Watson on the Orient Express

  WATSON ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

  A SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES MYSTERY

  THE SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES MYSTERIES

  The Last Moriarty

  The Wilhelm Conspiracy

  Remember, Remember

  The Crown Jewel Mystery

  The Jubilee Problem

  Death at the Diogenes Club

  The Return of the Ripper

  Die Again, Mr. Holmes

  THE SHERLOCK AND LUCY SHORT STORIES

  Flynn’s Christmas

  The Clown on the High Wire

  The Cobra in the Monkey Cage

  A Fancy-Dress Death

  The Sons of Helios

  The Vanishing Medium

  Christmas at Baskerville Hall

  The series page at Amazon:

  https://amzn.to/367XJKl

  WATSON ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

  A SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES MYSTERY

  BY ANNA ELLIOTT AND CHARLES VELEY

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Charles Veley and Anna Elliott. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Sherlock and Lucy series website: http://sherlockandlucy.com

  eBook formatting by FormattingExperts.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  EPIGRAPH

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  HISTORICAL NOTES

  A NOTE TO READERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  EPIGRAPH

  “Who is't can read a woman?”

  —William Shakespeare

  Cymbeline, 1623

  SATURDAY, JULY 9

  1. LUCY

  “Are you sure you’re up to taking on another case?” Jack asked.

  We were standing at our front doorway, waiting for Mycroft’s carriage to arrive. From behind us in the kitchen came the clink of silverware as Becky finished her breakfast porridge, punctuated by an occasional woof from Prince. Becky had a habit of sneaking him scraps of bacon under the table.

  “You don’t think I’m fit to investigate another man’s disappearance?”

  Jack had to leave soon for Scotland Yard and was already in his blue sergeant’s uniform. “Do you want the honest answer, or the one where you’re still speaking to me at the end of this conversation?” He smiled briefly, but I could see the shadow of worry in his dark brown eyes. I couldn’t blame him. Ours was a dangerous profession. Jack, as a police officer, worked within the law, while Holmes and I, as private consultants, worked alongside it—or sometimes skating along its outskirts. But in both our lines of work, allowing your mind to be distracted could prove deadly, and the truth was that we were all of us distracted right now.

  Watson had been kidnapped two days ago, and despite the combined efforts of Scotland Yard, Holmes, and every one of the Baker Street Irregulars whom Holmes employed, we still hadn’t a clue where he had been taken. Or even whether he was dead or alive.

  Jack must have picked up that thought, because he said, quietly, to avoid Becky’s overhearing, “Odds are he’s still alive. If they’d killed him, someone would have found the body by now.”

  “I know.” It was true, and a reason for hope I was willing to cling to. But I’d been held a prisoner by one of our more unpleasant enemies just a few short months ago, and my imagination kept painting unhelpfully vivid pictures of what Watson might be suffering, even as Jack and I stood here talking about him.

  I shook my head, trying to dislodge an image of Uncle John chained up in the dark. Or bloodied and bruised from torture. One of the reasons I’d agreed to accompany Mycroft and Holmes to the Harwell family estate in Kent was that I had already done everything possible in the search for where Watson was being held. The enemies who had taken him knew exactly who I was, and it wouldn’t shock me to learn that Jack, Holmes and I were all being discreetly watched when we left the house. The Irregulars stood a much better chance of finding a clue to Watson’s kidnapping than I did, and in the meantime, being forced to think of something else for a while sounded more appealing than staying trapped here with my own churning thoughts.

  “Mycroft wouldn’t have asked for help if the matter wasn’t urgent,” I told Jack. “I don’t think it will be dangerous, just a matter of questioning Lady Harwell about her husband. For all we know it may be nothing more sinister than boredom with domestic life. Lord Harwell may have gone off to the South of France to lie on the beach of some seaside resort and swill champagne.”

  “If it were as simple as that, Mycroft wouldn’t be involved,” Jack said.

  That, unfortunately, was also true. A shadowy figure in the British government, Mycroft Holmes had, over the years, spun a web of influence that ranged from finance to domestic security to foreign policy and treaties between warring nations. His cases never proved simple, and this one was unlikely to be an exception. From what little Mycroft had told me over the telephone, Lord Harwell had been a lower-level diplomat with the Foreign Office.

  “I’ll be careful,” I told Jack.

  “It seems like I’ve heard that before. Oh wait, it was probably just before you decided to confront a blackmailer and got stabbed. Or the time you were scaring a confession out of a murderer and got shot at—”

  “I know, I know. I don’t know how you stand me.”

  Jack reached out and caught me in a hug. “Lucky for you, you’re worth it.”

