Tiny was at the mine entrance, his hair so blond as to be almost white. In his hand was the end of a limb, which I judged he had wrenched from a fallen and dead tree. Its butt was coated with a resinous jellylike substance.
'Good thought, lad,' exclaimed Bertie. Quickly gathering some dead leaves that had blown into the mine, he crumpled them in his hand, igniting them with a sulfur match that he flicked against a stubby and dirty thumbnail.
Breathing on the small fire he had produced, Bertie thrust the limb into it and, in a moment the viscous sap burst into flame.
He passed the improvisation to Holmes. 'Here it be, sir, fer you're the torchbearer 'round 'ere.'
With Holmes in the lead, we cautiously worked our way into the mine, and I viewed the aged timber supports with some trepidation, I'll tell you. We did not have far to go. At the head of the side tunnel was a wagon, looking incongruous in this setting. Within, neatly stacked, were wooden boxes nailed shut. At a signal from Holmes, Tiny had one out of the wagon and on the floor of the tunnel. The sleuth held his torch high to illuminate the scene as the giant's eyes swiveled to the detective for further orders. Evidently, he received them in a glance, for one huge hand seized the top of the box, tearing the wooden cover off with a casual movement.
Within was metal, reflecting the torchlight, though it lacked the luster of the whitish-yellow substance I had seen when viewing the golden tablet during our Egyptian adventure.
'What's this, some hardware shipment?'
'Isn't it the gold?' I exclaimed.
'Naught but brass, Watson.'
'We've seen what we need to,' he said. 'Now I want this place sealed up again before Constable Sindelar and his people arrive.'
As we hastened from the depths of the abandoned tin mine, Holmes passed a cautionary remark to us all. 'We've not even been within the mine, mind you. Nor are we interested in it. We have just been guarding three dead bodies until the authorities arrive.'
We were outside now, and Bertie glanced at the sleuth questioningly. 'I been wonderin' what the hearse be fer.'
'Sober reminders of the prowess of the fastest gun in Baker Street.'
I sighed in exasperation. Holmes picked strange moments for his clumsy witticisms, but he did seem to enjoy a private joke a bit more than most. Personally, I felt his reference to the corpses was black humor indeed.
Our departure for London was not inconvenienced in any way. The local constable was obviously awed by the presence of the master man-hunter and accepted Holmes' version of the incident without question. He did state that he would forward a written report to Inspector Hopkins at the Yard, and I sensed that he was relieved to be able to place the matter in the hands of others.
We rode in the last car of the late afternoon train and were its only occupants, so no rural inhabitants were panic-stricken by the presence of Tiny. I did note that the conductor, having performed his official duties, shunned our car like a plague. Tiny promptly fell asleep, his head on his brother's shoulder. Considering the way he had thrown rock out of the mine and then back in it, some rest seemed justified. Out of deference to the slumbering giant, I did not plague Holmes with questions, which was a good thing since I do believe the sleuth seized the opportunity for forty winks himself.
Back in the comfortable and welcome confines of Baker Street it was another matter, for now I would not be denied. However, the number of my queries had been reduced, having thought on the matter to the best of my ability.
'Look here, Holmes,' I said as I placed a whiskey and soda on the candle table by his chair. 'I understand now that the gold shipment on the B & N was bogus . . .'
'Something I should have deduced from the start,' said my friend, and there was a bitter tone to his voice.
'I'll not swallow that, for you are always chiding yourself for not immediately seeing through the most intricate schemes.'
'If I do, I am wrong,' was his surprising response. 'To be misled by cunning is no crime. But when a misdeed involves a glaring error and I do not seize upon it, that is another matter.'
Holmes' conviction did not dent my assurance this time. 'Hananish sent four hundred thousand pounds in gold to the Bank of England before the false shipment. Why that sum, by the way?'
'Because that's all there was. Hananish and Trelawney agreed to contribute one hundred thousand pounds to the consortium, which they never did because their reserve fund was elsewhere. The four hundred thousand was from the other banks of the combine.'
'Neat, that. The conspirators had no financial involvement at all.'
'Hananish told us there was no risk involved. I'll wager he had a silent chuckle in the telling.'
'I take it the metal was delivered to Hananish by the west coast banks and sent from there to London.'
'Correct. When the actual gold was safely tucked away in the Bank of England, Hananish sent the spurious boxes, suitably weighted, of course. Upon arrival in London, he had them transferred to the B & N Railroad and took out a policy for the listed worth of the shipment, five hundred thousand pounds, with Inter-Ocean. That's where he made his mistake.'
'I fail to see it.'
'Then, Watson, we were all fools together. Wasn't it suspicious that he didn't insure the shipment from Gloucester to London? There was just as much chance of a robbery during that trip as there was when the cargo went from London to Great Yarmouth.'
I clasped my brow with my hands in anguish. 'Of course.'
'You are now mimicking my actions of this morning and thinking the same thoughts.' This idea served to dispel Holmes' dark mood. 'But come, the future is where our thoughts must lie.'
'Half a mo',' I exclaimed. 'The thieves took the crated brass from the boxcar and transferred it to the wagon. They maneuvered it into the mine and left it there.'
'Blocking the entrance after doing so.'
'What about the horses?'
'They turned them loose, stripped of their harness. You don't know your Essex farmer. Two unattended horses roaming about would go promptly into a barn. If someone came to claim them, there would be the oft-used story of buying them from traveling gypsies.'
I threw up my hands in capitulation. Holmes had all the answers. After dinner that evening, it was Mrs. Hudson who announced the arrival of Claymore Frisbee, and I wondered if the sleuth had dispatched Billy on another mysterious errand.
The president of Inter-Ocean Trust was his urbane self when he entered our chambers and took a seat by the hearth fire, but there were lines of worry below the prominent cheekbones of his face. He was a good judge of moods, however; and Holmes' manner seemed to relax him. Perhaps the tot of quite superior brandy I secured for him helped. After all, he was our client.
'You suggested that I might toddle over 'round this time,' Frisbee said after the exchange of customary pleasantries.
Holmes admitted to this. 'Relative to the treasure train policy, you are . . . I believe the expression is 'off the hook.''
Frisbee produced a heartfelt sigh of relief and allowed me to secure another brandy for him. 'That's welcome news, for it's a sizeable sum and would have put us under some strain, I'll admit. Who stole the gold?'
'Let me tell you,' responded Holmes.
And he did in his precise manner, with no extraneous words or thoughts either. At several points during the recounting Frisbee was hard-pressed to contain himself; and at the conclusion he did rather explode in amazement.
'You mean the B & N people and Scotland Yard have been running around looking every which way for the gold, and it was never on the train at all?'
'Comforting, wouldn't you say, since it is safely resting in the Bank of England.'
'You're going to turn the matter over to Inspector Hopkins of the Yard?'
