Moriarty

‘Now!’ Jones shouted and the two of us rose up from our chairs together, even as the six remaining hoodlums stared in wonderment at what had occurred. With remarkable speed — I would never have expected him to be so vigorous — Jones lashed out with the stick and although it was now useless as a firearm, it struck the man nearest to him in the face, sending him reeling back with blood spouting from his nose. For my part, I seized hold of the rope which would have been used to bind me and pulled it towards me, then swung my elbow into the throat of my assailant who, losing his balance, was unable to defend himself and fell, gurgling, to his knees.

For just one brief instant, I thought that we had succeeded and that against all the odds we were going to make good our escape. But I had allowed my imagination and the sudden reversal of fortune to get the better of me. There were still four thugs who had not been harmed and two of them had produced revolvers. The man whose face Jones had struck was also armed and I could see that he was in no mood for reasoned debate. They had formed a semi-circle around us and were about to fire. We could not reach them. There was nothing to prevent them gunning us down.

And then the lights went out.

The gas lamps, long lines of them stretching in every direction, simply flickered and died as if extinguished by a sudden rush of air. One moment we were trapped, about to die. The next we were plunged into a darkness that was all-encompassing, absolute. I think there might have been a part of me that wondered if I had not indeed been killed, for surely death would not be so very different from this. But I was alive and breathing and my heart was most certainly pounding. At the same time, I was utterly disconnected from everything around me, unable to see even my own hands.

‘Chase!’

I heard Jones call out my name and felt his hand on my sleeve, pulling me down. The truth is that by doing so he saved my life. Even as I dropped to the ground, Mortlake’s gang opened fire. I saw the blaze of the muzzles and felt the bullets as they fanned out over my head and shoulders, smashing into the wall behind me. Had I remained standing, I would have been torn apart. As it was, I was fortunate to avoid any ricochets.

‘This way!’ Jones whispered. He was crouching beside me and, still holding onto my arm, he pulled me with him, away from the men, away from the torture implements spread over the tables, further into the great nothingness that our world had become. There was a second blast of guns but this time I felt that the bullets came less close and I knew that with every inch that we shuffled away, the chances of our being hit were diminishing. My hand felt something. It was the wall of the passageway that had been behind us when Devereux was making his speech and through which we had first entered. Following Jones’s lead I stood up, pressing my hands against the brickwork. I was still blind. But if I stayed close to the wall, it would surely lead me out.

Or so I thought. Before we could take another step, a yellow light glimmered, spreading over the floor and illuminating the whole area around us. With a sense of dread, I turned and saw Mortlake spread out on the ground and, next to him, the man with the beard and the broken nose who had first addressed us at the cemetery. He was holding up an oil lamp that he had somehow managed to light. Despite all our efforts, we had moved only a short distance from the group. Not far enough. Once again, we were in plain sight.

‘There they are!’ he shouted. ‘Kill them!’

I saw the guns turned on me once more and with a sense of resignation, I waited for the end. But we were not the ones who died.

Something invisible punched the man in the head. The side of his skull exploded and a spurt of red liquid burst out over his shoulder. As he tumbled sideways, still clutching the oil lamp, distorted shadows fell over the other five men. They had not yet had a chance to shoot and by the time their companion crashed to the floor, it was too late. The light had gone out again. He had been shot — but by whom? And why? We could not answer these questions now. In the dark or in the light, we were still in mortal danger and would be until we reached the surface and the safety of the street.

Taking advantage of the confusion behind us — our assailants were still not certain what had occurred — we broke into a stumbling run. I was aware of two contradictory impulses warring in my mind. I wanted to be away as quickly as I could but, being quite blind in the pitch dark, I was also afraid of crashing into some obstacle. I could hear Jones somewhere beside me but I was no longer sure if he was near or far. Was it my imagination or was the ground rising slightly beneath my feet? That was the crucial test. The higher we climbed, the more likely we were to reach street level where we might be safe.