Dr Watson's Wimbledon Wanton

I nodded and gripped my walking stick as if I already had need of it. Protheroe seemed intent on judging the distance ahead. He slackened off the brake wheel a little to let van and car drift a few yards further on, then reapplied the wheel quickly, as hard on as he could turn it in a sudden burst of energy. The two coupled vehicles came to a complete halt as the last of their momentum was absorbed into the brakes, and the end of a railway platform was directly abutting the rear platform of the guards van when it finally came to a stand.

"Neat work, Mr Protheroe."

"Thankee, Doctor. Now I'll walk forward to secure the car. In the meantime you can get off whenever you're ready."

"Excellent, excellent. And you'll be as prompt as possible with that wire. Mr Protheroe?"

"No need to worry about that, Doctor," he reassured me. "It'll get sent as soon as it can be."

Which I was sure was so. Mr Protheroe was a responsible man with a responsible job and could be trusted, of that I was certain. Now for my own task. As the guard set off down the train I descended on the other side, crouching as low as I could as I stepped off the van and into the shelter of the platform. Then I risked a quick look over the top of the platform at the passenger car. There was no sign of the people within it, no opened door nor window. It seemed likely that those inside preferred to remain discretely out of sight until the railway employees had left. So what was I to do? I examined the area that I now found myself in with a further series of cautious glances.

There was no building on the platform itself. In fact it was only a few steps wide, with the rusting remains of two cranes somewhat in the center and an access ramp in the very middle. Clearly, the procedure had been to bring two horses onto the platform to walk up and down it, thus drawing on the crane pulleys so they could lift barrels of gunpowder out of carts drawn up alongside the platform. The loaders would then rotate the cranes over the waiting railway cars, guide the horses backwards to sway the barrels down, and then repeat the process ad infinitum. There was a small bluestone building close to the unloading area, obviously once a clerk's office, though now long abandoned, with water stains in the rotting window frames. It seemed to be of no interest to me, or to anybody else.

This was a complete mystery to me. I had expected that the girls would have been picked up by a cab or a carriage to be conveyed to some private house, but there was no sign of such a thing. Perhaps it would appear as soon as the locomotive had departed. But where would it be hidden in the meantime? On the far side of the track was only an expanse of clinkers and rough ground between the rusting steel lines and the high wall which marked the limits of the old mill's grounds. Behind the weighman's office was a different story altogether though. There was a place which could have held a dozen carriages whilst keeping them completely out of sight.

The outer perimeter of this feature was marked by an inclined grassy slope about ten feet high which formed part of a circle of some hundred feet in radius, with one visible opening opposite the loading platform. Seen on the Sussex Downs a casual observer might well have taken it for one of the ancient barrows left by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. But in this setting, and in this place, it told a different story to an ex-army doctor. Those raised earthworks marked a temporary storage magazine for the barrels of gunpowder waiting shipment, designed to protect the area around it from any accidental explosion, with the top deliberately left unroofed so that no tiles or beams could be blown aloft to fall into the suburban streets in the event of a detonation. Yes, that was certainly what it was and if there was a conveyance hidden hereabouts, that was were it would likely be hidden.

I felt the blood quicken in my veins at the thought. Could a coach really be waiting within the old magazine? A glance at the entrance was enough to show that it was ungated and of sufficient width -- as it had to be, of course, to afford access to the mill wagons. So, yes, the transport the gang in the carriage were waiting for must indeed be hidden inside the magazine. I remembered Wiggins' words about how his girls had sometimes been able to leave clues as to where a hansom was bound for. Such an achievement was beyond me but if only I could get close enough to the vehicle I might be able to furnish an accurate enough description of it for Wiggins to locate it. After all, it was unlikely to be going far, and with a dozen hard pedaling cyclists available, once Wiggins and his party arrived, there must be a good chance of finding it again .

