I had no sooner retired to my bedroom, the footsteps of the attentive Dooley fading down the hall, when I was so startled that I must have jumped a foot. Out of nowhere came a voice, and it took a moment to realize that it was a familiar one.
'Is the coast clear, Guv?'
As I stood petrified, Slim Gilligan assumed that my silence indicated an affirmative and rolled out from under my bed.
'Good Heavens, Gilligan, what brings you here?'
'Mr. 'Olmes wants you ready to move, Guv. 'E's got a nose fer such things, 'e 'as, and tonight's the night.'
I did not bother asking the cracksman how he had gained my room. With his record, a country estate presented no problems. To my credit, I acted in a businesslike manner. 'What's the plan?'
'If yuh waits a bit, till the master of the 'ouse 'as folded up shop, you're to go downstairs. Tell the butler that you want to take another turn 'round and then nip out to the stables and saddle a couple of ridin' 'orses. Then you come back, see, and the butler—'
'Dooley.'
'—'ll lock the place up fer the night. You get inter your ridin' togs and stand by. Mr. 'Olmes figures there's goin' to be a real hullabaloo durin' the night with a lot o' runnin' 'round, and you slips out in the confusion and gets the 'orses. Ride round back and make fer the main road, stayin' away from the tree line.'
'Then what?'
'Just keep goin' away from the 'ouse. Mr. 'Olmes'll hail yuh.'
'Is he here?'
''As been fer a while. Good luck!'
Gilligan listened for a moment at the door and then slipped through it and was gone.
I sat on the bed for a moment, my thoughts awhirl. Holmes had said that I would play an important part in the drama to unfold, and suddenly it seemed that I would. It struck me that this was the greatest miscasting of all times. Night alarms with a somewhat overweight medical man riding over the countryside like a supporter of the ill- fated Stuarts fleeing from a company of roundheads? Holmes's drama might be played out like a farce comedy!
But the Watson spirit rose within me, and I banished such thoughts as self-defeating. Holmes had dressed me in the clothes of an adventurer, ready to take center stage, and I resolved to play the part with conviction, though I felt more like assuming Gilligan's hiding place under the bed, with a blanket over my head.
After a suitable period, I walked jauntily down the great stairs of the mansion and made for the rear. In the butler's pantry adjacent to the huge kitchen I found Dooley, who slipped a copy of
Locating Fandango's stall, I spoke to the horse in a low tone and allowed her to get used to the idea of my presence before slipping a bridle on her. I then led her from the stall and arranged the saddle. There were sounds from the other horses but I ignored them. Either I was going to pull this off undetected, or I was not. With the girth cinched tight around the mare, I secured her bridle in front of the next stall, figuring that the horse within, conscious of Fandango ready for action, would get the idea and accept the bit from my unfamiliar hands. Such proved the case, and with the two horses saddled, I returned them to their stalls to await their moment. I don't think my foray took more than fifteen minutes, and when I tapped on the back door, Dooley opened it for me, indicating no suspicion. Feeling considerably the better for having accomplished the first part of my task, I returned to my bedroom and wondered what the signal for the second act would be. Seated in an armchair, I steeled myself for the waiting, always the most difficult period in a situation like this. It had been such a short time ago that I had thought of the peaceful atmosphere in our snug quarters on Baker Street, and here I was in a Surrey mansion waiting for who-knew-what in connection with the Deets affair. It had begun like such, a pedestrian matter. The introduction of our client's deceased father into the list of dramatis personae had added the fillip of dark and sinister motives.
And what about the agent of Mycroft who had died in our presence? This bizarre occurrence combined with the invasion of our quarters had been momentarily jettisoned it would seem, though I knew Holmes's manner too well not to accept the fact that the two cases had connective tissue. The association of all this with one John H. Watson in Surrey was remote indeed. But if Sherlock Holmes's nostrils had quivered, there was a scent in the air.
My musings were suddenly interrupted with an energizing thought. My activities on this night had just begun, and I hastened to my feet to don my riding habit, on loan, to be ready for the action when it came.
It did come, finally, with a rush and a roar of sound that snapped me awake and out of the chair that I had been slumbering in. There were indistinguishable shouts transformed to alarms by their tone of anguish and terror. There was a smell in the air and, for a ridiculous moment, I thought it might be Holmes's pipe. But no, it was not the scent of his shag, but there was smoke. As I made for the stairs, it became more apparent. My God! It came from a conflagration!
Darting out the side entrance by the porte cochere, it being the most readily at hand, I saw flames lighting up the night sky. They were at or adjacent to the horses' barns wherein the racers were stabled. Despite a tumult of sound and running footsteps, I was completely alone. Every man jack on the place was at the fire, desperately trying to save the priceless thoroughbreds.
I made an instinctive move to rush to join the rescuers, but Holmes's instructions came to mind in the nick of time, and I bolted to the stalls of the riding horses, somewhat removed from the center of activity. There were whinnies and neighs as I made my way to Fandango, for the horses, sensitive to the aura of excitement, nay panic, were moving nervously in their places. Fortunately the wind was such that the smell of the fire had not reached them, or they might have been unmanageable. My presence seemed to have a calming effect on the chestnut mare, and I led her from her stall and then secured the reins of her neighbor.
When I mounted Fandango, the tenseness of the moment lent springs to my legs. With the other animal in tow, I urged the mare into motion. The moment we cleared the barn door, Fandango spied the not-so-distant flames. I was urging her in a direction that would take us around the country mansion, and she cooperated in a manner that jarred my back teeth. We swept by the house at a full gallop and thundered down the main road leading from Mayswood. I had all I could do to hang onto the reins of our companion animal, who was in just as much of a hurry as my mount.
I dropped my curb and was riding to the snaffle, and that was not true in a moment, for in desperation I dropped my bridle entirely and gripped the pommel of the saddle with one hand. For no reason, the name of the other horse flashed through my mind. 'Mystique' she had been referred to. A suitable mount for Holmes, but Mother of Heaven, would I ever reach him!
Out of the night loomed a complication. The white-picket horse-gate was closed across the driveway to Mayswood as it would be in the night hours. The gallant Fandango, flanked by Mystique, was bearing down on the obstacle at a speed that defied stopping in time, nor were there reins in my hand to try it or the strength in my arms to do it if they had been there.
The gate, a low affair, assumed the proportions of a Grand National hurdle as we thundered towards it. Its white planking, touched by a spring moon that suddenly sailed free of high clouds, assumed a ghostly glow. To think that I, dedicated to the saving of life, was to end my days with a snapped neck or speared by a broken plank! Little did my dear, departed mother picture my emulating one of the ill-fated riders of that desperate charge in the Crimea!
The gate was upon us. Still gripping the saddle with one hand and Mystique's reins with the other, I instinctively leaned forward as I had seen huntsmen do when clearing a stone wall in pursuit of the elusive fox. Then the thunder of hoofs ceased, and for a glorious moment I had the feeling of flying, soaring through the air as if in fulfillment of man's age-old dream. I was suspended in a nothingness as those two splendid horses with their muscles uncoiled, their legs outstretched, cleared the barrier in unison. Oh, it must have made a wondrous sight— which I never saw, for my eyes were screwed tightly shut and I was just hanging on for dear life without even time for a fervent prayer.
The moment of weightlessness passed with a crash as we made contact with the road beyond the gate. I was jarred to my heels and lost a stirrup, coming within an ace of losing my seat as well. Then, by some miracle,
