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Chapter Eight – Flight
Holmes had been lying still on the bed for what felt like hours, listening intently to the noise outside the room. There was muffled conversation in voices that were distinctly female and there was a lot of bustling about, though none of it was clear enough to explain the purpose of this whole bizarre set up, with prisoners being kept in blackened rooms.
He drank a little more water and ate a little more bread, knowing that he would need as much strength as he could muster for his escape. The noise outside wasn't dying down at all. Time passed excruciatingly slowly and it all served to make him just that little bit more nervous than he already was.
He wished that he still had his pocket watch, just so he would at least be able to accurately measure the length of time he'd been suffering like this. Yet his watch was no doubt where ever his jacket, waistcoat and shoes were and he feared he had lost it for good.
He held his breath as he heard the sound of someone's footsteps on the stone floor outside his room. He closed his eyes and relaxed all the muscles in his body, making it look as though he was asleep and waited for the person to enter.
Watson had never felt so miserable in all his life. Even when he had been in critical condition in the hospital and had been told that his career as an army surgeon was over he did not feel as depressed as he did in that cab ride back to the station.
The sympathy he felt for the Harrises and poor Carl Smith was getting jumbled around with his own worry for Holmes' safety causing him to feel sick and dizzy with all the emotions. Suddenly all the other problems he had seemed to intensify as well. The wounds in his shoulder and leg seemed to ache just that little bit more than usual and he was beginning to feel weak and fatigued.
They had sent Carl Smith back home after assuring him that they were doing everything they possibly could to find out what had happened to Ethel Parkinson. He didn't know about Lestrade, but Watson believed that their best efforts had been pretty shoddy and he feared that Mr Smith thought so too.
He looked over at Inspector Lestrade who appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. Watson had expected him to have the look of a man who was utterly defeated, but he was pleased to see a look of grim determination set on his face instead. Holmes always said that the man had tenacity (a skill he credits most of the official force with), and Watson could see that Lestrade wasn't going to let go of this case without a good fight.
Holmes was greatly relieved when the person outside the door did not come into the room to
collect him. All they did was stand outside for a moment then move back down the corridor. As he listened to the footsteps dying away he also realised that it was the only noise he could hear. All the chattering and bustling about from earlier had stopped and once the sound of the footsteps had gone he was left in complete silence.
He waited a few more moments to be sure that the person wasn't anywhere nearby and then immediately seized the opportunity. Ignoring the protestations of his aching muscles and sore head he got up from the bed and with a quick stride he was at the door, feeling around for it in the pitch black. He opened it slowly so it would not make a noise and peered around through the open door, listening carefully for any signs that someone was there.
He stepped out into the corridor, feeling the cold hard stone floor beneath his stocking feet. He saw the door to the room next to his, where Anna Harris said she was being kept; light was spilling out through the gaps.
As he opened this door and peered into the room he was confronted with the image of Anna Harris stood amongst four baby cribs. He looked around dumbly for a moment, taking in the odd sight of this dull, windowless nursery. Anna Harris was a pretty girl who looked so much like her mother that he'd have recognised her anywhere.
"Mr Holmes," she said breathlessly, "you scared me. I thought you were one of the girls coming back." She noticed him looking at the cribs. "They're asleep at the moment."
"Whose children are these?" he asked, gesturing towards the sleeping babies.
"The other girls'," she replied, "Mary, Nancy and Henrietta."
"Mary," Holmes whispered to himself, finally understanding the link between the Wellses and this girl Mary.
"Yes, these are their children," she paused and shuffled her feet, embarrassed by the conversation. "And from what I've heard, they're Sir Edward's as well."
Her words came as such as surprise to him that Holmes felt like they had smacked him across the face. "You mean, Sir Edward..." He couldn't complete the sentence, but luckily he didn't have to; young Anna understood.
"Yes, I've been told for the past week that one day it will be my privilege to have his children too," she said in a small voice and a shiver of disgust rippled through her.
"You can tell me about it when we get out of here," Holmes said, holding out his hand and gesturing towards the door with his head.
"There isn't any way out," she said, "I've looked dozens of times."
Holmes looked down at the young girl and found himself extremely impressed by her. After what she had been through, Holmes would have understood if she had gone completely hysterical through the fear. Yet she was standing before him, clearly scared and weary, but holding firmly on to her sanity. That strong, wilful, disobedient young lady that Charlotte Harris had complained about was a natural born survivor.
"Miss Harris, if we got in we can get out."
"I realise that," she said with a touch of irritation. "When the babies have their nap the girls leave me in charge of them while they go out. So after about the third time they did it I waited then tried to find the way out myself, but I couldn't it."
