A Study in Satin

by Tigger

 

Part II: Veni, Veni, Vici.

Chapter 16: Point-Counterpoint/Disaster-Opportunity

 

Entry in the Journal of Miss Sherla Joan Holmes

Date: February 28, 1911

Location: The Mountain Grotto Inn near the French/Swiss Border.

Time: 9:58 P.M.

My Dear Doctor Watson:

We visited the site of the train disaster today. No other word comes immediately to mind, old friend, but I must admit that 'disaster' falls a good deal short of what occurred out there. That sad description of what we saw out there in the Alpine wilderness would have fallen short of the mark if what had occurred had been was nothing more than random chance - a losing throw of the dice by a bored god of some ancient pantheon.

BUT, it wasn't random chance at the heart of this unspeakable crime and tragedy, Watson.

I needed to see what the investigation team sent in by the French government had discovered. Irene declared that the most efficient method to achieve that end required that I must play the silly ingenue with the inspector in charge of the investigation. Either I was not as overtly blatant as I thought or the chief inspector was far more gullible than I would have dreamed possible. Flattery, I suppose, will get one almost anywhere or anything. Especially if the flatterer is a beautiful young woman (and somehow, I am beginning to accept that is what and who I am - fascinating) and the flatteree is an older fellow well-past his days of attractiveness to most such women. He was more than happy to show off his solution to the puzzle of this train-wreck's cause.

Perhaps this arrogant of me, old friend. . .no, it IS arrogant, but some things are unlikely to ever change. In any case, Sherlock would never have permitted a woman to control him in the manner I toyed with that buffoon. *I* will never permit anyone to control ME in such a manner. I know that in my prior life, I spoke of the limitations of the feminine sex at some length, but now I find that I am discovering that the male gender is quite as limited. Where Sherlock found women illogical and prone to allowing their emotions cloud their reason, I now see most men using such a small fraction of their brain that it is no surprise they are dominated by other portions of their anatomy.

Perhaps it was not women when I was a male, nor men now that I am a woman. Perhaps, the correct answer is that male or female, woman or man, Mister or Miss, I am still Holmes.

And that would-be hero of a chief inspector was not.

John, the shallowness of his investigation still appalls me. I must conclude that the efforts of Inspector Laviare (late of the Paris Police) to publish my monographs as instructional and procedural materials for the French police have met with failure. No one using MY methods could have missed the obvious clues that fool ignored even when I prompted him to look at them.

As I just finished explaining to Irene, this was murder on an almost unimaginable scale. I have evidence that will prove that assertion, but that closed minded, arrogant fool who was put in charge of what I may only loosely call "the investigation" would never recognize much less accept that proof. Still, against my better judgment of his intelligence, I attempted to point out the critical clues to him. Sadly, he was and remains too fixated on his simplistic and erroneous conclusions to accept anything I discovered, most particularly since I am merely "une petite, belle juene fille". It would be too far beyond his sadly limited mind to perceive this catastrophe for what it truly was - as the mass murder. Naturally then, it must follow therefore, that it would HAVE to be beyond my poor female faculties to have seen, let alone put together into a solution to this monstrous crime.

Of course, that means little, since even if the imbecile HAD believed me, bringing the true criminal to justice would require infinitely more than his poor skills to accomplish. Only one man kills like that, John - on such a scale, without regard to children and other innocents or with such techniques. I have absolutely no doubt that this heinous act was planned by Moriarty and executed by his minions.

How do I know this was a murder and not the accident the chief inspector wants to believe that it was? Several factors, old friend.

A white, flaky patch was found adhering to the metal framing beneath several of the destroyed cars. In particular, I noted that this was at the extreme ends of the cars, directly beneath the doors. It is not a normal wood ash nor was it a patch of mostly intact paint, but it was seemingly burnt into the heavy iron framing. . I suspect, no, I am convinced that these patches are composed of an oxide of magnesium. In order to be certain, I will of course, chemically analyze the samples I obtained at the scene once we return to Paris.

I infer that, by some means not clear from the evidence of the remains, magnesium laced explosives went off or were set off beneath the front and rear entrances to each car when the train derailed. The nearly instantaneous, incredibly hot fires that ensued blocked the normal escape routes from the cars. Additionally, any wood and fabric that came in immediate contact with the fiery metal would have, for all intents and purposes, exploded into flame themselves so the fire would have spread into the cars from the two extreme ends toward the center. This theory is borne out, in fact, by the one car the inspector elected to show me. It had a small bit of wood, perhaps two or three planks worth, survive - almost in the center of the car. The char pattern on the forward and after edges of that planking strongly indicates that fire had burnt from both ends of the car. Even assuming that most of the unsuspecting passengers were not stunned or severely injured from the shock of the derailment, they would have had no chance to escape the flames via the front or rear exits.

The head investigator's concept that the conflagration started when the locomotive's firebox was sundered is simply ridiculous. Even if one accepts his other contention that the various stoves and fires used for warmth in the winter mountains, the fire spread far too quickly for that to have been the cause. There would have been survivors in that scenario, John, and in point of sad fact, there were none.

