Death on a Pale Horse - By Donald Thomas Page 0,100
course Holmes and I were partners and must act together. Yet the reader may bear in mind that our partnership was still relatively recent. I must be allowed a degree of discretion and independence in personal matters. I was sufficiently of two minds that I decided to sleep on the matter. Tomorrow should be the day of decision. I could just as well tell him my story then as now.
Next morning, uncharacteristically, it was Sherlock Holmes who was first at the breakfast table. I appeared at my usual time, having slept wretchedly, to find him already at the stage of toast and marmalade. His copy of the Morning Post had been read and laid aside. Against the polished silver of the milk jug stood an open copy of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, chosen from the volumes of the Complete Novels of George Meredith which had long stood upon his shelves. He closed the book and looked up at me.
“I thought it best that you should sleep well, Watson. I trust you have done so, for you may not find it so easy tonight.”
“Indeed?”
“I fear so. Colonel Rawdon Moran is back in England.”
I could only play the part I had imposed upon myself: “Since when?”
“He has been here for a day or two at least. He did not, as expected, sail from Madeira to Antwerp. Masquerading as Sebastian Moran, I made urgent and brotherly inquiries for him by telegraph to the shipping agents in Leadenhall Street. Their passenger lists show that he disembarked at Lisbon last week and took the Iberian Express for Medina del Campo and Paris. He had only to travel a little further and board the steamer from Calais to Dover. He has stolen something of a march upon us.”
“He has left France, then?” I asked awkwardly.
“Indeed. He was at the Epsom Spring Meeting yesterday afternoon.”
If I looked astonished, it was for reasons which I hoped my friend would not find obvious. It was an unenviable experience to fence with him over truth and falsehood.
“You did not see him for yourself?”
“He was seen, my dear fellow. I hope it will not distress you to hear that he was closer to you than you imagined. You had not emerged from the Hall of Mirrors when he entered it.”
“I did not see you there.” That at least was true.
“I daresay not. You might, however, have noticed a young scamp of twelve or thirteen, wearing a braided jacket with a cap and muffler, loitering about the amusements.”
“There were dozens of young rips like that!”
“Precisely. This one, however, was acting as a runner for an itinerant fairground photographer and was there at my request. ‘Shadowing us’ is, I believe, the vernacular expression. The boy is one of my young Baker Street friends who rejoices in the title of Skiver Jenkins of Lisson Grove. A promising lad. I should call him at least a sergeant-major in our Baker Street Irregulars.”
“So that was it!”
“I fear so. Rawdon Moran is an habitué of the racecourse as surely as the card-table and would never miss the Epsom meeting if he were in England. I put him to the test. I can only apologise for turning you loose as a scapegoat with two of our young gentlemen keeping distant observation. I count upon the colonel’s continuing interest in our movements. I can assure you that you were followed from the military rifle range by a pair of bullies until our friend Moran was able to detach himself from his party. He was on your track for at least twenty minutes. Skiver Jenkins was able to identify him from my description and a lamentably amateur copy that I had produced for the occasion from Mycroft’s photograph.”
“And what do you propose to do?”
“Nothing,” he said with a shrug. “Our adversaries are impatient. Their intention is that we should now scuttle about like startled rabbits. By doing nothing, we draw them on a little further.”
Though he had not so far mentioned his correspondence, there was one letter by his plate. It must have appeared of some importance and he had apparently reserved it for his full attention. I contrived to read upon its envelope a return address. It was the Ravenswood Hotel, Southampton Row. Major Putney-Wilson had evidently thought it necessary to prevent his message being tampered with surreptitiously: there was a red wax seal on the back of the envelope.