I swore softly under my breath, pacing between the walls of the corridor. My footsteps echoed angrily, mockingly, on the stone floor.
"Mr. Holmes!"
"Oh, come off it, Aggie, Escott used far worse words than those and you laughed," I growled, racking my brain for some way, any way, out of this predicament. Lestrade would find those footprints in a matter of mere moments now…
"No, you idiot," she retorted impertinently, tugging on my arm, "I've an idea!"
"That's one more than I have. I'm listening."
"Wait here."
"What?"
Waiting about for Lestrade to get his nose close enough to my footprints was not the most stunning idea I'd ever heard, but I did wait, having nowhere else to go anyway. I ever-so-briefly considered escaping while I was still out of custody…I could make the Continental Express in fifteen minutes if I left now and be out of the country before Lestrade could get the alarm out…
Then I firmly quelled the sudden unreasonable rush of panic that threatened to not only make a coward out of me but also to destroy my mental processes. Now was not the time to panic, now was the time to think, to find a solution. And to do it quickly.
Not two minutes later I heard Aggie's light footsteps in the corridor; and with them a sound, a low guttural growl that I recognised instantly.
"Aggie, what the –"
She turned the corner with Milverton's enormous mastiff in tow. The massive beast was straining eagerly at the end of its leash and snuffling eagerly along the corridor as Aggie pulled it along and then moved to a position behind me. I edged warily round them, for I well knew what the dog was capable of when not restrained by a member of the household (Milverton had made very certain no one would get at his papers and escape with their lives), but it merely sniffed at my elbow and then licked Aggie's hand.
As she had shut the horrible brute up every night in preparation for our clandestine meetings, the beast was obedient enough to her – but not to anyone else in the house besides Barrett and one of the stable lads. I felt perspiration suddenly bead on my forehead as the dog snorted and gave a low growl, looking at me with eyes that for a moment looked as if they were afire.
"I rather think I do not want to know what this plan of yours involves, Aggie," I gulped warily, remaining a safe distance away from the beast.
"How good are you at running, Billy boy?" my fiancée asked mischievously.
"I – no! No Aggie, wait!"
"You said you trusted me, Mr. Holmes," she tsked wickedly, letting a bit more slack into the giant beast's leash. The hair on the back of my neck began to rise as it shuffled a foot closer to me.
I only with an inhuman effort resisted the urge to yell for help, as that would be thoroughly embarrassing. I should never live the incident down were Lestrade to hear me yelping like a schoolgirl about a dog.
"I – I do trust you, I just don't trust that monster," I finally gasped, cringing against the wall as the brute forced out a low growl at a nudge from that girl. The chill of the stone against my back was not the only thing that sent a shiver down my spine at that moment in the case.
"Well, then!"
"Aggie, wait!"
"Make sure when you start, you head for the study, Mr. Holmes."
"Aggie, please!"
She stopped and looked me squarely in the eye, pulling the mastiff up with her momentarily. "Would you rather be arrested for those footprints? Or perhaps you would rather I told that dear Inspector the truth about tonight, hmm?"
I gulped with difficulty, trying to swallow that lump of tension in my throat and calm my racing heartbeat. "Learned a few blackmailing tricks from Mr. Milverton, Aggie?"
"Mr. Holmes, you know as well as I do that the master was the King of Blackmailers," she replied cheerfully, her blue eyes lighting up with a positively wicked twinkle, "you never know when the skill might come in handy, do you?"
"But I've seen dogs like Carlo break men's bones in half!"
"Then you'd better be fast, hadn't you. I'll even give you a head start, how will that be?"
"Aggie!"
"Better start, Mr. Holmes. Make sure he chases you enough times round the room to destroy any tracks."
This was not happening…
"Ready?"
Would I ever be?
I heard her giggle as I whirled to flee down the corridor to the study, and only an instant later a rattling of loosed leash and a girlish shriek split the air and exploded inside my eardrums – my word, that woman had a piercing voice.
"Look out, the dog's loose!" she screeched from behind me, and I had no doubt that the men in the study heard the vociferation as well – I was certain Watson could hear it back in Baker Street.
"Barrett!" I bellowed as I barreled into the study with a growling and snapping mastiff at my heels, "get this dog under control! You know he hates me!"
Lestrade yelped and jumped for a chair as I bolted past him, a snarling, vicious eighty-five pounds of muscle and jaws tearing after me. The dog let out a growled howl that literally shook the glass figurines on the mantelpiece as I dodged its first rush and dashed round the desk. The delicately formed crystal flowers shivered on the edge of the stone for a moment before sailing to the hearthstone with a tinkling smash.
I leapt over the desk and the brute followed me, scattering blood-soaked papers to all corners of the room, making it rather resemble our sitting room in Baker Street after one of my information-hunts.
I heard Lestrade and Barrett both shouting, but whether their calls were directed at me, Carlo, or each other I could not discern. I had a few more important things to consider, this evidence-destroying spree and not getting my legs chewed off by a mad dog being two of them.
I threw a paperweight at dear Carlo, striking his muzzle with a dull thud, but the beast appeared to not even notice, merely snarled and leapt at me, starting up the chase once more. In the melee that followed, I made sure to trample thoroughly in front of the safe as the two of us made a thorough tour of the room, overturned a table and two lamps, bowled over a frightened P.C. Cummings, and knocked several books off the desk onto the bloodied, mangled form of Charles Augustus Milverton.
The blood everywhere (my word, what a dreadful mess!) and the master's scent only served to further infuriate the beast of a dog, and when neither of the other occupants of the room dared go near the monster, I really did begin to fear for my life.
Barrett made a dive for the creature's collar when it refused to stop at his second command, but he missed and crashed into the safe, effectively obscuring any traces that might have remained there. At least one good thing would come from this horrible idea of Aggie's.