How do I know that? I looked for tracks. I used Irene's opera glasses in lieu of a seaman's glass and searched the horizon. No snow has fallen since the night of the murder, or else there would have been snow in the vicinity of the cars, or atop the ice lake the engine's water tank created. There were no tracks in the distance, John - none. We found no survivors on our trip to the scene, nor will there be any on the other side of the break in the tracks. The newspaper article's reference to wolves will turn out to be a journalist trying to sell more papers to a blood thirsty populace.

The derailment was also not left to chance. The tracks were broken and the metal at the break was rather shiny. Our esteemed investigator believes that this shininess was due to the breaking of the metal train rails. Only it is not. There is a metallic sheen on both sides of the track break that looks nothing like a good clean steel break. It looks like mercury. I deduce that someone spread a mercury-based compound onto the tracks before the train ever arrived. Chemists have long known that certain mercuric compounds attack the granular structure of many metals causing them to become weak and brittle. This one, obviously, was designed to attack the iron and steel used in railroad construction. I obtained a sample of that compound as well, rubbed into another of my handkerchiefs when I supposedly tripped over the mutilated track and fell. When the profoundly heavy locomotive ran over those chemically-embrittled rails, the track buckled under the concentrated mass, then broke and bent, causing the locomotive and then the traincars to derail violently.

Why? I can only speculate for there is insufficient evidence to prove my contention. I believe that Buchner was the target. I suspect that two, perhaps three of Moriarty's henchmen were aboard the train. As the train approached its destiny, they moved Buchner to a forward facing door, bracing him and themselves against the impact. As soon as the train stopped, they escaped the train and detonated the magnesium devices. As to where they went, again I can only make an informed supposition. I believe they most likely had a small engine or train awaiting them on the other side of the rail break. There was a blind curve ahead where they could have secreted their transportation until the moment it was needed.

I believe that it is also likely that Moriarty's men dealt with any survivors and fed them back into the flames. While with the inspector, I found shards of glass that had broken differently than the other windows. I had one of my "weeping attacks" there, and attempted to piece together the glass. It was not difficult and it became clear that the window had been broken by means other than falling to the ground. The reconstructed glass had a small hole in it - obviously put there before it shattered - approximately the size of a standard rifle bullet. Since this train was both a luxury train and since it was to go into the mountains during late winter, I think it unlikely that any paying customer would have tolerated a hole such at that. No, John, that bullet probably stopped some poor victim from attempting escape from a fiery death via the window.

There is no question in my mind who is behind this crime against humanity. It has to be Moriarty. No one else in the world has the knowledge and the utter lack of conscience to kill in such a manner. I was, it would seem, correct in my premonitions and in my assessment of Buchner. I simply did not act on those feelings for they were not derived from logical analysis and deduction.

I know what you are thinking, old friend. I should report all of this to the proper authorities, including the fact that their inspector an incompetent fool. Give them the evidence and let them track down Moriarty.

I did not and will not do this for three reasons. First, I don't believe the French authorities are capable of dealing with Moriarty. They were unable to do so all those years before and I have seen nothing to indicate that they have improved to the point where they could outwit the great Napoleon of Crime. No, if I did that, he would without doubt escape. My second reason is that when that buffoon brags of his "successfully concluded investigation" to the press, Moriarty will believe that he has succeeded in carrying out a perfect mass murder and kidnapping. I do not wish him any more on guard than he already may be. Finally, John, I did not report my findings to the French authorities for the most personal of reasons. In perfect honesty, old friend, I do not want ANYONE other than myself to be the person who ends Moriarty's vile career.

I did not think, John, that this case could become more personal. What he did to me was intended to be a vicious, mind destroying attack on all I, as Sherlock, held dear. Regardless of the fact that it may become the finest gift anyone has ever given me, Moriarty's intentions were vile in the extreme. How could anything be more personal than an attack intended to destroy the mind of a victim?

But he has made it more personal.

That child and Mother has touched me deeply, old friend, and in ways that no other crime ever has. I have seen death before - violent, malevolent and perverse death - and faced it with rational calm and quiet detachment. But there is nothing calm or detached about the way I react to the mere memory of that child and Mother, or to the recognition of her selfless but hopeless battle to save her child's life at the cost of her own.

I will likely never know their names, John, and I will likely never know their faces, but one thing I swear. Professor Moriarty will pay for their needless and needlessly painful deaths. By all that is holy and good, Professor Moriarty will pay - IN FULL MEASURE!

I swear it!

I pray that their torment of those needless, horrible deaths will be visited on that foul fiend every minute of every day of his eternal sojourn in the darkest pit of Hell.

He has made his first overt move, which means he has at last come out of hiding. So long as he remained hidden, remained perfectly covert, my chances of locating him were, at best, small. However, now he has broken cover and in doing so, he MUST have left a trail. He must feel relatively secure to have taken that step, likely thinking that without Sherlock Holmes to hound his every move, he would be safe in doing so. Well, now he will reckon with Sherla Holmes taking up the scent, and he has filled me with a fuller, far more burning determination to bring my quarry to ground than Sherlock could have known.

It will prove to be a fatal error on his part as I finally begin to understand the concept "deadlier than the male".

