The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (24 page)

I heard him shout, ‘Give in! It’s hopeless!’

Whether the weapon was fired by accident or with deliberate intent, there was no way of telling from our places of concealment.

All we saw and heard was another flash and report as the gun went off followed by a dreadful scream and the broad-shouldered man fell backwards out of sight.

Van Breughel appeared briefly at the window. I swear that he grinned down at us although Holmes later asserted that it was pure fancy on my part and that I could not, at that distance, have discerned any expression on the man’s features. However, there was no mistaking the jaunty wave of his hand, a last gesture of defiance, as he tossed an empty cartridge box into the yard before he stepped back and there came the sound of a final shot.

There ensued several moments of absolute silence, made all the more intense by the noise and violence which had preceded it.

It was broken by Inspector Unwin who rose to his feet and called to us to come forward. It was only then as I relaxed my grip on my revolver that I realized my palm was sore where its butt had bitten deep into my flesh.

After we had burst down the front door, we found the two bodies in one of the bedrooms, Van Breughel’s just below the window, his head shattered by the bullet which had penetrated the skull. His features were unrecognizable although the steel-rimmed spectacles lying broken beside him identified the corpse as his. His companion was stretched out on the floor a little
distance away, a large gaping wound in his chest just above his heart.

I had no difficulty in pronouncing them both dead.

Inspector Unwin stood gazing down at them, his hands behind his back and an expression of distaste as well as disappointment on his broad, ruddy features.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ said he, addressing all of us, ‘it is not the outcome I had looked for. I had hoped to take the pair of them into custody. However, there is no point in crying over it. The milk has been spilt and that’s an end to it.’

‘You will inform the local constabulary?’ Holmes inquired. ‘What account will you give them to explain away this affair?’

‘I shall keep pretty much to the story we’ve already prepared with just a change of ending,’ Unwin replied cheerfully. ‘Me and my men have been on the trail of these villains for the past few weeks on account of an armed raid on a post office in Marylebone. We traced them to this hide out where we found them dead. What do you suggest, Mr Holmes,’ he added with a twinkle. ‘A quarrel over the proceeds of the robbery? A falling out among thieves? I think that would explain their deaths most satisfactorily. But before I send one of my men to the police station in Wellerby, there is unfinished business we must attend to in the barn.’

Taking the oil lamp from the table, he led the way down the stairs and across the yard to the outbuilding where he opened back the double doors and we followed him inside.

Even now, long after the event, I find it difficult to bring myself to recollect that scene, let alone describe it.

The barn was old with an earth floor and a raftered roof, hung with cobwebs which over the years had gathered in tattered, dusty wreaths.

But before my eyes had grown accustomed to the dim yellow light from the lamp to discern these details, I was horribly aware of two other sensations.

The first was the smell of the place which was compounded of the musty odours of the earth and the old timber of which the barn was constructed, the sweeter scent of straw but,
overpowering it all, the fearful stench of rotting food and of the excreta of rodents which caught the back of my throat.

Added to this was the noise, more dreadful even than the odours, which assailed us as we entered. It was a scratching, grunting, rustling sound, demonic in its pitch and its intensity, which assaulted us from every side and which was so deafening that we could hear nothing above it, not even the sound of our own footsteps.

As Unwin turned up the lamp and the light grew stronger, we then saw the full horror of the place which, until that moment, we had only smelt and heard.

Lining the walls of the barn were several dozen large steel cages with thick mesh sides, each containing half a dozen rats of a similar size and colouring to the one which I had already seen preserved in the glass jar in Holmes’ bedroom.

But if the dead specimen had been hideous enough, the living creatures were infinitely more monstrous. Disturbed by the light and our presence, they scuttled up and down the cages, thrusting their evil snouts against the mesh and lifting back their muzzles to expose their sharp orange teeth, their scaly tails rustling eagerly in the straw and their little eyes gleaming ferociously in the lamplight.

Holmes, who had clapped a handkerchief about his nose and mouth, turned to address us.