  For a long moment, I shut my eyes and let myself lean against him. But then the rattle of carriage wheels came from just outside. “That will be Mycroft. I’ll take Becky with me so that we can drop her off in Baker Street with Mrs. Hudson.” I drew back enough to look up at Jack. “You’ll keep an eye on the beat constables’ reports that come in? If any patrols find—” I couldn’t quite make myself say the word body, but my mind flashed on an imaginary picture of Watson’s lifeless form, floating in the Thames or lying somewhere in a muddied ditch.

  “I will.” Jack squeezed my hands. “Now go help Lady Harwell find her husband.”

  2. WATSON

  A brilliant white flash of light. It shone once, twice, three times. Three brilliant white flashes, each accompanied by a sharp, popping sound.

  I shut my eyes tightly against the glare, although I felt a strange lassitude. I smelled something. Chemical smoke.

  I heard a man’s voice. I thought I recognised the harsh tone. He said, “That’ll do.”

  I was lying on my back on something firm. My skull throbbed. Where was I
, and how long had I been here? What was the last thing that I could recall? Three burly men, forcing their way into my consulting room past my horrified assistant. No words. I had grappled with their leader, until a push from another one spun me round. Then a fierce impact at the back of my head.

  So that would explain the throbbing.

  I heard footsteps walking away. Clear sound echoing off hard surfaces. The footsteps were on hard tiles. A wooden door closed. A medical facility, I thought. Or a morgue. I was on a gurney.

  I moved my arms slightly, testing for restraints. I could not feel any straps. I nearly opened my eyes, but then came another voice from across the room. I knew that voice.

  “He still breathes.” It was Lord Sonnebourne.

  A hot surge of anger rose in my chest. I had to stop myself from tensing, lest my captors realise that I could hear them. I had encountered Sonnebourne in his riverfront mansion several weeks ago with Holmes and Lucy. The man led a powerful criminal organization called The Sons of Helios, which specialized in helping wealthy criminals disappear. Holmes had been pursuing one of those criminals, a murderess named Mrs. Torrance, since January. In July, less than a week ago, Holmes had been poisoned and nearly killed while investigating another of those disappearances. We were certain that Sonnebourne’s organisation had been responsible.

  I had treated Holmes for the poison and left him resting at Baker Street to return to my surgery. Shortly after my return, the three burly men had attacked me.

  Had Holmes also been set upon and captured?

  Another man’s voice. A coarse, East-end accent. “Still sleepin.’”

  “How long?”

  “Midnight was ’is last injection. Another half hour.”

  “Wake him then. When he is able to speak, bring him to the interview room and then come back here. I want you to watch him through the portrait and report on whether he is truthful.”

  “Do you want me to soften him before I bring him in?”

  “Only after. If he has not cooperated.”

  “Understood.”

  “Now, Clegg, I want you out of this room.”

  “What about our friend ’ere?”

  “Didn’t you just say he would sleep for another half hour?”

  A pause.

  “Now. With me.”

  Another pause.

  Two sets of footsteps on cold hard tiles. Then Sonnebourne continued, “Lock the door.”

  I heard the click of the lock, and Sonnebourne’s voice, muffled by the door. “And keep away from the interview room.”

  Was I alone?

  Of course you are, Holmes would have said. If someone else was still here and able to observe through the portrait, why would Sonnebourne have ordered Clegg to get out?

  Still, I was cautious as I took a quick glimpse to my right. I saw a straight-backed wooden chair and beyond it a bare white wall and a black-painted door. Another glimpse, this time to my left. A table with surgical implements and several bottles, and wooden shelves laden with more bottles along the wall. Behind the shelves, a crack of daylight showed between heavy drapes that covered a tall wide window.

  No one.

  I raised my head slightly. A sharp pang and throb came from the back of my head, cheek, and upper lip. I touched each spot gingerly. No bones broken, I was sure of that. I wondered what I looked like. Then, touching my upper lip again, I realised that my captors had shaved away my moustache.

  A portrait of Lord Sonnebourne hung on an otherwise barren white wall roughly ten feet in front of where I lay. What had Sonnebourne said?

  Watch him through the portrait.

  I sat up. My trousers and boots seemed different somehow. Perhaps newer? Or was this the effect of whatever drug my captors had used to render me unconscious for—however long? I did not even know what day it was. I put my hand in my waistcoat pocket and felt the metal heft of a pocket watch. I withdrew the watch. It, too, seemed unfamiliar. There was no date, but the second hand moved, so it appeared to be working, showing the time to be 7:45. Was it morning or evening?

  How long until Clegg would re-enter the room?

  I swung my legs over the edge of the gurney and stood. It took me a moment or two to get my balance. The effects of the injection, I thought.

  I shuffled to the portrait as quietly as I could manage. I ran my fingertips over the painted canvas surface. At the side, where black oil paint framed the image, there was a view-hole. I pressed my eye to the opening. A lens of some sort was just inside, as if a telescope probed through the wall into the next room. I wondered what concealment on the other side masked this spy device. Then I jerked back in surprise, at a crackling voice that erupted beneath my chin.

