第 16 页

The house was very small and simple, the family who lived there were obviously poor but framed photographs and hand-made doilies covering the shelves gave a sense of homeliness and pride.

Watson returned to the bedside of his patient, the light of life fading from her pathetic frame. Holmes spoke with her distraught young husband, listing all who had entered the house since she had taken ill. He gave firm instructions that no-one should leave the house until he sent word that it was safe.

He issued them with masks and tried to establish how the victim could possibly have contracted the disease. He then conducted a search of the house which stopped with the discovery of a certain photograph. His mind was suddenly propelled back to the night of the bare-knuckle boxing match and to me, my hair like a storm-cloud; my body alight with all the fires of youth.

Suddenly, the husband coughed. Only a little at first, then a great rasp which wracked his body. Holmes stepped back and watched in horror as blood began to seep through the husband’s mask. There was no time to lose.

“What is this man to your family?” he shouted with urgency, snatching the photograph down from its shelf. The husband was frightened; he had seen the blood and knew that he too must now have the disease. As his children rushed to him, Holmes intercepted and banished them to another room. They wailed with fear and Holmes forced himself to stay focused and not dwell on the fact that soon they would be orphans - or dead.

“Who is this man?” he shouted again as the husband sank onto a worn old chair beside the fire.

His voice trembled as he spoke. “Frankie Jones, it’s Frankie, my wife’s brother. He was the one who got her the job at the big house as a private nurse, much better money than at the hospital.”

Back upstairs in the bedroom, Watson injected a lethal dose of pain relief into the girl’s fragile arm which had turned purple with disease. He stayed beside her bed until life was finally extinguished, gently drew her eyelids shut and pulled the blood-stained bed sheet over her tortured face.

He arrived back downstairs just as the husband told Holmes where Frankie Jones lived.

The two companions left but moments later watched in horror as the nurse’s husband appeared at the window holding a blazing rolled-up newspaper and held it to the curtain. Within seconds, flames danced around the window while he stood motionless, accepting his fate with dignified resignation, preferring to be burnt alive than suffer the disease and spread it to others.

“The children!” Watson cried, starting to run towards the house. Holmes pulled him back.

“It is too late, they will be infected. The father has done them all a kindness.”

Frankie Jones lived with his widowed mother in a slightly more salubrious part of the East End. She peered through the window as Holmes knocked loudly upon her front door, and decided not to answer to two such official-looking gentlemen. She understood that the money which furnished the house and put food in their bellies was not simply from Frankie’s work in the silversmith shop.

Holmes scribbled a note which he slid under the door.

“Not the most sensitive way to break the news, but these are desperate times,” he uttered as a wailing cry suddenly filled the house.

After a slight pause the door opened to reveal a short woman of middle years who was shaking and crying as her boxer son placed a strong arm around her shoulders to comfort her. He ushered her to a nearby chair then swiftly and without warning rushed at Holmes, grabbing him by the neck and pushing him against the wall.

“Tell me it’s a lie. How dare you come here with your lies and frighten my mother! Who are you? Tell me. Tell me she’s alive, tell me please!” screamed Frankie.

Holmes remained steadfast and calm, Frankie began to shake as he looked into the honesty of his eyes and understood that indeed his sister had died just as the note had stated. He released his grip.

“Who are you?” he asked again, more subdued this time.

Watson sat beside the sobbing mother, offering words of comfort while Frankie paced the room, head in hands. Holmes explained who he and Watson were and urged Frankie to tell all he could about the red-headed girl, the one who was at the boxing with him, who abducted a beggar from outside the silversmiths on the day he was minding the shop.

Frankie refused to answer out of loyalty and fear, he knew the power of Red Moriarty and even in his moments of grief he could not risk unleashing such wrath. Holmes became impatient.

“Your sister endured a painful death eased only by the hand of Doctor Watson here. It was the Black Death, a powerful and virulent strain. Soon it will reach you, your mother and all others you care for. Do you want them to suffer the fate of your sister?