End Journal Entry.

~------------~

Setting the newspaper aside, Professor Moriarty was in a most jovial mood. The plan had worked to perfection, as well it should have since it was his conception. He had, of course, had plans go awry in the past, but then the fault had always lie in the execution of the plan and not in the plan itself. *As should be expected,* Moriarty thought, *with Holmes at last departed from this mortal veil.*

Still pleased with himself, Moriarty retrieved the paper and read aloud the casualty list, savoring each name, until he reached "Professor Eduard Buchner, Professor of Chemistry at University of Breslau. 1907 Nobel Chemistry Prize winner for his work on the organic chemistry processes involving fermentation and yeasts." That one he read twice before bursting into amused laughter.

He tossed the paper aside and walked over to the one way mirror that looked out upon his laboratory. The so-very-eminent, and thought-to-be-deceased Professor Eduard Buchner was engaged in a very intense discourse with Professor Fritz Haber that was punctuated by many gesticulations and hand-pointings.

"I shall need to arrange a suitable demonstration for the newest member of my little family," Moriarty mused. "Another chimpanzee, I think, at least at first. And then, if Herr Dr. Buchner proves to be the solution to my little problem, then I will no longer need the services of our good Professor Haber. Seeing Haber waste away into a ravenously insatiable female slut, his mind no longer capable of any thought save how to obtain her next sexual release, should prove most instructive and motivational for my remaining academic. The ancient Chinese often executed those who invaded the sanctity of the imperial bedchamber by having the villain sexually teased and tormented by the lesser concubines until he expired from a heart attack. Perhaps I shall do this with Dr. Haber once he is in withdrawal. How long will it take for someone to die of unrequited lust? That might be a useful thing to know when I rule Europe and wish to encourage my subjects in their efforts to serve and please me."

There would be a transitional period, Moriarty knew, while Haber briefed the new man on the ongoing work and results to date. Buchner had the reputation of quickly grasping principles of new research and of seeing ways of applying those principles to new problems. Moriarty hoped that he had seen principles that might now be of use in Moriarty's research; principles that could now solve the problem that so far stymied Haber - developing a rejuvenating drug that was free of both the addictive and the gender-changing side effects of the current potion.

Of course, there was that second project - the development of a weapon that would be useful against massed armies in the field, or as an instrument of terror against cities or countries that foolishly resisted Moriarty's rule. So, on second thought, perhaps there was sufficient reason to keep Haber around the lab and . . . unimpaired, at least for a while. It was a task for which this man who could have become infamous as the father of gas warfare was uniquely qualified.

Moriarty went back to his office and sat down to think. There had been two or three carefully calculated risks in the plan to kidnap Buchner. The most significant of those had been the issue of possible survivors who might have seen his henchmen making off with Buchner. That necessitated the death of the entire complement of passengers riding the train. Fire was a most effective tool for that end.

However, the locomotive would not burn. The engineer and brakeman were, fortunately, quite naturally and unexceptionally killed in the derailment - head injuries when they were thrown from the locomotive - but the passengers posed a problem. They had to die - all of them - no escapees could be permitted. The fire took solved most of that problem, while a handpicked group of sharpshooters took down anyone who might have escaped by other means.

Moriarty allowed himself a few pleasant moments to picture the scene as the fire took the train to Hell. He heard the terror filled screams, saw the faces pressed against the windows that were not designed to open. He tried to imagine the play of emotions across the face of any passenger who managed to force open one of the train car windows. Exultation as the window finally gave. Disbelief and then renewed horror at the moment they saw one of his rifleman take aim. Shock, then pain and finally the blank stare of death as a bullet ended their flight to safety. It was sad that the available moving picture technology was still so unwieldy and bulky. Moriarty would have enjoyed having a pictorial record of this epic triumph.

The train cars not only made excellent funeral pyres but also melted away the bullets from the remains of those who died before the hungry flames took them. "By my calculations, the temperature inside the coaches should have been sufficient to ignite the flesh of the passengers so that their own bodies would contribute to the flames. In the end, nothing would be left but a few charred bones, not terribly distinguishable from any wood that was not completely consumed, eliminating any chance of anyone identifying - or recognizing the anomaly of being unable to identify - Professor Buchner's remains."

The other risks, such as the means for starting the fires or derailing the train, were much less likely to cause question than the fire itself. Few men would have recognized the effects of the pyrotechnic bombs Moriarty had directed his subordinates to secret in the undercarriages of the various train cars, and no one save himself. . . well, no one LIVING save himself, would have noted any mercuric residue on the broken rails. Yes, he had gambled, but he had won! None of the newspapers had even the tiniest glimmer of a mention of possible sabotage of the train. The police might be more effective than they had been in his younger days, but Moriarty did not think they were so effective as to hide that type of news from all European newspapers.

The plan had worked. . . PERFECTLY.

The smile returned but for a moment before Moriarty steeled his face into a stern visage. It was time, he thought, to present the good Dr. Buchner with the facts of his new life. Then he'd have Haber arrange the demonstration for his new colleague.

Buoyed by his success, Moriarty strode to the door to meet with the two professors of chemistry.

 

 

 

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