'The man positioned here, you mean, after the gold train went by,' I exclaimed.
'Or before, for that matter.' The sleuth's attitude was casual and he seemed to have lost interest in the matter.
Our walk back to the four-wheeler was made in silence. I had nothing to say nor had Dandy Jack, who had recovered his grin. Holmes was deep in thought, his hands clasped behind his back and his aquiline face chin-down on his chest. In the conveyance, Dandy Jack headed back to Brent since there were no orders to do otherwise.
As we approached the small village and its station, Holmes summoned himself from his reverie. 'I would appreciate your thinking more on how that wagonload of gold was removed with no one the wiser. In daylight too, for the authorities found the boxcar before night fell.'
Dandy Jack indicated that he would give the matter due consideration, but there was little enthusiasm in his manner. Why our driver should be expected to come up with an answer eluded me. At the station, Holmes passed some bills to Dandy Jack, who did not bother to count them before shoving them into a pocket with a gesture of acknowledgment that could have doubled for thanks.
As he stood on the platform and waved us goodbye, did I detect an expression of relief on his weathered face?
On the train, I viewed Holmes with purpose. I had allowed him a lengthy period for meditation, and enough was enough. Questions were bubbling on my lips. I never had the chance to ask them; Holmes divined my thoughts.
'Dandy Jack has led a not-uneventful life, and it was fortunate for our purposes that he was on the scene.' Holmes removed his ostrich-skin pouch and fueled his short-stemmed briar. 'For that matter, the sleepy village of Brent has seen more exciting times. It was once the halfway house for a thriving business.' My mouth opened with the obvious question, but Holmes continued: 'A ring of brandy smugglers got their contraband cargo this far and then sent it in various directions, much in the manner that Dandy Jack mentioned.'
'He was, then, a part of the ring?'
'Very good at his job, too.'
'How do you know of this, Holmes?'
'I broke the ring.'
'Ah, then you knew Jack.'
'Only by reputation. There was a falling out among the thieves. The matter of greed you mentioned previously. There were two casualties, which did not sit well with one member of the gang. I was able to contact him, by post actually, using a code name. We transacted some business, always by the mails. The entire gang was captured, including a customs official in Yarmouth.'
'But they didn't all go to jail,' I said with a wise smile, which his answer erased.
'Actually, they did. However, one of the gang escaped after a brief period in a certain penal institution. He's never been found.'
Holmes puffed on his pipe for a considerable moment, his eyes harkening back to times gone by. Then he continued in a low tone of voice which, on occasion, served as a tocsin for a confidential matter of importance. 'Dandy Jack is a singular name and rather hard to forget. Old friend, we'd best forget it just the same.'
During our return to London, I viewed our countryside investigation in a new light. Small wonder that our unusual driver had considered the matter of the stolen gold with a professional interest. If a smuggler—who must have worked in collusion with some of the local inhabitants at one time—did not know how the stolen gold was removed, then who would?
Chapter 7
The Leaden Intruder
THAT EVENING, our dinner at 221 B Baker Street was a quiet one. I was touched by the faith Holmes had evidenced by his revelation on the homebound train and did not wish to plague him with further questions. Many of my queries through the years must have smacked of the inane to him. He frequently displayed irritation when others could not match the mercurial speed of his intellect, but exhibited a singular patience with me. On more than one occasion he had stated that I possessed an intuitive ability to center on a key fact, as though gravitated to the missing piece of a mosaic he was attempting to piece together. His words were sweet music and I invariably glowed when recalling them, but there was the lurking suspicion that he might have strained a point or two in this respect. He invariably referred to
Holmes seemed preoccupied and, as he so often did when involved in thought, busied himself in his chemical corner. When he was intent on beakers and retorts, conversation was impossible. I decided to bide my time relative to certain matters that still puzzled me about our afternoon expedition. I was attempting, without too much success, to collect and sort notes on a case history that I hoped to make available to my readers, going through the usual exasperation involved in locating certain information and assembling it in the proper order. My friend had a vial full of a dark liquid bubbling furiously. He removed the candle beneath it and placed it on the desk. Holmes was turning back toward his apparatus when the upper pane of one of our bay windows was shattered. There was a booming sound, the candle was abruptly halved, and there was a resounding thud in the far side of the room. I sat transfixed, staring at the reduced candle, convinced that I had felt a disturbance in the air in front of my face, which may or may not have been true. Then I was galvanized into action.
'Holmes, we are being fired upon,' I cried, dropping from the desk chair to the floor and making for the window on all fours with the intent of drawing the blind.
'Calm yourself, old fellow,' said the sleuth in a casual tone as though asking for a dinner roll.
To my consternation, he made for the door to our chambers with no attempt of concealment.
I lunged back toward him with the half-formed idea of pulling him to the floor so that he would not make such a splendid target, but he was already at our outer portal and had it open.
'Billy,' he called, 'please inform Mrs. Hudson that naught is amiss. A slight miscalculation in one of my chemical experiments was the cause of the disturbance.'
I assumed that the page boy acknowledged this request and made for our landlady's domain. I was, again, scurrying toward the window and had managed to close the drapes by the time Holmes reentered our quarters from the landing.
'Please, Watson, do not be so concerned.'
I fear my reply was made with some heat. 'Bullets flying through the air and you . . .'
'
The sleuth retrieved the upper portion of the candle from the floor. 'Remarkable piece of shooting. Had the marksman fired at a human target, one of us would now be dead.'
His eyes went upward and, to my horror, he crossed to the window, pulling the blind partially aside to view the shattered pane of glass. 'See the angle of the shot,' he said, indicating upward.
'For God's sake, Holmes, close that drape.' I had flattened myself against the wall between the windows. 'You may be interested in plotting a trajectory, but I'll have no part of your madness.'
He did let the material fall back into place and there was concern in his large eyes as he viewed me, frozen in my protected position. 'Good fellow, the crash of a rifle bullet, fired from an elongated barrel I suspect, is a jarring note on a quiet evening at home. Let me repeat that the man behind the gun did not have blood in his eye.'
As he spoke he was tracing an imaginary line from the window to the candle, which took him to a point in our floorboards where he squatted, after securing the clasp knife from the mantelpiece.
'Anyone who could sever that candle so neatly could have found either of us with ease had he so wished.'
He rose to his feet at this point, displaying a misshapen piece of lead triumphantly. 'I shall inspect this carefully, but other matters claim our attention.' He was at the desk now, in the chair I had vacated so precipitously but a short while before, scrawling on foolscap. I could not remain pressed against the wall forever. Drawing a deep
