seemed deserted, which was their intention.'
I had begun to nod at his re-creation. 'I was the bait, then, to lure Holmes to this spot and bag us both.'
'They did not anticipate my presence and even now think their ruse has succeeded.'
'What are you doing here, by the way?'
Atop the bed, looking toward the river, Orloff shot me a glance over his shoulder. 'Mr. Holmes always takes care of his own.'
His response might have seemed enigmatic but I understood. Tiny and Burlington Bertie, even now, were guarding 221 B Baker Street, and when Holmes left me to my own devices in Fenley, it was with the reassurance that the world's most dangerous man was watching out for my interests.
I discovered a catch in my throat as I thought of my eccentric, bohemian friend who could be a trial to live with but who was always concerned about the well-being of the plodding, phlegmatic companion cast his way by fate and the presence of young Stamford at the Criterion Bar on that certain day that had become so significant to J. H. Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
As I recovered from my momentary emotion, Orloff's death-dealing hands had seized the bars of the windows and the back of his coat tightened as those amazing shoulders, biceps, and wrists were put to work. At first glance, or even second, Orloff was completely misleading in appearance. He was unusually broad, though one did not realize it because of his grace of movement. His width made him seem shorter than he was, while his round, almost moon-shaped face gave the impression of a somewhat overweight man. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh on him, for his bulk was solid muscle augmented by reflexes that defied my medically trained mind. He was Orloff, cast from some unknown mold that no master hand could recreate. Suddenly his swelling muscles relaxed and he turned from the bars without a trace of moisture of his brow and breathing in his regular, even cadence.
As his eyes flashed around our place of confinement, I realized that he had given up on the window and was looking elsewhere for a way out. Concentrating on the single furnishing of this barren place, the security agent elevated the bed from the floor and was gazing at its underpinnings. There might have been a trace of satisfaction in his expression as he cast the blanket and thin pallet in a corner and studied the two angle bars and two smaller crosspieces that formed the rectangular frame.
'You have a thought?' I asked.
The man nodded, gesturing toward the door. 'They don't want us out, and for the moment, we don't want them in.'
He had the frame separated in a moment and, taking one of the angle bars, he crossed to the door and placed it laterally in the two attachments I had noted previously.
'Not as wide as the original timber bar but 'twill do,' he said with satisfaction, crossing back to the window. 'We'll need something to signal with, for our rescue will come from the river.'
How he knew this I could not guess, but I displayed my pocket-handkerchief. 'Will this do?' From his expression I deduced that it would not. 'It is all I have save my monocle.'
Orloff's green eyes brightened. Seizing the eyepiece, he cast a rapid glance at the sunlight coming through the cell window. 'Should work,' he stated in a matter-of-fact way. He surveyed my figure with a speculative manner. 'Could you balance me on your shoulders, Doctor, for I've got to be at the window level.'
Doubt was dominant in my mind, and expression as well, for muscle weighs more than fat and I judged that Orloff tipped the scales at fifteen stone. Sensing my thought, he nodded. 'There's another way.' Suddenly he sprang for the window, one hand grasping a bar. Orloff never jumped, for in motion, he always resembled a ballet star. With part of his weight supported by one hand, I sensed what he had in mind and got his legs around my shoulders, standing beneath him to provide some support. Even with Orloff taking most of his weight on his arm of steel, my leg muscles began to tremble after a while and I was forced to let my rescuer down several times so that I could recover. I knew what he was doing, of course. Using the lens of my monocle to reflect sunlight, he was sending intermittent signals toward passing boats in hopes of attracting someone's eye. Finally, our efforts were rewarded.
'We've been spotted,' he said. 'A boat is swerving in toward shore.'
'Thank heavens for that,' I said, my shirt soaked with perspiration and my breath coming in gasps.
Orloff signaled for me to allow him to drop to the floor. 'Providence has been doubly generous since it is Holmes,' he stated, returning my monocle. Again he sprang upward but this time he had two hands free and was able to hold himself at window-height with ease.
While I wondered what had alerted the sleuth to use the river, Orloff kept me informed as to happenings. 'Evidently he commandeered a river tug and she's fast closing on us.' The throb of powerful engines was an accompaniment to his words but they suddenly diminished and I sensed the riverboat was near to shore.
'Holmes, it is Orloff,' called the security agent.
'What of Watson?' Though from a distance, I thought I sensed a tremor in my friend's voice.
'With me and all right.'
'Anyone else around?'
'Don't know. If they are hidden out front, this noise must have alerted them. I'd keep an eye cocked.'
After a short pause, Holmes spoke again. 'I'll work my way around to the road and try and release you.'
'Wait,' I cried. 'There could be too many of them.'
'I've another thought,' called the security agent to Holmes, 'if you've a stout line available and the means of getting it to us.'
There was a mumble of voices from the river and then Holmes replied. 'That can be done. You've a mind to try the window.'
Orloff did not answer but motioned for me to stand clear of the aperture, though I was well below it. Perhaps my nerves were playing me tricks, but I thought I sensed movement from beyond the door to our place of confinement. Suddenly Orloff pulled himself as close to the window as possible and his right hand snaked between the bars, reaching outward. In a moment it reappeared with a round object clutched in his fingers. I recognized it as the weighted end of a heaving line as Orloff dropped to the floor, reeling in the light line. Motioning toward the other angle bar of the demolished bed frame, Orloff pulled in the end of a hawser to which the heaving line had been attached with a running hitch. He took the piece of the bed frame from me, running the hawser around it. The sound of the tug's engines had picked up tempo and I sensed that she was being maneuvered around to present her stern to the shoreline. Orloff had the hawser secured around the angle bar with an anchor bend and he pulled himself up to the window, placing the bar across the width of the opening. There was the sound of a key turning a lock and the door behind us opened slightly but the crossbar held it firmly and there was a muffled curse and then a crash as a body tried to force it inward.
'Full speed,' shouted Orloff. There was a deep-throated roar from the tug's engines and the hawser tightened, pulling the frame piece of the bed against the window bars. Outside, the boat's engines were protesting with wheezes and clankings, trying with twin screws to force the tug into motion. Orloff, hanging from the window by one hand, reached down and grasped me under the arm with his other. Suddenly I was in the air.
'Grab 'round my neck, Doctor, and hold on for dear life.'
How he got me up to where I could obey his order I'll never know. There were repeated crashes at the door to our rear and suddenly there was a rending sound and a section of the wall including the window and bars gave way to the power of the tug's engines. We were in the open air with stone and the dry dust of masonry around us and plunging toward the water below. All I could do was cling to Orloff, who in turn kept his grip on the bars, which were attached to the hawser. We hit the water but were not allowed to sink, for the tug, released from the anchor that had held it, was racing from the shoreline at high speed and dragging us behind it. Suddenly the ship's engines were cut and a stubby man with a mahogany face appeared at the stern of the craft and began hauling us toward it. There was the crash of an explosion and then another one and I made haste to swim toward the tug, sensing that the ruffians had broken down the cell door and were firing on us. When Orloff and the short man helped me aboard, I saw Holmes standing by the wheelhouse with a long-barreled revolver, firing methodically toward the shore. Coughing up river water, I cast a glance toward our rear. Fully a third of the wall of an aged blockhouse was torn asunder. As I watched, a face appeared in the aperture and ducked promptly as Holmes' revolver barked and there was a spurt of dust and the whine of a ricocheting bullet.
