Patterson revived as they moved to shelter. Between Loseth and Bradstreet the gangly CID-Inspector was light as a scarecrow. For long minutes he kept his head down, watching where his foot slowly placed itself after the other. He had to have been in severe pain, but the stoicism that Hopkins was beginning to recognize as part of his survival undercover, asserted itself. Bradstreet kept up a murmuring-soft commentary as they moved across the coastal rocks and far too close to the angry-looking surf. Hopkins followed behind, his sharper eyes much better with spotting for any trouble.

For someone who had no better claim to water than the boating of Cambridgeshire, Hopkins was eerily at home at this rough coast where the sun shone against the flying clouds with all the success of a housewife sweeping mice with a broom. Bradstreet promised to follow up on this promising insight into the man's talents. The fens were very different from cold sea-surf and rocks. This Crane1 was suited for more work with the CID.

"Sae deeskit," Loseth said sadly. Under the strain of the situation, his verbal skills wobbled and wavered between slow and painfully deliberate English, and his more natural tongue. The poor man was almost a monoglot.

Bradstreet found it surprisingly easy to understand the man—he hadn't heard Orkneyjar2 of this thickness in years. "'s weary work recovering from a bullet," he agreed.

"He's ahl heuved up, tho'…" Loseth was doubtful of Patterson's survival. "But nae beerin' at all."

"He's not the complaining sort." Bradstreet pointed out. "Is it much further?"

"Neraeaboots." Loseth assured him. "We're t'gae in ahead o' the gouster."

Hopkins cleared his throat, moved where Bradstreet could see him, and threw a helpless look.

"Gust." Bradstreet translated.

"That place there?" Hopkins guessed.

"Th'same." Loseth tightened his grip as Patterson's strength began to ebb. His next words were drowned from Hopkins' ears as they stepped around a lying boulder and found themselves against the sea.

"He said we have to be careful, because a few people still know about the secret passage." Bradstreet repeated.

"Bloody…" Hopkins felt free to curse under the circumstances. The two older men tried not to smile at him.

Hopkins suddenly hissed and dropped down. They were wise to follow suit.

"What is it?" Bradstreet hissed.

"I heard a shot!"

"I heard noth—" Bradstreet clammed his mouth up as a distant pop-pop rattled off. "Damn. That was a rifle of some sort!"

"Common men don't have rifles." Hopkins whispered. "That's a gentleman's weapon."

"Or a soldier's…"

"The Big House." Loseth lost what little colour he had left.

"If Lestrade and Gregson aren't a part of it, you can at least bet—" Hopkins breathed—"They aren't far."

-

The passage was primordially cold and thick with must. The lantern caught the clouds of their breath against the flying motes of dust that settled on their sweating flesh; steam rose from Lestrade's body almost instantly. Watson caught Gregson giving the little man a baleful look.

"Man's a furnace." He growled. "Guess that's why he's so little. No chance for meat to settle on his bones."

"I'm afraid you're not the type of beauty that improves with jealousy." Lestrade panted. Neither of them looked like beauties at that moment…and it would take weeks for the bruises to fade off Gregson.

"You're just glad you won't be anywhere near me when the wife sees what happened to my new necktie."

Lestrade looked upwards, askance as he realised the extent of the passage. "Mac would be praying to St. Barbara about now," he stared. "This must be like one of those underground mazes the pagans buried their royalty in."

"I thought you liked caves, Ratty."

"This is a cave?" Lestrade whispered his worst possible contempt. "Looks to me like someone's breeding tent-spiders."

"There must be quite a lot of them," Watson mused, unconscious of the fact that his comrades were trying to squabble to keep their spirits up. "Sir Niles had Charter sweep it all out only a few days ago."

The policemen fell silent as they appraised the spinning abilities of insects that had only a few days to line the tunnel with sticky crepe. It was an effective dampening effect.

"Where to?" Gregson swallowed thickly. His throat clicked in the sudden silence.

"Straight ahead, and when the passage forks, we turn right." Watson pointed discreetly but nodding in the correct direction rather be gauche and point. Behind them a bullet slammed into the thick wood from the other side, and he winced as deeply as the others. "Always turn right when we're in this place, gentlemen…!"

"And that'll get us out of here?" Gregson wanted to know, but to do him credit, he was calm as a boulder. Thup-thup-thup. A trio of missiles hammered into the wood not far from Lestrade's left arm. A man screamed out, barely perceptible in the layers of wood and books.

"No." Watson said grimly. "But it will get us away from this."

"Good idea." Lestrade voted fervently.

"Martini Rifles, gentlemen," Watson lectured coolly as if in a meeting-hall as he led their tread through the black, "are not to be trusted at close length with such enthusiasm. Their accuracy pales after they reach a certain age."

