We entered the upper floor which must once have been used for the storage of coffee for the smell of it was still apparent in the grimy air. But now it was empty. The walls were mouldering. The dust was thick on every surface. The floorboards creaked beneath our feet. The music from the barrel organ seemed distant now and cut off and the murmur of the crowd had disappeared altogether. There was still enough light reflecting from the torches which blazed all around the fair to illuminate the room but it was uneven, constantly moving in such a way as to cast distorted shadows all around us, and the further we went in, the darker it would become.
‘Watson…’ Holmes muttered, and the tone of his voice was enough to tell me what he desired. I produced my gun and found comfort in its weight, in the touch of cold metal against my palm.
‘Holmes,’ I said. ‘We are wasting our time. There is nothing here.’
‘And yet a child has been here before us,’ replied he.
I looked beyond him and saw, lying on the floor in the far corner, two toys that had been abandoned there. One was a spindle top, the other a lead soldier standing stiffly to attention with most of its paint worn away. There was something infinitely pathetic about them. Had they once belonged to Ross? Had this been a place of refuge for him before he was killed and these the only souvenirs of a childhood he had never really had? I found myself drawn towards them, walking away from the entrance, just as had been intended, for too late did I see the man step out from behind an alcove, nor could I avoid the cudgel that came sweeping through the air towards me. I was struck on the arm below the elbow and felt my fingers jerk open in a blaze of white pain. The gun cluttered the ground. I lunged for it, but was struck a second time, a blow that sent me sprawling. At the same time, a second voice came out of the darkness.
‘Don’t either of you move or I’ll shoot you where you stand.’
Holmes ignored the instruction. He was already at my side, helping me to my feet. ‘Watson, are you all right? I will never forgive myself if they have done you serious injury.’
‘No, no.’ I clasped my arm, searching for any break or fracture and knew at once that I had only been badly bruised. ‘I’m not hurt.’
‘Cowards!’
A man with thinning hair, an upturned nose and heavy, round shoulders stepped towards us, allowing the light from outside to fall across his face. I recognised Henderson, the tidewaiter (or so he claimed) who had sent Holmes into the trap at Creer’s opium den. He had told us that he was an addict, and that must have been one of the only true parts of his story, for he still had the bloodshot eyes and sickly pallor that I remembered. He was holding a revolver. At the same time, his accomplice picked up my own weapon and shuffled forward, keeping it trained on us. This second man I did not know. He was burly, toad-like, with close-cropped hair and swollen ears and lips, like those of a boxer after a bad fight. His cudgel was actually a heavy walking stick, which still dangled from his left hand.
‘Good evening, Henderson,’ Holmes remarked in a voice in which I could detect nothing more than equanimity. From the way he spoke, he could have been casually greeting an old acquaintance.
‘You are not surprised to see me, Mr Holmes?’
‘On the contrary, I had fully expected it.’
‘And you remember my friend, Bratby?’
Holmes nodded. He turned to me. ‘This was the man who held me down in the office at Creer’s Place, when the opiate was forced on me,’ he explained. ‘I had rather hoped he might be here too.’
Henderson hesitated, then laughed. Gone was any pretence of the weakness or inferiority that he had displayed when he had come to our lodgings. ‘I don’t believe you, Mr Holmes. I am afraid that you are all too easily gulled. You did not find what you were looking for at Creer’s. You haven’t found it here, either. It seems to me that you will go off like a firework… in any direction.’
‘And what are your intentions?’
‘I would have thought that would be obvious to you. We thought we’d dealt with you at Holloway Prison, and it would have been better for you, all in all, if you’d stayed there. So this time our methods are going to be a little more direct. I have been instructed to kill you, to shoot you like a dog.’
‘In that event, would you be so kind as to satisfy my curiosity on a just a couple of points? Was it you who killed the girl at Bluegate Fields?’
‘As a matter of fact it was. She was stupid enough to return to the public house where she worked and it was easy enough to pick her up.’
‘And her brother?’
‘Little Ross? Yes, that was us. It was a horrible thing to have to do, Mr Holmes, but he brought it upon himself. The boy stepped out of line and we had to make an example of him.’
‘Thank you very much. It is exactly as I thought.’
Henderson laughed a second time but never had I seen an expression more devoid of good humour. ‘Well, you’re a cool enough customer, aren’t you, Mr Holmes? And I suppose you’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you!’
‘Of course.’
‘And when that old bird sent you up here, you knew she’d been waiting for you?’
‘The fortune-teller spoke to my colleague, not to me. I assume you paid her to do your bidding?’
‘Cross her palm with sixpence and she’d do anything.’
‘I expected another trap, yes.’
‘Let’s get it over with,’ the man called Bratby urged.
‘Not yet, Jason. Not quite yet.’
For once, I did not need Holmes to explain why they were waiting. I saw it all too clearly for myself. When we had been climbing the stairs, there had been a crowd gathered around the shooting gallery with the shots ringing out below. Now, for the moment, it was silent. The two assassins were waiting for the crack of the rifles to recommence. The sound would mask two further gunshots up here. Murder is the most horrible crime of which a human being is capable, but this coldblooded, calculated, double murder struck me as particularly vile. I was still clutching my arm. All sense of feeling had left me where I had been struck, but I dragged myself to my feet, determined that I would not be killed by these men while I was on my knees.
‘You might as well put down your weapons and give yourselves up now,’ Holmes remarked. He was utterly calm and I began to wonder if he had indeed known all along that the two men would be here.
‘What?’
‘There is going to be no killing tonight. The shooting gallery is closed. The fair is over. Do you not hear?’
For the first time, I realised that the barrel organ had stopped. The crowd seemed to have departed. Outside this empty and derelict room, all was silent.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I did not believe you the first time we met, Henderson. But then it was expedient to walk into your trap, if only to see what you were planning. But do you really believe I would do the same a second time?’
‘Put those guns down!’ a voice cried out.
In the next few seconds, there was such a confusion of events that, at the time, I was barely able to make any sense of them. Henderson brought his gun round, meaning to fire either at me or past me. I will never know, for his finger was never able to tighten on the trigger. At the same moment, there was a fusillade of shots, the muzzle of a gun flashing white, and he was literally thrown off his feet, a fountain of blood bursting from his head. Henderson’s associate, the man he had referred to as Bratby, spun round. I do not think he intended to fire but it was enough that he was armed. A bullet hit him in the shoulder and another in the chest. I heard him cry out as he was thrown back, my gun flying out of his hand. There was a clatter as his walking stick hit the wooden floorboards and rolled away. He was not dead. Wheezing, sobbing in pain and shock, he crumpled to the ground. There was a brief pause, the silence almost as shocking as the violence that had gone before.