Holmes considered this for a moment but he wasn't about to give up. There had to be a way out, it stood to reason. "Come on," he said to her, holding out his hand once more for her. "We'll find it."
She smiled, finding comfort in his determination and she followed him out of the room. Anna lit the lamp in the corridor. For the first time Holmes saw the mysterious world outside his windowless room. The corridor walls were simple brick with no decoration save for the gas lamps dotted along them. It was narrow and dingy and smelled as shut in as his old room had.
"Where are we?" he asked, more to himself than to Anna.
"I don't know. I was unconscious when they brought me here," she replied and walked down the corridor after him. "Jane and Lucy are in here." She gestured to the next door they came to and Holmes opened it. As he looked in he saw the two occupants shrink away from the door in fear. Anna Harris pushed past him and entered the room, holding her hands out, indicating that there was no danger.
"It's all right," she said in a soothing voice, "this is Mr Sherlock Holmes. He's here to help. This is Lucy and Jane." She pointed to each of the girl respectively
The two girls tentatively approached the door and Holmes was relieved to see that they appeared mostly uninjured; at least physically. They were both clearly frightened. Jane Carr, the taller of the two was deathly pale, her skin standing out in stark contrast to her black hair. Lucy Everidge had a small, healed cut on her plump bottom lip and her blue eyes were bloodshot from crying.
Holmes was about to usher them all out of the room when suddenly there was a commotion from the other end of the corridor. Startled Anna pushed the girls back into the dark bedroom. Holmes quickly turned the lamp off and joined the girls in the darkness. They stood there as silently, the only noise they could hear was the distant muffled arguing and their own breathing.
It was a man and a woman arguing. She was doing most of the shouting and as the quarrel got more and more heated, Holmes' keen ears could make out a few words.
"The police...they know...the house," was all he heard. He recognised the woman's voice. It was Lady Wells, although she sounded very different from the calm, ice cool woman who had promised to kill him. The pitch of her voice was higher than usual and there was a desperate urgency about it.
"Something's gone wrong," Anna Harris whispered to him.
"Yes," Holmes agreed. "I think the police might have found out about them."
The argument continued for a few more minutes and got louder and louder.
"We have to leave! They're not going to cover for us this time!" Lady Wells shouted.
"No!" came another voice that Holmes assumed was Sir Edward. He had been wondering what he sounded like. And what he looked like.
They heard Lady Wells shouting a little more, but they must have moved further away as they couldn't make out any of the words. Holmes was startled when he felt Anna Harris slip her small hand into his. Normally he would have shaken her off but he was overwhelmed by the desire to offer her any shred of comfort he could, so he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
The tender moment was shattered when they heard the loud pop of a pistol being fired. Once, twice, then silence. In the darkness, all that Holmes and the three girls could do was wait.
Watson and Lestrade stood at the train station in silence as they waited for the next train home. Watson had been toying with the idea of staying in Brighton as he didn't want to go all the way back to London without Holmes, but he had decided against it; after all what would he do? Where would he stay?
"They must be hiding them somewhere else," Watson said. Lestrade looked up at him both in sympathy and frustration.
"Yes, I agree," he said slowly and evenly, "but we have no evidence to suggest where that place might be."
Young Constable Simpson joined them on the platform holding a handkerchief to his bloody nose. He also had the beginnings of an impressive black eye.
"Good heavens, Simpson what have you done to yourself?" Lestrade asked. Watson nearly laughed at the rather high pitched sign of exasperation in Lestrade's voice.
"It was when I tripped, sir," Simpson explained, his reply muffled by the cloth he had over his face. "The floor was hard, you know, harder than usual."
"Harder than usual?" What on Earth is the young man was drivelling on about?
"Yes, it felt like a metal plate or something," he answered, lowering the handkerchief to reveal his swollen, blooded nose.
Watson and Lestrade both looked at each other as the answer suddenly hit them both at the same time. Watson ran to get a cab to take them back to the Wellses' house and Lestrade turned back to his callow young constable.
"And when were you going to tell us this little bit of information?" he asked sarcastically. Simpson mumbled an apology and looked down at his boots in shame. Lestrade rolled his
eyes and sighed. "Well, don't just stand there, come and give us a hand."
Lady Wells had wasted no time in piling as many of her personal possessions onto the back of her carriage as she could manage alone. With her clothes packed and a substantial amount of money in her purse she climbed into the carriage and shouted for the driver to take her to station.
She felt a little more comfortable the further away from the house she got and as the carriage rattled down the familiar winding road towards the station she felt almost calm.