‘I doubt,’ said he ‘that there is a poison strong enough to exterminate them, even if we had some about us. But eliminated they must be, every last one of them. If only one or two escape into the wild to breed, God alone knows what the consequences would be. Are you ready to use your guns?’

I shall pass over the next half-hour without comment except to say that, after we had lifted the lids from the cages, the noise and stench from the giant rats was covered by the sound of rifle and revolver fire and the odour of cordite.

When it was all over, we made a bonfire in the yard of the bodies, covering them with straw and dousing them liberally with paraffin before setting them alight.

As we stood watching the flames leap, Holmes said quietly to me, ‘Watson, may I borrow your revolver?’

I handed it to him and he slipped silently away, for what reason I could not guess until I heard a single shot and realized the purpose of his errand.

‘The mastiff?’ I asked when, a moment later, he returned as silently as he had departed.

‘Like the other inhabitants of this dreadful place, it was too vicious ever to be tamed,’ he said.

Holmes and I were not present when the bodies of Van Breughel and his confederate were removed from the house later that night, after Inspector Unwin and his men had searched the building and had consigned to the flames any papers pertaining to the Pied Piper’s scientific experiments, with the exception of the contents of the large valise which he had insisted on keeping with him on his journey from London and which, because of the paucity of his tips to the porters who had carried it, had laid the trail for Holmes and Inspector Unwin to follow.

It was thought prudent that Holmes and I should withdraw from the scene before the official police from Wellerby arrived although we heard the final outcome a week later, after our return to London, when we dined with the Prime Minister and Mycroft at the Carlton.

It was rare indeed for Mycroft to leave his lodgings in Pall Mall or to dine anywhere except at the Diogenes Club where he spent most evenings.

On this occasion, he made an exception. The rules of the Diogenes forbade any conversation on the premises with the exception of the Strangers’ Room and, as the Prime Minister had issued the invitation, Mycroft, very unwillingly, agreed to accompany us to the august setting of the Carlton.

I must confess though that, while impressed by my surroundings, I was disappointed at first acquaintance by the Prime Minister. In contrast to Mycroft’s portly and dignified presence, he struck me as a small, insignificant man with a little, clipped moustache and pale, short-sighted eyes behind gold-rimmed pince-nez.

Of the two men it was Mycroft who was the more commanding figure and I thought of Holmes’ comment that, because of
his prodigious capacity for retaining and collating information, his brother was indispensable to every Government department and that it was on his advice that much of our national policy was decided. Indeed, there were occasions when Mycroft
was
the Government.

It was Mycroft who took charge of the conversation.

‘I thought,’ said he when the waiter had withdrawn, leaving us alone at our secluded table, ‘knowing your preference, my dear Sherlock, and yours, too, Dr Watson, for a case to be satisfactorily concluded, that I should begin by informing you of the facts we have learnt of the man calling himself Van Breughel and his accomplice. By “we”, I of course refer to Her Majesty’s Government although the whole truth is known to no more than two or three persons who were privy to the affair from its outset.

‘First Van Breughel. Discreet inquiries through the Dutch authorities in Sumatra have established that his real name was Wilhelm Van Heflin and that he was employed as a manager by an Amsterdam-based company which grew and exported coffee. He was born in Rotterdam of an English mother and a Dutch sea-captain. Because his father’s calling took him away from home for long periods, Van Heflin was largely brought up in this country by his mother and consequently came to think of himself, despite his surname, as English. I give you these details because they are relevant to Van Heflin’s subsequent career.

‘It was during his childhood in England that he met and formed a close relationship with a cousin, Jonas Bedlow, his mother’s brother’s son who was later to become his accomplice.

‘While Van Heflin was still a youth, his father retired from the sea and the mother took the boy back to Holland although the ties with England were still maintained and Van Heflin continued to consider himself a British citizen.