“Do not let her death be in vain. Please, help me find those responsible for creating this disease in the hope that they have an antidote. Hundreds may die without it and their fate lies now in your hands Frankie.”

The young man slumped into a chair, his powerful muscular frame broken by his loss and the enormity of what he had just heard. Could Red Moriarty be behind all this?

“I believe the girl took that beggar back to wherever it was your sister was working in order to infect him with the plague and test its effectiveness. I’m sure he would have been one of many,” Holmes continued, trying to persuade my prize fighter to betray me.

Frankie thought hard before deciding perhaps this was no time for loyalties.

“She lived there, my sister, at the big house. We had not seen her for many months. She went there to care for some rich old man but after a while she stopped writing to us. It was all secret and we did not know her address or how to contact her, neither did her husband.

“It was a condition of the job, complete secrecy, but it was only going to be for six months and the pay was better than she could ever have got any other ways. She...” He breathed deeply before continuing; “She needed the money and Red told me she would be well looked after.”

“Where can I find Red, Frankie? Who is the rich old man?”

Frankie knew what it was like when the professor’s men came knocking. He resolved to say nothing further for fear of reprisals but then his mother coughed. It was minor at first, then turned into a body-shaking rasp with blood spraying out into the handkerchief she held up to her mouth.

Holmes and Watson exchanged knowing glances as Frankie rushed to his mother’s aid. Holmes pulled him back and Watson gave him a face mask. Frankie hurled it to the floor and stormed from the house, a pent-up mess of grief and fear.

Out in the street, Holmes gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

“My mother, is it too late for her?” Frankie asked.

“It is my belief that an antidote exists and that Red knows where it is. She took a man from the street opposite the silversmiths on a certain day knowing that you would be there and that you would look the other way. That man was not a beggar, but actually a journalist named Mr Neville St Clare and once his true identity was discovered, his wife was murdered to protect this secret.

“I must find Red before hundreds more innocent people die and then perhaps we can reach your mother in time. If not, then at least vaccinate everyone else at risk including all the other members of your family and yourself. Please, help me find her.”

Frankie relented and told Holmes all he knew about me. This wasn’t much of course, he didn’t know my address but he did know my surname and that was enough to chill the blood in Holmes’ veins. Finally he understood everything.

After blacking out on the professor’s bedroom floor, I regained consciousness back in my own bed just as my door flew open and a guard shoved Jude inside. Bathed in the light from the corridor, my husband stood in the doorway, cold and emotionless, unable to feel compassion.

“You will remain here until you either die of the plague or until I decide it is safe for me to let you out. No-one will enter this room or leave until I say so. Guards will remain at these doors and all your weapons have been removed from the room to prevent you from escaping. If you die Red, I have no use for your friend so I will leave you here to die together. You have brought this upon yourself by your own meddling; now you must pay the price.”

Any remaining delusions about my power in the Moriarty empire shrivelled.

I fell back onto the bed fearing that this awful disease could already be within me. Images of those poor beggars in such agonising pain ran through my mind. At least they had a merciful gun to end their suffering. Then, I remembered Jude and the chance that I could infect him too.

“Get away from me!” I screamed. “Go to the furthest corner of the room, as far as you can.”

If ever there had been a moment in my life when I needed the arm of a trusted friend around me, this was it, but I had to push him away. He protested of course, tried to embrace me, even when I slapped his face.

Eventually, I capitulated and he held me tightly as I found release and cried in his arms.

He had many questions and as I lay in his arms in the darkness I told him everything. I told him about the abortion, the true purpose of the beggars, the return of the plague, the significance of those papers I had hidden from my husband and finally, my own possible infection. He simply refused to stay away from me and held me until the darkness gave way to the light of the morning.

Moriarty clearly planned to release the plague then sell the antidote to the government for a king’s ransom. Ultimate power, that’s what he aspired too, and having control over life and death on such a vast scale would see his wish realised. I now understood that his previous talk about becoming the most powerful man in the world wasn’t just mad ranting. But without the antidote, he was as powerless against the disease as anyone else.

