The Ticking Briefcase
A/N: I was ruminating on the Potter Puppet Pals classic "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" when this popped into my head. Enjoy!
The train route from Paris to the coast of France ran along ten miles of the most spectacular cliffs I have ever seen. In some places, it was a ten-story drop to the roiling white breakers below. Holmes and I luckily had seats on the left side of the train, and so were treated to the spectacular views. The cliffs absorbed all my attention, but Holmes had his chin sunk on his breast, either asleep or deep in thought, and my repeated attempts to draw his attention to the view were ineffectual.
Suddenly he sat up straight and alert, staring directly ahead. Before I could say anything, he commanded me,
"Watson. Walk out of the compartment right now."
"Holmes, what-"
"Do as I say! Open the door, right NOW!" Spurred into action by his urgent tone, I slid open the door and stepped out… right into a passing gentleman. He had dropped the leather briefcase he was carrying and I picked it up for him, pressing it back into his hands with profuse apologies. I could not help glancing accusatorily at Holmes, but he was not looking at me. Instead, I saw to my surprise he was studying with marked intensity the man with the briefcase. I said to the man,
"Excuse me, sir. Terribly sorry. I did not see you coming." He looked down at me with dark eyes and replied in French,
"Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Pardonnez moi." I ducked back into the compartment to let him pass, and closing the door once more I said,
"I think you owe me an explanation, Holmes. What was the point in having me suddenly open the door on such short notice?" He did not answer immediately. He quickly reopened the door and gazed out into the hallway, evidently searching for something. He sat back down again just as quickly, but he kept the door slightly ajar.
"I have an acute sense of hearing, Watson. As such, when I heard that man's footsteps approaching our compartment, I also registered another noise. It was so slight I could not be sure what the source was, so I asked you to step out and so give me a chance to listen more closely. Sure enough, I identified the mysterious sound." I was hanging on his every word, and he knew it. His pause reeked of the dramatic. Finally, he announced, "It was the sound of ticking."
"Is that significant?" I queried. Holmes fixed me with a steady gaze.
"It may mean life or death." For a moment, I was inclined to believe that Holmes was jesting, but I knew my friend well, and he was not the type to jest.
Holmes had resumed staring out of the crack in the compartment door, and he all of a sudden jumped up and opened the door fully.
"Hurry, Watson! We have just time enough to prevent a tragedy!" I was lost and confused beyond all words, unable to string together Holmes's actions, but I followed him nonetheless as he darted out into the corridor and made his way down to the end of the car. He said to me urgently,
"Keep your eyes peeled for the briefcase that the gentleman you nearly knocked down was carrying. Its location should be denoted by the sound of ticking, like a clock." We had just transferred to the next car, and it was filled with luggage. I heard Holmes groan softly, then proceed to start a mad search through the accumulated suitcases, briefcases, bags, trunks, and other paraphernalia that our fellow travelers had thought prudent to bring along. I began my search at the back, though hardly knowing what for, listening intently at every brown briefcase I picked up, and casting aside those that made no noise.
When fifteen minutes had passed in fruitless search, I began to wonder what should happen if someone were to see us pawing through the luggage. Surely, we would be put off at the next stop. Holmes seemed not to care about any passers-by, though, and he had not looked up from his work once since we began. I stood with my hands on my hips for a moment, my back aching from stooping too long, when I detected a faint ticking like a clock coming from a briefcase at my feet. I picked it up and placed an ear to it, listening for a moment. It was, indeed, ticking. What business a suitcase had to tick I had no idea, but I dutifully informed Holmes of my find.
"Holmes! I have found the source of the ticking!" I was holding it up, and when Holmes saw it, relief transformed his face. I could not fathom why he should be so strongly affected by it. He skillfully navigated the sea of luggage to my side and pressed his ear to the case. He nodded to himself and told me matter- of- factly,
"Watson, what you hold in your hands is a bomb. Now kindly hand it over to me very carefully, and I will diffuse it." I fear I spluttered as I said,
"A bomb? Is that why it was ticking?" Holmes suddenly fixed me with an intense stare.
"Watson. You said it was ticking? And it is not anymore?" Realization began to dawn on me as the expression in Holmes's eyes turned as close to panic as his extremely rational mind would allow.
Then a change came over him and moving lithe and fast he undid the catch of the nearest window and raised it, beckoning me with great urgency.
"For god's sake, man, if you value your life get that out the window!" I instantly came over and pitched it as hard as I could over the cliff and into the sea below. Holmes closed the sash, turned, and put one arm over his head and another around my shoulders, forcing me down amongst the baggage. A second later, an explosion rocked the train, a deep echoing BOOM that dislodged the trunks and jostled the train. Holmes held me down for a few seconds afterwards, and then cautiously got up. I had the distinct feeling we had just cheated death. I brushed off my clothes and looked at him, perplexed.
"Holmes, would you please tell me what is going on? Why did I just have to throw a bomb out of a train window?" Holmes turned to me, and taking out his pipe, told me calmly,
"We have just foiled the attempted bombing of this train by Horatio Augustus, the most notorious bomb maker in all Paris. Now if you will accompany me back to our compartment, I shall be glad to fill you in on the whole chain of events." When we were once more seated comfortably, Holmes laid aside his pipe and began.
"When I first heard that ticking noise, I knew it could be one of two things- a bomb or a clock. The latter is a strange thing to carry about with you when one can just as easily have a pocket-watch, so I deduced the former. Knowing a bomb was on board the train, I immediately had you stop that man to get a better look at him. To my shock and surprise, I recognized him from a photograph Lestrade once showed me as Horatio Augustus, a wanted bomb maker and saboteur, notorious in Paris for using his explosives to infiltrate bank safes. I kept the door open and watched him enter a compartment at the end of the car, leave again with the briefcase, and then return once more without it. That must have meant he had planted the bomb, and since he was gone a negligible amount of time in inferred he had left it in the next car. That proved, as you saw, to be the luggage train, an apt and fitting hiding place. You were with me for the rest."
I was staggered by my friend's quick deductions, and the fact that he had just saved every passenger on the train- including myself- from certain death.
"But, Holmes, how will you explain away the explosion? Everyone on the train felt it!" He smiled and put his pipe to his lips.
"That, my dear Watson, is up to the traveler's imaginations."
A/N: I really have no idea what the coast of France looks like… or, indeed, whether they even have cliffs. But I needed a plausible setting for this story, and France wasn't too exotic so I picked it.