She was therefore shocked when her driver suddenly pulled the horses off the road and into the trees that lined it. She tried to look out of the window, but she was being juddered about so much that it was impossible.
With a jerk the carriage drew to a halt and, filled with rage and impatience, Lady Wells climbed out and onto the dense forest floor. "What the hell are you doing?" she shouted at her driver who dropped down from his seat on top of the carriage. As he turned, she realised that it wasn't her driver at all. It was a tall, handsome, sandy haired man who Lady Wells thought she recognised from the village. He was shaking with anger and his eyes glistened, giving him the look of a mad man.
"Sorry your ladyship," he said in a thick, regional accent. "But this is the end of the road for you."
Holmes stood in the dark room for about fifteen minutes, wanting to make sure that the shooter was not still hanging around. He listened intently for any noise from outside the room and when he heard none he decided to risk stepping out into the corridor.
"You stay here." He tried to let go of Anna Harris' hand but she held on firmly.
"I'm coming with you," she whispered, her voice full of childish determination.
"No, stay here," he whispered back, with just as much determination. She reluctantly let go of his hand and he made his way out of the door.
He lit the lamp then made his way silently down the corridor, actually glad that he had no shoes on as it made his tread much lighter. As he got towards the end of the long corridor he noticed that dark red blood had trickled out from under one of the doors and pooled on the stone floor outside. He opened the door gingerly and stepped in. The room was well lit and larger than the others but was still windowless. There were many items hanging on the wall, all of which looked distinctly unpleasant. There was an assortment of knives, ranging from small, delicate blades to large, razor sharp cleavers. There were ropes as well and various blunt instruments like hammers and cricket bats. Holmes looked at the thick heavy wooden stick hanging beside the hammers, which was covered in recently dried blood and he realised that he was looking at the object that had caused so much damage to his own face. It was the first on the wall, so evidently he would have had the others to look forward to. He felt a shudder pass through him as he glanced at the large meat cleaver at the end.
The familiar wooden chair was present too, pushed to one side of the room, its arms and legs worn away in some places where the restraints had been fastened and Holmes felt a twinge of pain in his wrists as he remembered that chair.
On the floor in the middle of the room was a large man, lying on his back with two gunshot wounds in his chest. He was ashen and his black eyes had the familiar glazed over look of death. For one terrible moment, Holmes found great delight in seeing his torturer lying in his own blood.
Holmes heard a gasp behind him, which drew his attention from the corpse and as he swung round he saw Anna Harris standing there looking at the body in wide eyed horror.
"Sir Edward," she said, covering her mouth with her hand. Holmes noticed that the bottom of her dress had been dragged through the blood and it had stained the blue material.
She didn't need to see anymore of that room. Holmes left it and shut the door behind him, then looked down at her in disapproval. "I thought I told you to stay in that room."
"And I told you I was coming with you," she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye. "Don't worry about me Mr Holmes," she continued, "I shan't lose any sleep over Sir Edward. Not after what he did to Ethel. And to you." She reached up and touched the angry bruise on his cheek. He flinched and she dropped her hand but continued to look defiantly up at him.
The look of disapproval faltered on his face as he was again struck by how brave this strange young girl was. He was still annoyed that she had disobeyed him though. He wasn't used to his instructions being ignored.
"Well come on then," he said impatiently and took off down the corridor again.
They walked on a little further and at the end of the corridor all there was only a solid brick wall. Holmes touched it with the palm of his hand and pushed gently, then harder, wondering if it was a false wall of some sort. It wasn't. It didn't move an inch.
"I told you," Anna said. "It's just a dead end."
Holmes looked at it in confusion and ran his hand over it lightly. He felt two long vertical grooves in the brickwork that he traced all the way down to the stone floor and back up. They went even further up towards the ceiling. "These were made by something being dragged up and down against the wall." Anna Harris watched his hands then followed his gaze towards the ceiling. They both saw a large iron plate that looked remarkably like a trap door.
"We're underground," she gasped in disbelief.
"That's why there are no windows," he said. "And that's why you were allowed to walk around freely," he added. "You wouldn't have been able to get out anyway." Holmes felt the tracks in the wall again. "They must have been made by a ladder of some sort. Lady Wells must have pulled it back when she left."
"Then how do we get out?" Anna asked. "It's too high for us to reach."
Holmes hadn't had long to think of an answer before he heard the door being opened and saw the amber of dying sunlight flood the dim corridor. He looked up and to his relief and amazement saw Watson standing there looking down at him with a matching look of relief.
"Holmes! Thank God!" he exclaimed, truly thankful to God that he had found Holmes alive.