into the water close enough to have soaked anyone standing by the bow of the Royal Edgar. A few seconds later one of the Royal Edgar ’s two-inch guns coughed a burst of flame, and an explosion sounded somewhere forward on the cruiser. A few seconds later, another burst, and a sound like the banging together of a hundred large iron pots came from amidships.
“They’re firing at us!” yelled Lieutenant Willits.”
“More fools they,” said Captain Preisner grimly, and he gave the order to return fire.
The universe became filled with awesome roaring sounds as the eight-inch guns of the Agamemnon hurled their hundred and twenty pound explosive missiles into the air. In two minutes the firing from the Royal Edgar had stopped, and Captain Preisner gave the order for our own ship to cease fire. A total of no more than a dozen rounds had been fired by the big guns of the cruiser, but the damage done to the destroyer gave one faith in the might of modern science. She was dead in the water and already starting to list to one side. Billows of smoke were coming from amidships, and a tongue of flame was growing toward the bow.
The black yacht had pulled up alongside the Royal Edgar now, and people were transferring over. Others were attempting to lower a lifeboat aft of the bridge.
“We should board her, Captain,” Holmes said.
“Why?” asked Preisner.
“There may be documents.”
“There may be wounded,” added Lieutenant Willits.
“I’ll have a boat lowered and ask for volunteers to row you over,” Preisner told us. “But I’m not bringing the Agamemnon anywhere near that vessel. And I warn you, she’s either going to blow up or go under quite soon, and quite suddenly.”
Volunteers were found-the human race never ceases to astound me-and the captain’s gig was lowered. We armed ourselves with revolvers and knives from a locker on the bridge, and we were shortly being rowed over to the Royal Edgar, which was not any lower in the water, although the fire was still burning. As we approached, the black yacht roared past us headed off toward the south. A portly man in a Royal Navy officer’s uniform standing rigidly in the rear of the yacht shook his fist at us as he passed.
“Would that be the king?” I asked Holmes.
“I believe it is,” Holmes told me. “Yes, I believe it is.”
We instructed our oarsmen to remain in the gig and to row rapidly away at the first sign that something untoward was about to happen.
“But what about yourselves, governor?” asked the bo’s’n in charge of the rowing party.
“We shall dive off the ship and swim rapidly toward the Agamemnon,” I told him.
“We’ll probably be there before you are,” Holmes added.
“Very good, sir,” responded the bo’s’n, but he was not convinced.
A couple of ropes were visible dangling over the side of the destroyer, and I grabbed one of them and pulled myself up. Holmes waited until I was on deck to follow me up the rope. There was very little damage evident on deck. Were it not for the smoke behind us and the fire ahead of us, it would look like there was nothing amiss.
“Why do you suppose they fled,” Holmes asked, “instead of attempting to fight the fire?”
“Perhaps they were not trained to do so,” I responded. “Perhaps they didn’t have the equipment.”
“Perhaps,” Holmes agreed.
We had boarded amidships. By some unspoken agreement, we both turned and went forward. “If there are any useful documents,” I said, “they’re probably in the bridge.”
“If there were any,” Holmes replied, “Wilhelm Gottsreich most assuredly took them with him.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
We reached the ladder leading up to the bridge, and Holmes went up ahead of me. He stopped, frozen, in the doorway, and I could not get by. “What is it, Holmes,” I asked, trying to peer around his shoulder.
“As I feared,” he said, “but could not bring myself to believe…” He moved into the room, and I entered behind him.
There, lined up against the back wall, were four men in the uniforms of ordinary seamen in the Royal Navy. Their hands and feet were tied, and their mouths were covered with sticking plaster. One of them seemed to have fainted; he was slumped over, only held up by the rope around his chest which was affixed to a metal hook in the wall. The other three were conscious: one trembling uncontrollably, one rigidly staring out the windscreen, his face frozen with shock, and the third fighting like a trapped beast against his bonds; his wrists raw, and blood streaming from his forehead.
A fifth man, his hands still tied behind him, lay prone on the floor, his face immersed in a large pan of water. He did not move. Holmes ran over to him, pulled up his head and rolled him over. After a few seconds he got up from the still body. “Too late,” he said.
We used our knives to free the other men and, grabbing what papers we could find without bothering to look through them, led the men back down the ladder and out to the gig. Twenty minutes later we were aboard the Agamemnon, and the Royal Edgar was still burning, but was no lower in the water and her list seemed not to have increased.
“We can’t leave her like this,” Captain Preisner said, “and I can’t tow her in; too many questions would be asked.”
“You’ll have to sink her,” Holmes said.
Captain Preisner nodded. “Order the main batteries to fire ten rounds each, controlled fire, at the destroyer,” he told the bridge duty officer.
About ten minutes after the last round was fired the destroyer gave a tremendous belch, and sunk prow first into the sea. The entire crew of the Agamemnon, having been informed that it was a sister ship they were forced to sink, stood silently at attention as she went down. Captain Preisner held a salute until the one-time Royal Mary was out of sight beneath the waves, as did all the officers on the bridge.
Captain Preisner sighed and relaxed. “I hope I never have to do anything like that again,” he said.
Later that evening Captain Preisner called us into his cabin. “I have a berth for you,” he said. “We won’t be back in port again until late tomorrow.”
“That’s fine, Captain,” I said. “We still have to compose our report to send back to Whitehall.”
Preisner looked at us. “Those men you brought aboard-you spoke to them?”
“We did.”
“And?”
“The five suits of undergarments,” Holmes said.
“But you only brought four men along.”
“True,” Holmes said. “Our antagonist had begun preparing for his assault. One of the men was already drowned. The others would have joined him shortly had we not come upon the ship when we did. The plan was to chase the black yacht in to the Trieste harbor, getting as close to the city as possible. Then fire some shots at the fleeing craft, which would miss and hit at random in the city. Then the destroyer would, itself, flee back out to sea. A small explosion, presumably caused by the yacht firing back, would cause the five drowned men to be flung into the water, there to be found in their Royal Navy uniforms by the locals.”
Captain Preisner stared at him speechless for a long moment. “And all this,” he said finally, “to discredit England?” he asked. “What good would it do?”
“Major conflagrations are started by small sparks,” Holmes said. “Who can say where this might have led?”
Preisner shook his head. “Madmen,” he said.
“Even so,” Holmes agreed. “There are an abundance of them.”
Later in our cabin Holmes turned to me and asked, “what are you planning to do after we send our report?”
I shrugged. “The world thinks I am dead,” I said. “Perhaps I shall take advantage of that and remain away from public ken.”
“I, also, had thought of doing something of the sort,” Holmes told me. “I’ve always wanted to travel to Tibet, perhaps speak with the Dali Lama.”
“A very interesting man,” I told him. “I’m sure you’d find such a conversation fruitful.”
Holmes stared at me for a long time, and then said “Good night, Professor,” and turned down the light.