  “… in the Pera Palace,” the voice said.

  I saw a telephone earpiece, fastened at the base of the portrait frame.

  Keep away from the interview room, Sonnebourne had said. How long did I have until they came to wake me? I pressed my eye to the opening, resolved to learn whatever I could in whatever time I might have.

  Sonnebourne was behind a desk, facing me. On the other side of the desk with his back to me was a dark-haired man in a white suit. I could not see his face. The man’s hair was long and glossy, as though oiled with brilliantine.

  Sonnebourne was talking. “Your room has been reserved and paid for. You need only claim the package when you arrive. And this is for your travel.” He slid a fat white envelope across the desk. “Pounds, francs, and liras.”

  The man glanced inside. “Should be enough.”

  “And here are two images. They will remain here. You must commit both faces to memory.”

  The man leaned forward.

  “The photograph shows the primary target. A high official in the French government. We receive no payment if he remains alive. Do not return if you fail.”

  “I will not fail. What about this other gentleman?”

  “A matter of retribution. He took something from me.”

  “He will be in Constantinople as well?”

  “Protecting the French official.”

  “The sketch looks familiar.”

  “It is an illustration from The Strand. The man’s name is Sherlock Holmes.”

  3. LUCY

  Two hours later, I was recalling Jack’s words and doubting that Lady Harwell in fact required—or at least desired—any assistance. Her rose silk tea-gown was of the very latest fashion, and trimmed with yards of lace that must have cost approximately what Jack earned from Scotland Yard in an entire year. But studying her, one had the uncharitable thought that she looked like the pig dressed up in baby’s clothes from Alice in Wonderland: aged somewhere about forty, plump and doughy-looking, with close-set blue eyes, an upturned nose, and a pudgy face marked with the lines of habitual discontent.

  Her husband had been missing for several days, but she seemed to take his disappearance less as a source of worry than as a personal affront.

  “Really, it is most inconsiderate of Gerald. Most inconsiderate indeed.”

  We were in the front parlor, which was large and elegant with high ceilings and a Grecian frieze on the walls. The drawn curtains cast the room into semi-twilight. Bright sunlight, we had been informed, sometimes brought on one of Lady Harwell’s headaches.

  Lady Harwell herself reclined on a velvet-covered divan. So far in studying her, I had been able to detect no signs of actual ill-health beyond what you would expect from a lack of exercise and a steady diet of chocolates and other sweets. But she appeared to be one of those women who turn fears for their health into a hobby. On a table beside her were three half-empty boxes of caramel creams and Turkish delight, as well as an array of little jars and bottles of smelling salts. She now raised a lace-edged handkerchief and touched it delicately to the corners of her eyes, her upper lip trembling with indignation.

  “I can’t imagine what Gerald can have been thinking of, going off like this without a single word. He knows that my health won’t stand the least upset. I mus
tn’t be worried or inconvenienced in any way; it’s dreadfully bad for my heart. Any strain sends me straight into having palpitations, and with Gerald gone, I’ve had to do everything for myself.”

  Given the number of servants employed on the Harwell estate—so far in the course of our visit I had seen three gardeners, a butler, a footman, two housemaids, and a parlor maid—I doubted that Lady Harwell was ever required to lift one of her exquisitely manicured fingers. But having already treated us to a lengthy discourse on the subject of her heart, she now continued without the least trace of irony. “Would you believe that one of the under-gardeners sent in white roses for my breakfast tray instead of pink ones, and I was forced to go outside and speak to him about it myself?”

  “Exhausting for you,” Mycroft agreed. There was more than a touch of irony about his tone of voice, but Lady Harwell appeared completely oblivious.

  “Exactly! In all of this dreadful heat, too, I might easily have had sunstroke!”

  Mycroft interceded before she could expand on that theme. To avoid prejudicing our minds in advance, or so he said, he had briefed Holmes and me only minimally on the drive here. Beyond telling us that Lord Harwell’s diplomatic assignment had been centred around Egypt, he had said very little about the missing man. But watching Mycroft with Lady Harwell now, I was fairly certain that he had never met either Lord or Lady Harwell in person before this.

  “When was the last time that you saw your husband, Lady Harwell?” Mycroft asked.

  “It was …” Her brow puckered in an effort of remembrance. “Now let me see, it was on the twenty-fourth. I remember, because that was the day the fishmonger delivered soles for our supper, but I couldn’t fancy them at all. I told Gerald that I thought I might be able to manage a few oysters, but he flatly refused to send Bertram—he’s our second footman—into the village to fetch some. He has no consideration for my health!” She applied the handkerchief again. “No idea of what I suffer.”

  I was also by now re-evaluating my hope that interviewing Lady Harwell would prove a welcome distraction from worrying about Watson. At the moment, I felt as though my last fraying nerve would snap if I heard her mention the word palpitations one more time.