblesse oblige.” The girl let go.

  I shook my aching head. “What do you want from me, Your Majesty?” I invested as much venom as possible into the last two words. If Ramsay took offense, he did not show it.

  “The final answer to the riddle,” he replied. “The exact location of the treasure.”

  “Why are you so certain there is a treasure?” I asked.

  “Oh, it is there, Mrs. Watson. That which the riddle terms a ‘relick’ is actually the remainder of the fortune in gold and jewels that was raised to finance the Monmouth Rebellion. When the unfortunate duke lost his bid to become king—as well as his head—what was left of his war chest was secreted, with the knowledge that one day, the rightful monarch, the one destined by God to rule this empire, would rise up and retake the throne from the bloodline of pretenders. I am ready to fulfill that destiny, and the destiny of the True Church. That treasure will finance this ascension.” He stopped and smiled. “Ironic, is it not? That the wealth that was gathered by a Protestant in an attempt to overthrow the last Catholic king will now be used to restore the status of the Catholic Church in the Empire?”

  “Insane would be my description,” I replied. “You cannot seriously believe that you will be crowned.”

  “I? Alas, no. Perhaps if one of my forebears had seen fit to accept his God-bestowed destiny, I might have been, but I have resigned myself to the likelihood that I will never sit on the throne of England. It is not for myself that I do this, Mrs. Watson, but rather for my son. Properly used and invested, the treasure could reap wealth beyond even my dreams, and with wealth comes power. Imagine, a male of royal blood being born into that kind of wealth and power. What could not that blessed boy accomplish?”

  Suddenly I realized how this mad plot was hinged. “It is not simply the treasure that you are lacking, is it?” I said. “You do not have a son either, do you, Mr. Ramsay? That is the reason you married such a young woman, so you could breed a male heir. That was the thing she could give you.”

  “And it is the reason I will marry another young woman, and another after her, and another after her, if that is what it takes,” Ramsay declared. “I will have a son! I will not suffer the fates of James and the heretic Henry, with only daughters to carry on after me.” He cast a contemptuous glance at Mary.

  “And if they do not produce a son, you will kill them so you can marry again.”

  “What are a few individual lives compared to the restoration of the True Church?” he shouted. “The lives of those women mean nothing.”

  “How dare you purport to be a man of faith?” I spat. “You are sickening, a disgrace—”

  “That is enough!” he thundered, quieting me. “I have no interest in wasting any more time on a debate whose outcome has already been decided. You have been very clever in solving the riddle, Mrs. Watson, I will give you that. While I am certain that I would have eventually been able to decipher it myself, you have saved me valuable time, and I am not ungrateful. But now I need the last piece of the puzzle.” He knelt down before me, pushing his face close to mine, placing the barrel of the pistol against my heart. “Where is the treasure buried?”

  “I … do not … know,” I stammered, struggling to overcome my revulsion and fear. “Leave her be!” Harry cried out, prompting Mary to rushed over to his chair and viciously cuff him across the face.

  “I do not know!” I shouted. “The solution to the riddle is Seven Dials, and I believe that at a certain time of the day the column of Seven Dials cast a shadow over the hiding place of the treasure, but what time, I do not know!”

  Ramsay rose to his feet and backed away, and I was relieved to be spared the unpleasant heat of his breath. “I believe you, Mrs. Watson. You have convinced me that neither you nor Benbow have the information I seek. For me, that is a small setback. It does, however, mean that the two of you are no longer needed.” He spun around to Harry and leveled the pistol at his chest. Harry’s eyes widened and he struggled helplessly against his bounds. I turned my head away and closed my eyes. I could not watch. I waited for the dreadful sound of the bullet.

  But instead of the shot, I heard another sound: a loud pounding on the door of the house. I opened my eyes to see Ramsay glance toward his daughter, who had started toward the door. “Ignore it, ignore it!” he demanded, raising the gun again. But the pounding continued, only now it came from two different directions.

  “They’re at the back, too!” Mary cried.

  I heard a muffled cry that very nearly reduced me to tears of joy: “Police, open up!”

  “Gor, the peelers!” Harry cried, jubilantly.

  I dared not to even wonder why the police had chosen this particular time to descend upon the Ramsay house, for fear they might go away again!

  Clearly as confused and frightened as they were angered by the development, Ramsay and Mary looked at each other, as though uncertain as to what to do next. A moment later we heard the splintering sound of a door being burst open, and a second after that, a half-dozen uniformed PC’s entered the room, batons poised. In front of the brigade was a sergeant who trained his pistol on the stunned Ramsay and easily disarmed him. Mary was not so acquiescent. Fighting like a madwoman, she required the combined force of three constables to hold her. Despite everything, I could not bring myself to hate the wretched girl. She was a creature of her demented father’s making, and as such probably never had a chance.

  Another officer was working to untie Harry and I. My arms, when released, felt like molten lead. A bruise was forming on Harry’s cheek, where Mary had struck him. When the situation was under control, the sergeant turned to me. “You must be Mrs. Watson,” he said.

  “Yes, but how on earth … how … ?” For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless.

  “Come along outside, madam. You, too, sir,” he beckoned to Harry.

  As the constables were escorting both Ramsays to a police wagon, I overheard Charles Ramsay ranting to no one in particular: “This is not the end! I will have a son! If he be born in prison, so be it!” I shook my head, feeling an uneasy mix of pity and revulsion.

  I was still puzzling over the perfectly timed arrival of the police when I looked up and saw something even more puzzling: there, before me, stood Sherlock Holmes! He trod over to where I was standing, the expression on his face a conflicting mixture of concern and something resembling embarrassment. For a brief moment, I thought he was going to reach out
and lay a comforting hand on my arm, but if that was his inclination, he fought it. “I trust you are unharmed, Mrs. Watson?” he said, awkwardly.

  “Barely,” I gasped, feeling weak. “And I must assume that you are the means of my escape from the hands of a madman, but how on earth did you know where to find me? How did you even know I was in trouble?”

  “I happened to arrive in front of your home in time to witness you being threatened by the man who was just placed into custody,” he answered. “I could tell immediately that something was amiss by the tension and rigidity in your body. What’s more, the man was standing far to close to you for this to be an innocent conversation. I secreted myself in the shadows and watched until I discerned a glint of metal from the man’s hand, which I immediately recognized as the barrel of a pistol. After you were forced into the cab, I hailed one of my own and instructed the driver to follow you, which we did the entire way here.”

  “Then that was your cab I saw at the end of the street,” I said.

  “Yes. Once more I watched as you were forced to enter the house, and no sooner were you inside than I sent the driver to fetch the police while keeping watch outside. The constables quickly arrived, and the rest you know.”

  “Oh, Heaven help me,” I moaned, now fearing I might collapse. The only thing that kept me upright was my refusal to faint away in a womanish swoon in front of Mr. Holmes.

  “Perhaps Heaven already has,” he uttered. “While I am not a fervent believer in the hand of Providence interfering with the affairs of mortals, I have to question whether the influence of a mightier force was not involved in placing me at right place at exactly the right time to facilitate your delivery.”

  “Mr. Holmes, don’t tell me you believe you were directed to Queen Anne Street by the will of God!” I said, startled the admission.