I finally leapt over an upset chair and skidded to a halt in front of the curtained window as the dog finally cornered me and lowered its head, dripping jaws snapping, its hackles raised in an angry line.
"Do something!" I shouted to Lestrade, who was now on top of the desk, warily watching the chaos unfold.
"Like what?"
"Shoot it, throw something at it, I don't care what, but do something!"
"I can't shoot it, I'll hit you instead!"
Blast that man, could he not fire a revolver with any kind of tolerable accuracy? He was a policeman, for heaven's sake, and by the Yard's standards one of the best! What the blazes…
"Carlo! Stop that!" Aggie's sweet voice fell on my ears, relief shooting through my veins like a drug to calm my palpitating heart. I never would have thought I would feel so perfectly thrilled to hear the voice of any woman in the world as I was to hear hers at that moment.
Carlo snarled in response, snapping at me with a click of steel-strong jaws.
Aggie crept up behind the angry creature and, in one fluid motion, grabbed the mastiff's collar, and immediately I saw the hackles on the dog's neck go down, its ramrod-straight tail relaxing at last. The girl shot me one swift glance, and I barely jerked my head behind me to the window, indicating the correct place. Then I saw her give the beast a nudge, and it lunged for me once more – but this time barking playfully, and dragging the girl along with it – straight into the drapes.
In the bedlam that followed, Aggie and Carlo managed to very effectively trample every square inch of the carpet under the curtains and in front of them, and for good measure I 'accidentally' slipped the catch on the window to let a swift but damaging deluge of muddy rain from the gutter outside splatter all over the area in question.
Finally Barrett regained his feet with an intensely annoyed scowl and, walking over to Aggie and that brute of a dog, roughly pushed her aside with a curt order and took the beast's collar. She stumbled away from the man with a frightened gaze, nearly falling to the floor under the force of his ungentlemanly shove.
For some reason, that fact made me extraordinarily angry.
"Touch her again, Barrett, and I'll drop-kick you into that fireplace, are we clear on that point?" I found myself asking, quite calmly, and offering my hand to the girl without even realising what I was doing – what was I doing?
Aggie's eyes went wider than I'd ever seen them as she accepted the gesture, regaining her equilibrium, and Lestrade (once he had climbed down rather gracelessly from the desk) was suitably surprised as well at my ridiculously precipitate actions.
Barrett glared dangerously at me, and his shifty eyes suddenly gleamed and darted to the dog's collar in his hands.
"I wouldn't, Barrett," the Inspector said coolly, patting his hip-pocket in a direct warning.
Aggie had stayed far too uncomfortably close to me and was now once again hanging on my arm, confound it. I carefully resisted the panicked urge to shake her off, knowing that the farce had to be continued for Lestrade's sake.
"This beast is Milverton's then?" the man asked with a dismal sigh, surveying the remnants of what had been a perfectly preserved crime scene.
"Indeed. You see why I did not want to be seen tonight, Lestrade?"
"Quite. Confound it, Barrett, why wasn't this brute locked up, if he's such a murderous beast? He's just destroyed an entire crime scene! Do you know how serious a matter that is?!"
"He was tied out front, sir," the butler replied stiffly. "I have no idea how he got loose, sir."
"All I know is, we were in the corridor talking…among other things…" Aggie said with a wink, patting my arm affectionately, "when he came bounding in and took straight off after Mr. Holmes. He hates him, Inspector – I've had to lock him up every night when Mr. Holmes wants to...call on me."
"Nasty beast," Lestrade actually made a perfect deduction for once in his life – I must remember this noteworthy occasion for posterity. "Barrett, take him somewhere and lock him up this time. Cummings, go with him and make sure the beast stays that way."
Barrett favoured all three of us with his trademark scowl, but his murderously smouldering gaze lingered upon me for a long moment before he stalked off with the monster and a rather uneasy Constable Cummings.
Lestrade's sharp beady eyes watched them leave and then turned slowly to face the two of us. Aggie's hold on my arm suddenly tightened, and she was obviously very nervous, for I could feel her trembling through the touch, light as it was.
And much as I would die rather than admit to the absurd weakness, I too was rather uneasy in my mind – for not only had we just lied outright to the official forces of law and order, we had just destroyed evidence. If Lestrade ever found out or guessed what we had done…I dared not think of the possibility.
"I'm still not sure I believe you and this extremely far-fetched tale, Holmes," the official said pensively, tapping a finger against his lips in some apparently deep-thinking processes. No doubt the effort was staggering.
"Inspector, it has been a rather long and, for me, a particularly painful evening," I sighed, rubbing my head very gingerly – yes, I did have a good-sized lump. "May I go home now? I am sure we can all discuss this semi-intelligently in the morning, can we not?"
Lestrade's beady eyes suddenly gleamed with an unexpectedly rapid idea. Wonderful. I could scarcely wait to see what that magnificent intelligence had concocted now.
"I really don't believe this fantastic story you've invented, Holmes, but there's one sure way to decide if you're telling the truth or not."
I swallowed round my unease, for the Inspector's ferret features were now twisted into a grin that threatened to split his head in two. Absently I wondered what he would look like in that eventuality, and if it would be an improvement upon his present state…
"What's that, Inspector?" Aggie asked faintly.
"I have to have a press conference about this affair, of course, for Milverton was a big man in some circles; once wind of the gruesome murder details gets out every paper in the city will be crawling about wanting a story. And if I can't tell the world that Sherlock Holmes was finally caught as a burglar, then I believe I'll tell them that Sherlock Holmes is getting married. How does that strike you, Mr. Holmes?"
Married? Dear me...devious little Inspector, isn't he? To be continued...