Well, a desperate chance perhaps, but this was a desperate affair. And if I could once get around the back of the magazine it should be easy enough to scramble up the sloping ramparts and peer over the edge of them, whilst secure in the knowledge that no one in the passenger car could see me. Which was all very well, but there was at least fifty yards of open space between the platform and the nearest part of the magazine wall where I would be hidden from sight of the carriage. How was I to cross that open space without being seen from the carriage windows?

A screech from behind almost caused me to jump up in surprise. For a second I thought I was back in Cawnpore with a male elephant in musk trampling down the regimental tents, broken tethering chains dragging in the dust behind it. In this case though it was another beast of burden making the noise, one made of iron and well under control. The locomotive had entered the siding behind us, giving a warning whistle blast as it approached the van. The fireman was riding at the very front, on the opposite side of the engine to me, his eyes fixed on the rear of the van and concentrating on judging the distance still to go as he gave hand signals to the driver. What immediately caught my attention was the reason that the fireman was on the opposite side -- it was because the wind was blowing from that side and the smoke from the locomotive's chimney was rolling along in reasonably thick clouds in more or less the direction I wished to go.

Here was a stroke of luck meant to be taken advantage of. As I braced my age stiffened knees for their best efforts the locomotive slowed down until the wheels were barely turning and then the fireman jumped nimbly to the ground, reaching in with a jemmy bar to position the coupling ring. As steel clanked upon steel his eyes lifted up a fraction to see my respectably dressed figure crouching down behind the platform. The whites of the eyes in the man's coal dust grimed face expanded with surprise in a way which might have been comical under other circumstances.

Alas though, if I am to remain completely truthful in this account, I must admit that I presented an equally bizarre spectacle for I could think of nothing better to do that to raise my fingers to my lips, as if adjuring the man to silence in some childish game of hide and seek. With the smoke now serving admirably to cover my movements I left the scene and trotted as quickly as possible past the clerk's office and on to the magazine. No doubt I left an animated conversation going on behind me between driver and fireman, and the prospect of an even more animated one when they began to speak to Mr Protheroe.

Certainly, though, had I had the time and opportunity, I would have been glad to provide generous gratuities to all the crew members for their efforts because the amount of smoke from such a small engine was quite impressive. A gently rolling cloud thick enough to make it unlikely that anybody in the passenger car could see me within it. Unfortunately, it was too thick for a few seconds too long, but not long enough.

The sequence of events seemed to conspire against me on all counts. In the first instance I clung too closely to the smoke to realise I was heading almost directly for the magazine entrance. Next, the smoke from the locomotive suddenly dwindled to almost nothing for some reason. Thirdly, and much worst, I saw that the doors on the passenger car had now opened and an en-masse disembarkation appeared to be occurring. In my suddenly exposed situation I realised that I must be spotted from the platform with seconds unless I could take cover, and the only place of concealment available was to scuttle through the magazine entrance into the sheltering walls. A matter of Scylla and Charybdis, for if Ardent Admirer and his coachman were indeed waiting inside the magazine, I would be rushing straight into their arms. But to stay out in the open would be equally disastrous.

So, I hobbled between the open gates at my best speed, struggling at the same moment to draw my pocket knife from my coat and open it. It was my intention, if I did find a waiting vehicle inside, to attempt to slash through the traces and to startle the horses into bolting. By such means I might hold up the attempted abduction of the girls until Wiggins and the rest of the rescue party hove into sight.

Imagine then, my astonishment at entering the confines of the walls and finding myself standing at one end of a tennis court laid out with neat white lines on the freshly mowed grass, a net stretched across the middle, and an umpire's high chair standing at one side. My utter astonishment indeed, for there was something else about the scene in front of me which made it as strange a sight as I have ever witnessed. Which is not a statement to be taken lightly from someone who has seen a street beggar turned into a respectable businessman with a wipe of a sponge, the living and the dead sharing the same coffin and a university professor swarming up the ivory covered walls of his own house with the facility of an ape. Yet it is true. For there were some twenty people standing and sitting in groups along the left hand side of the court, and none of them moved a muscle as I appeared. Not one head turned in my direction, not a figure stirred, not one man or woman. Each of the well dressed figures seemed to be in the grip of some drug which had frozen them as effectively as the wax models in Madame Tussauds.

