Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective by Donald Thomas

forget his own name.”
    “He is Elivas Ruhtra?”
    “Arthur Savile is Elivas Ruhtra spelt backwards. Even his uncertain mental grasp could hardly let that slip from his memory. The Archdeacon, with whom he had no connection, beyond choosing him from the octogenarians in Crockford’s Clerical Directory, gave him a second opportunity of homicide without motive or association. The evidence of the clock, such as it was, would be destroyed in the explosion, along with the Archdeacon. His predicted murder would be committed, the dreadful prophecy would be realised. Lord Arthur would be a free man.”
    I pointed at the window.
    “And Septimus Podgers? What part had he in all this?”
    “Blackmail. Podgers had kept him in view. He had only to tell the world, perhaps in the shape of Scotland Yard, that Lord Arthur believed himself doomed to murder. His acquisition of aconite or gunpowder would be easily traced. The deaths of Lady Clementine or the Archdeacon would take on a very different appearance. The cheque for a hundred guineas, whose impress Lord Blagdon read on his lordship’s blotter, was the final piece of evidence which convinced me. It is absurdly high for a palmist’s consultation but scarcely excessive when the object is to conceal murder.”
    “That is your proof?”
    “Not quite. I believe the rest will follow very shortly.”
    As he spoke I saw another figure, moving towards Podgers through the doorway which opened from the library staircase to the terrace. There was lamplight enough to make out the youthful aristocratic stoop of Lord Arthur Savile. If Holmes was right, this was a private rendezvous between a blackmailer and his victim. It was a place where no one else was likely to be found at this time of night, as members hurried homewards.
    I prepared myself for a confrontation between the two, a loud argument perhaps, ending in the submission of Lord Arthur, the exchange of a further cheque or bank notes. However slippery and odious, Podgers had the whip-hand over the young man. Lord Arthur came on, stooping, his hands clasped under the tails of his evening coat.
    He came closer and for some reason Podgers uttered a cry that was no louder than a distant bird-call by the time that it reached the height of our window. The cheiromantist was making sudden motions with his hands, as if he were trying to push his adversary away. But he was trapped in a corner of the stone wall which rose to the height of his waist. Lord Arthur moved his hand quickly and I swore that the lamplight caught the blade of a knife. I looked at Holmes but he made no movement.
    Septimus Podgers did what any man might have done in the circumstances. He put his hands on the wall, jumped up backwards and was soon sitting on it, his feet flailing at the man who stood before him, as if to ward him off. I cannot say whether Lord Arthur welcomed this or, indeed, whether he had engineered it. In another second he had dropped the knife, if that was what it was. He snatched Septimus Podgers by the ankles, tipped him back and let him go. There was a second cry, softer than the first and, I could swear, the bump of a body against stone, followed by a splash.
    Lord Arthur stood at the wall, watching the river tide. There was little that he could have done, even had he wished to. The terrace of Parliament drops sheer and implacable to the Thames, the ebb running fast downstream. The tugboat and its barges were in midstream, the currents flowing powerfully toward them from both the Westminster and Lambeth banks of the great waterway. I could not see whether Podgers was alive or dead, nor even where he was. He had disappeared from the eyes of mortals. I thought I could make out a black silk hat floating directly in front of the powerful tugboat as it threshed downstream.
    Holmes made no movement and said only, “Even if Lord Arthur were to raise the alarm, the miscreant is beyond all hope. It is far too dark and the tide is running far too fast for