Lestrade shivered slightly at a breeze. He didn't doubt the soldier could identify a rifle by just the sound. "How far are we from the open air?" He wondered. "If the spiders can come back this quickly, and the dust…"

"There are several passages that lead outside, but I am not certain of how safe they are." Watson held the lamp up high, and brightened at the sight of a loaded sconce in the stone wall. "And with the tide-shift, the air whistled about us like a very demon…Here we are," he paused to light the torch and passed it to Gregson who was taking up the rear. Gregson narrowly avoided setting fire to a long curtain of webs a moment later. He yanked it away just in time, and manfully ignored Lestrade's glare.

Watson either ignored the silent conversation, or politely pretended he never saw a thing. "This is like one of the barrow-mazes, actually." The doctor's demeanor had calmed somewhat, but he was more than ready to act. Once in a while he absently brushed more wax off his exposed skin as he walked. It was quite the trail of breadcrumbs if they ever had to retrace their steps.

Lestrade didn't want to think about that.

"What do you make of Quimper and Clay running off?" Gregson finally asked in the shifting dark.

Lestrade was grateful for the distraction. "They're smart, and they're less powerful. I'd say whoever is giving Clay orders would tell him to pull out if it looked hopeless. And if Moriarty is killing the opposition…well…"

"It would be stupid to hang about." Gregson agreed. "Quite stupid."

"I'm wondering why Moriarty had Sir Niles killed." Watson murmured. "Was it because Sir Niles ultimately controlled the purse-strings of the Empire?"

"It's an explanation I'll take." Gregson nodded. "Sir Niles isn't—wasn't—the sort who would just let someone run roughshod over the late Professor's plans. I'd say that as famous as he was for keeping notes, the Colonel'd figured on finding the passwords, ciphers and keys soon enough."

"The search for power will disrupt any coalition." Lestrade batted angrily at a scarf of misty webs. "Seems to me Quimper was the smartest of any of them—galls me as it does to say it. He prefers to govern from the background…in secret."

Watson came to a stop by degrees; they stopped as well. Here the passage forked in the shape of a T lying on its left side.

"If that is so, Lestrade, then we should be keeping a very close eye on his whereabouts. Very close."

Lestrade cocked his head to one side, impressed at the way Watson was staring off into the darkness as he thought.

"Why so, Doctor?"

"That was how Moriarty rose to power in the first place…never overtly governing…but working from within…and behind the curtain while all eyes were on the stage."

Watson turned his head slowly, and the full force of his gaze struck the little professional.

"If anyone will become the next Moriarty after this, I would stake my reputation on Jethro Quimper right now."

Lestrade shuddered at Watson's finality. His nose and cheeks felt burnt in the cold air and he concentrated on rubbing warmth into the skin.

"You aren't afraid of him." Watson noted softly.

"No…of course not." Lestrade blinked, not comprehending what Watson was getting at.

"Understand the history," Gregson came up behind Lestrade, his usual irreverence low and serious. "Lestrade's never known a day in his life where Jethro Quimper wasn't the man holding all the cards. He's always been the…royalty. The master of the house. The one you aren't supposed to stand up against."

Watson nodded, and something like a smile flickered in his tired eyes. "Commendable." Was all he said, "If anything else, Mr. Lestrade, you have a commendable taste in enemies?"

"I'd rather not have any, if there was a choice in the matter." Lestrade grumbled.

For some reason that brought a wide smile to Watson's face. "Enemies often choose themselves, Mr. Lestrade."

-

"Dear God," Hopkins had time to say before he was diving back behind a sea-wracked boulder that stank of things that were far worse than vegetation.

"Whu..?" Patterson asked in slurred confusion. He didn't know enough to protest as he was bundled willy-nilly behind a part of an ancient rock-wall set against the sea. Behind them, a small army of furious waterfowl took to wing, their throats shrieking outrage.

Lovely, and if anyone wondered where they were…Hopkins sewed his lips shut. Fresh bullets sprayed the pitted rock over his shoulder. His ears rang from the compression. "Where the bloody hell are they?" He shouted and didn't care who heard him shout.

Bradstreet lunged forward and nearly threw the young man to the stinking sands with his hand over the recalcitrant mouth. "Shut your gob!!" He gasped. "These loonies might know how to shoot th' ricochet!"

Hopkins felt his skin pale to the point of coldness, and he nodded. Bradstreet released him, clearly relieved.

"What do we do, Roger?"

Bradstreet didn't seem to realise he'd been addressed by an inferior and with his baptismal name. He only burrowed himself deeper into his dirty muffler and watched as Loseth bundled the much-weakened Patterson into a patch of sand that was at least sun-warmed.

"We do nothing for now." He said at last. "We just wait."

"Wait for what?" Hopkins demanded.

"Wait for them to lose what patience they've pretended to." Bradstreet muttered. "Might as well. We're stuck here until we get a bit of assistance."

Hopkins reluctantly looked past the sheltering boulder to the buried secret doorway. One step to that safeway would expose them to the assassins waiting on the beach.

"Damn." He struggled with restraint.

1 Hopkins' Cambridge roots are my own invention. He came across as being well educated and clever, and natives from the area were called "Cranes" possibly from the marshy watersheds.

2 The Orkney dialect. The English is a rich stew salted with Gaelic and Nordic—its trademark words are usually Nordic.