A spasmodic clutch at my empty inner jacket pocket only reminded me once more of my stupidity in not bringing along the trusty Webley & Scott. All I had was my pocket knife and as fine a collection of shivers as had danced up and down my spine since I'd heard the howl of the Hound on the moors. However there was nothing for it but to step boldly forward and investigate, just as Holmes would have done had he been there. Although, I suppose, with his sharper insight, he would have instantly deduced what only became obvious to me when I was almost within arm's length of the nearest spectator: the reason they were all standing as still as dummies was because they were dummies. Exactly the kind of life-sized mannequins you can see in the windows of dressmakers and tailors, now removed from their usual display settings. So they could attend a tennis match?

I was at a complete loss to explain the situation. Then I noticed that behind the figures a canvas screen had been erected to a height of about eight feet along the entire length of the court. On the canvas was painted a view of yew trees and rolling parkland, and in the middle distance, a fine Georgian mansion with a round dome set atop the roof of one wing. It was exactly like the kind of backdrop painted on curtains at theatres to set a scene, which it did very well. An observer could stand on the other side of the court, on uncut rank grass and flowering weeds, with his back to the brick wall of the magazine, yet look across and easily imagine that he was by the side of a private tennis court set on some great country estate, watching a party of weekend guests waiting for a game which about to commence.

"My God!" I said aloud. "Maude!"

In an instant I realised what was intended by the evil mind which had lured the fairest maid of English tennis to this hidden place. Not only would she have to pose before his lecherous eyes, but in a way which would suggest that she had done so willingly before an audience at some weekend retreat of the social elite. Thus the blackmail effect of any photographs would be even more effective, and not only on Maude herself. What if that mansion and the scenery in the background had been drawn from real life? What damaging upheavals might not flow from the passing around of such photographs? God in heaven, could this be plot by a bunch of evil foreigners to unsettle the British nation by dragging the name of some noble and well connected family through the mire? If so, Maude and Wiggins and myself had completely failed to comprehend the magnitude of this case. No mere bagatelle of lustful villainy here, but a deep and dangerous plot drawn up by unscrupulous minds with great resources of money and base cunning. Even Moriaty, that Napoleon of crime, would never have stooped so low, nor conceived a plan of such unmitigated filthiness.

Before I could consider the situation any further I heard the sound of voices at the entrance to the magazine and I realised that I was within seconds of being discovered. There was nowhere I could run to, even if I'd been capable of running. Nowhere to hide either -- unless . . .

I stumbled towards the nearest tableau of motionless figures and joined it, in the middle, standing slightly back and between a lady wearing a feather trimmed hat and a gentleman attired in a sporting blazer of vivid stripes. I mean, of course, that I was standing beside two display figures who where wearing such clothing. Standing and trembling and yet trying to appear as motionless as the wax figurines ranged on either side of me. It was a desperate subterfuge, probably as equally hopeless as it was likely to be embarrassing when I was discovered. Yet what else could I do but try to remain undiscovered as part of that lifeless crowd until I found some way of rescuing Maude?

Imagine then my feelings at being in this position and hearing footsteps passing behind me. Several sets of feet and Maude's voice: "What are these people doing here? What's happening?

Another female voice answered, clear and yet defaced by a gutter Cockney accent: "They're only shop dummies, Miss Maude. There's some trickery going on here."

That must be either Angel or Chrissie, I realised. And then I remembered what Wiggins had said about how they were carrying concealed pistols on their persons. Surely one of them would soon get a chance to draw her firearm and put a swift stop to this vile business?

Somebody walked past me, almost brushing my clothing as he walked out onto the court. A man, a young man, wearing tennis clothes, a white shirt and flannels, and, incredibly, a papier mache party mask, moulded and painted to resemble the brutal features of a Japanese samurai warrior. Presumably the only possible reason for donning such a mask was to conceal the wearer's identity. This supposition was confirmed by another man who followed the first, also dressed in tennis whites and masked, this one crafted to resemble an African tribal chief.

