31. THE CASE OF THE TYNDALE BIBLE

A different style for this story, not in the hand of Dr Watson but...

The bar of “The Languid Goose” was heaving with customers all determined to enjoy a last half hour or however long it would take for the landlord to decide enough was enough and it was time for him to put his head on his pillow and recharge his inner cells. There was the same old mixture of jollity and determined opinion, sometimes loud and insistent and often political, other time quiet and threatening, that can be heard in any public house or Inn when good ale has been taken and the evening is getting late.

And nobody was taking any notice of the tinker in his alcove, greasy hair limp across his forehead together with a look that spoke of weariness and the unwashed. To all intents and purposes he was as languid as the public house claimed to be, paying, it seemed, no attention to man nor beast, sipping from a jar that he’d had before him for above an hour without it being refilled. Yet his eyes were always on one man no matter where they seemed to be looking. Even in his apparent lethargy he had a quarry.

Maybe, some thought, he was there for the warmth of the blazing log fire. Maybe this was his life, lurking in warmth wherever he could find it, escaping for as long as maybe from the icicles that hung like crystals from the eves outside the door.

But not everything is what it seems, and the tinker certainly was not.

On the stroke of eleven from the fine grandfather clock in the corner he stood up and stretched and quaffed what remained in his jar before sloping off towards the door, yet not so far behind his quarry.

“Good riddance,” muttered at least one of the regulars. Strangers were rarely welcomed, and if they were it wasn’t rascals like this one. And nobody noticed the third figure as he took his time following the itinerant, a different man from a different world it seemed. A medical man or a professor, maybe, someone along those lines.

Once outside the Inn the languid tinker disappeared into the gloom. The night had long drawn in and the few lights showing where men might be soon faded into that gloom until the world was a monotone of dismal grey. The odd flurry of snow whistled around like fairy creatures, the flakes black in the gloom, the road underfoot like Stygian slush.

“Watson!” hissed the tinker, and the second figure detached himself from the solid night.

“I can’t say this is as agreeable as a pint near a blazing fire, Holmes,” he said.

“Hush, Watson!” That wasn’t the boozy drawl of an itinerant ne’er do well but the crisp tones of one who knows who he is and what he’s about. “It will be just down here,” he added, turning aside into a lane that few strangers would have noticed on a night such as that.

“Tell me again why we’re putting ourselves into the freezing cold of a December night when all good Christian souls are in their beds,” asked the man called Watson.

“It’s not good Christian souls we’re after, but a refugee from the criminal underworld who is intent on larceny at the very least, and possibly murder,” replied Holmes. “Come on, Watson, you know the game. I trust you have your revolver handy? It may come in handy before this night is over.”

“As ready as it ever was,” replied Watson. “Look: who’s that?”

He pointed, and the erstwhile tinker hissed back, “I’ve been watching him ever since we turned down here,” he said. “The man’s up to no good I’ll be bound, but he’s not our man. You know, Watson, it’s on nights like this when the world’s wrapped up in a freezing blanket of wretched night that all sorts of wrongs get done. But we must stick to our guns! We must not let a petty criminal distract us from the real game. Ah...”

Watson drew close to Holmes and stared at where he was pointing. A shadow on a shadow, almost nothing, almost a mere smudge on the night if it was anything at all, drifted past them, out of sight and out of reach.

“That’s out man!” hissed Holmes, “stay by me!”

Watson drew ever closer to his itinerant friend, and the two adopted a silence that even a languid goose would have been proud of. Behind them there were odd calls and bursts of fading laughter of the pub slowly emptied its merry revellers and quarrelling political commentators into the night.

Meanwhile, Holmes and Watson became a silent tail behind the shadow of a man, and that shadow quite clearly had no knowledge of their presence. He moved along like a ghost, yet careless that he might be seen, confident that the blanket of night would hide him even from the keenest eyes.

The broad lane they were on led towards the church, a medieval affair that had stood as bastion against evil since the fourteenth century, and it was inside that church that the shadow knew he’d find his goal. For since the dim past a sacred copy of a manuscript purporting to be the earliest copy anywhere on planet Earth of the Tyndale original translation of the Bible in the English tongue might be found. And it was immeasurably valuable, or would be if it found its way onto the black market and into criminal hands.

And it was Holmes’ task to protect it from one man in particular.

“Bear with, Watson,” hissed Holmes.

The two in subtle pursuit of the one passed the lychgate. Just ahead of them the pursued paused, the shadow once again becoming indistinguishable from the rest of the wretched night.

“We must catch him in the actual act,” breathed Holmes, “we need this to be a certain victory. And on no account discharge your weapon inside the church. The building is too precious to have steel ricocheting around its ancient walls!”

“Agreed,” whispered Watson.

Then the figure in front of them made its move. It took several quick strides towards the main door of the church and pushed its way in. The oak door squealed its protest as it was forced open, and a dim light of several burning candles illuminated the figure that Holmes and Watson was pursuing.

Slowly he crept towards the front of the church until he stood before a lectern on which was chained the precious document. Holmes watched him as he removed a wire-cutter from his pocket and clamped it on the chain. The theft was under way. It must be stopped.

“So we meet again, Moriarty,” said Holmes, announcing his presence whilst still invisibly embraced by the night.

The figure swung round. In the dim light they could see the anger that twisted his face into a demonic visage, one that merged surprise, shock and hatred.

“Sherlock Holmes!” he mouthed.

“That little dainty is not for you,” said Holmes, “that book has been here since before the Tudors ruled, and it is going to stay where it is! And, Moriarty, I must warn you: my friend and colleague has his revolver pointed straight at you...”

As if to support the great detective Watson released the safety catch with an audible click, and Moriarty seemed to slump in resignation.

“And just behind us is the best that Scotland Yard can produce,” added Holmes. “Lestrade, this is your man and unless you have him by the collar quickly I fear he will find some way of escaping.”

But, for once, Holmes was too slow.

How it happened no man could tell, least of all Sherlock Holmes, but in a single heartbeat Professor Moriarty changed from being a thief in the night into a space where that thief had stood, and, without the least movement to mark his passing, was gone.

And with him went the supposed sacred Tyndale Bible, with just a dangling piece of severed chain to show it had ever been there.

“Just as well we substituted it, Holmes,” murmured Watson. “And where are the police when you want them?”

“They were supposed to be here,” replied Holmes, “Lestrade was keen. But the thing I don’t understand is … how did he do it? How did he get away?”

“But that’s Moriarty,” muttered Watson, “and this isn’t an adventure that I’m likely to write up. We’ll leave that to the criminal if he’s got the time!”

Which is or is not what happened.

© Peter Rogerson 21.08.17