It became apparent that the antidote formula hidden in my desk drawer could not only free the country from Moriarty’s plans, but perhaps also free us from the life which we no longer wished to be part of. I needed to get it into the public domain before catastrophe ensued. Our immediate concern though, was whether or not I was infected.

We waited all that first day, listening to my every breath. I felt an itch on my back and tore my clothes off frantically to examine it. I scratched away causing a red mark, which we watched for hours until it disappeared. I constantly looked at my body in the mirror, checked my fingers for change of skin colour, stuck out my tongue and felt my glands.

The night drew close and still no signs of infection appeared. My mind raced, taunted by the knowledge that the antidote formula was so close in an adjoining room but I could not get to it.

Over the following three days optimism that we could cheat death turned to reality, relief turned to hunger, and the desire to escape became impossible to ignore.

I kicked at the door but the lock would not give. The window was nailed shut. The frustration was unbearable.

On the fourth day, the answer finally became apparent - and I have never quite forgiven myself for not realising it sooner.

“You know, something’s often puzzled me about this room,” said Jude, looking at the wall behind my dressing table. “It’s beautifully decorated, furnished expensively, but there’s that ugly hole in the plasterwork up there which never got fixed.”

“I suppose I left it there as a reminder really, of how close I came to...”

Suddenly, realisation dawned.

“My God Jude, that’s it! Quick, help me.”

I rushed to the dressing table and started to pull it away from the wall. Jude grabbed hold of the other end.

“Why? How is this going to help? I don’t understand?”

“I damaged the wall when I threw my gun up there in a rage; you know how I always throw things when I’m angry. It fell down the back of here, I haven’t moved it since.”

Sure enough, once the furniture was pulled away from the wall, we were able to retrieve the revolver.

I blasted the door lock and it sprang open. We pushed the door and fully expected to find guards waiting for us, but there was no-one. We had been left alone to die. The house was empty. All we had to do was run to my study and get the antidote formula.

Once in the study, I took the desk drawer key and thrust it into the lock. The key turned and I opened the drawer. We peered inside and to my absolute horror all that met our gaze was a few letters and pots of ink. I threw all these irrelevant items to the floor and pulled the drawer out from the chest, tipping it upside down and examining every corner.

“Are you sure it was that draw?” asked Jude, anticipating the answer before I even spoke the words.

“Of course” I sighed; shocked that somehow my secret had been discovered. We stood in silence, a little unsure what to do, our eyes looking around the room in confusion.

“We have to get out of here, Moriarty must have the formula and we have to find a way to get it back, urgently,” I said.

We ran from the room and kept on running until we burst out into the front garden. I decided there was only one course of action which could possibly save us and save London from the new merciless killer.

“Let’s go!” I shouted, taking Jude by the hand.

“Go where Red? We have nowhere to go!” Jude exclaimed, looking wildly around him for answers and inspiration.

“I need you to trust me, please?” I implored.

There was only one place to go, one person who could help. He was the only hope of ever finding the antidote and taking it back from the professor before he took the whole country for ransom.

We walked, then trotted and finally burst into a run as I became increasingly convinced of the right thing to do. We sped towards the nearest hansom, held the gun to the driver’s neck and pulled him to the ground. Jude jumped into his seat and took up the reins. I sprang up beside him.

“Where to?” Jude asked.

“Baker Street,” I replied.

Chapter Nine

Jude sat in silence all the way; his gaze was fixed on the galloping horse pulling our hansom. I felt nothing but nervous excitement, exhilarated by the wind rushing through my hair and cool rain splashing my face.

I had wanted to do this for years, go to the man who had captivated me in a way no other had. I had always been drawn to him, pulled by some indefinable force. It was a force that I had managed to resist but to which I now surrendered. That surrender was bliss.

We thundered down Baker Street, hooves rattling the cobbles.

“Why are we here Red? Of all places, why here?” asked Jude rather angrily.

“Sherlock Holmes is the only man capable of finding the antidote formula. We can’t run away from the nightmare we helped to start. I don’t know if we can trust him, but I do know that we can’t sort this mess out on our own.”

Jude grabbed my hand and sighed with resignation.