‘It was only after he left school that he learnt the truth about his antecedents. It came as a bitter blow to him. As both his parents had died in the meantime, he returned to England, his intention being to apply for a post in the Civil Service. He was an intelligent youth and was confident that his application
would succeed. It was only when the facts of his birth were looked into that it was discovered he was a Dutch not a British citizen and his application was refused.

‘According to our sources in Sumatra, he was still complaining bitterly against what he considered his betrayal by the British Government thirty years later. There is no doubt in my mind that it was because of this rejection that he turned to plotting revenge against our Government and people. It is also, I believe, why he sought a post on the other side of the world in order to put as much distance as he could between himself and this country.

‘However, Van Heflin’s career in Sumatra was successful and he rose quickly from humble clerk to manager of one of the coffee plantations. It was then that he began to experiment with the rodents which are indigenous to Sumatra. Van Heflin’s private papers, which were found in his valise, confirmed that he was engaged in certain tests which involved the keeping of records, such as dates, numbers and weights.

‘In the mean time, while Van Heflin’s career flourished, that of his English cousin, Jonas Bedlow, had declined. On his father’s death, he had inherited the family farm, never a very prosperous enterprise and one which suffered further under Jonas Bedlow’s inept management. He was consequently short of money and was willing to agree to any proposal put forward by his cousin, Van Heflin, to establish his fortune.

‘The valise also contained letters from Bedlow which, together with Van Heflin’s private papers, make it quite clear that, having retired from his post in Sumatra, Van Heflin booked a single passage to England, bringing with him his “specimens”, as the dreadful products of his experiments were always referred to. Bedlow was to meet him at the docks with a covered van, having first prepared the farm to receive its appalling new livestock.

‘You are already familiar with the rest of the account, of how Van Heflin sent the jar containing the dead “specimen” to Downing Street, accompanied by the blackmail letter. But you may not be aware how Van Heflin proposed that the half a
million pounds should be paid over to him by the British Government. That, too, was revealed in his private documents.

‘It was as fiendishly clever as the rest of the scheme. It was to be entered into a secret bank account in Switzerland, identified only by a number. Once Van Heflin received assurances through the personal columns in
The
Times
that the money had been transferred, he in turn would have kept his end of the bargain. The rats would have been killed, their bodies crated up and sent to Downing Street. Can you imagine the consternation this would have caused, my dear Sherlock? I believe you reported that there were more than ten dozen of the vile creatures.

‘It was the intention of both Bedlow and Van Heflin that, once the farm was emptied of its revolting tenants, the place would be sold and the pair of them, using false papers, would travel to Switzerland, there to enjoy the proceeds of their evil plot. No doubt one might have unwittingly come across them from time to time in London, staying at the best hotels and dining at the most expensive restaurants, at the same time laughing quietly up their sleeves at their success in outwitting the British Government. The prospect does not bear thinking about.

‘I know it is quite useless, my dear brother, offering you any official recognition for your services to the State. You would almost certainly refuse such a distinction. However, as Unwin and his fellow officers have been rewarded by promotion, we felt that we could not allow the occasion to pass without acknowledging the part both you and Dr Watson have played in laying these villains by the heels. Sir, would you care to perform the small ceremony we have prepared?’

The Prime Minister, who had listened in silence to Mycroft’s speech, smiling affably and occasionally nodding his head to show concurrence with the sentiments expressed, now rose to his feet.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, in the expressive voice which had on many occasions entranced the Members of Parliament and which had earned him the title of the Kean of the House of Commons, ‘it gives me great pleasure to thank you most
heartily on behalf of myself, Her Majesty’s Government and the whole British nation and to present you with these small tokens of our esteem and gratitude, which a certain lady, who shall be nameless, thought might be appropriate and who took the liveliest interest in the design and choosing of them.’

With that he shook both Holmes and myself most warmly by the hand before passing over to us two packets containing the ‘small tokens’ which were nothing less that two magnificent gold pocket-watches, complete with chains on which were hanging tiny platinum figures in the shape of a Pied Piper to serve as seals.