The man in the Samurai mask was carrying a tripod, the African a large wooden box which he set down, opened and took out from within a modern and expensive camera. As the photographic apparatus was lifted out of its carrying box I clearly heard a feminine cry of alarm from nearby.

Hearing this, I gritted my teeth and waited for one of the girls to get the drop on the men, as I once heard a gentleman from Texas describe it. Yet instead of stillness caused by a threatening gun muzzle there was more bustle and action to my left.

Three more of the masked abductors appeared, carrying between them the umpire's chair, which they set down on the court near to the net. Again, each of the masks was a caricature, and each different. A Prussian officer, a pirate with an eye patch, a white faced clown. With the Samurai and the African erecting the camera, that made five of the young curs that I could see. How many more were there? And why were Wiggins' much vaunted female agents not drawing their weapons?

That was a question which was answered almost as soon as I saw the three girls walking out together onto the court. For following them were two more masked men. At the angle I first saw them it was impossible to make out the features painted on their masks. What I could see were the unsheathed swords each man had in his hand. Long thin blades, rapier blades, scarcely visible save for the sunlight glittering along their lengths, with the tips darting around behind the girls, sometimes jabbing into their linen dresses to elicit a cry of pain from the victim and a bound in the air like a startled deer. Clustered together, the captive females were driven forward by their tormentors as if they were nothing but cattle being herded into a market pen. Little wonder that neither Angel or Chrissie had attempted to draw their firearms under such circumstances, when the response would certainly be immediate and serious injury, if not worse.

Curse it, how was it possible for our plans to go so far awry?

Because, as I now realised, the plans had been made on faulty assumptions. Wiggins had thought there was but one man to deal with: a rich one, probably, and inflamed by lust, but merely one evildoer and a few servants. So three capable girls well prepared for the task could have been well expected to turn the tables on such a poltroon. If any of us could have foreseen the extent of this plot --well, certainly I wouldn't have found myself unarmed and standing like a dummy amongst other dummies, helpless to interfere in this monstrous plot. For even announcing my presence might be enough to startle one of the rapier wielding thugs into wounding Maude or one of the sisters. My God, the female tennis champion of England crippled by a sword thrust! It didn't bear thinking about.

Desperately I hoped that Wiggins would arrive soon, by some miracle which I knew in my heart to be impossible. But in the meantime the girls were standing close the umpire's chair, still huddled together like sheep surrounded by marauding wolves. Now I could see the visages on the masquerade masks worn by the guards with the drawn blades. The slanting eyes and the long moustaches of a Chinese Imperial Mandarin on one painted face, the warpaint of a Red Indian on the other. As the camera was set carefully upon its tripod the Prussian, the Pirate and the Clown moved forward with set purpose. Two of them seized the arms of one of the sisters, twisted them, forced her to step up against the side of the high chair: the other one, the Clown, produced two short lengths of cord from his pockets and used them to tie the girl's wrists at waist height to two of the chair legs. It was something she was unable to resist, not only with each of her arms being held but with a rapier point pricking her posterior as a further warning against any useless resistance.

Once the knots had been tied the other one of Wiggins' girls was treated in the same manner, so that the sisters were standing face to face and looking at each other through the framework of the chair, their heads below the level of the umpire's seat. Naturally, I wondered at the reason for these actions, although I was sure that they boded no good. Nor did I see any reason to change that opinion as Maude was secured to the rear of the chair in the same manner. The Samurai and the African moved the position of the camera a little, so it seemed to be pointed directly at one of the sisters, then the Samurai lifted up the black cloth at the back of the photographic device and placed his head underneath it.

Immediately, the Prussian put his hands on the blonde girl's waist in a thoroughly intimate and disgusting manner. One of his hands moved lower, against her very hip, then disappeared from sight. Astonished, I realised that the Prussian had either known or had quickly discovered that supposedly secret slit in the skirt which enabled the wearer to reach for the pistol hidden within.