Victorian Villainy by Michael Kurland Page B

a screw into the cork plugging the drum’s bunghole and attach it by a short line to the pier. That way as the steam launch left the pier, the cork would be pulled and the drum would begin leaking colored oil.
    As we were completing this last task we heard footsteps above us on the pier, and the voices of the pseudo Englanders as they began boarding the launch. They all spoke English, those who spoke, and their accents were slight. Yet of all the myriad of home-grown accents which pepper the British Isles, allowing one man to despise another who grew up twenty miles to his north, these were none.
    After about ten minutes the boarding was completed, the chugging of the steam engine grew louder and deeper, and the Isolde puled away from the pier. There was a slight but satisfying pop as the cork was pulled from the oil drum, and it began its journey bobbing out of sight behind the steam launch, spilling red oil as it went.
    “We’d better get out of the water,” said Holmes, “I’ m losing sensation in my hands and feet.”
    “Cold baths are much over-rated,” I agreed, shivering uncontrollably as I threw myself back into the rowboat. I held it steady for Holmes to climb aboard, and then we were both occupied for some time in toweling ourselves off and putting our garments back on.
    “Let’s get going,” Holmes said after a few minutes. “They’re getting further ahead by the moment, and besides the exercise of rowing will warm us up.”
    I took up one pair of oars, and Holmes the other, and we maneuvered our small craft out onto the lake. The sun was overhead, and a slight but clearly visible red stain was slowly widening as it led off in the direction of the departing steam launch, which was already distant enough for its image to be covered by my thumb with my arm extended.
    We rowed energetically after the Isolde , cutting easily through the gentle swells left by her wake. If she was barely visible to us, surely our small craft was no more than a speck to any of her company who should chance to be peering back toward shore. Soon she was out of sight entirely, and we followed by keeping in sight the slight red smear visible under the bright sun.
    It was perhaps half an hour later when the tenuous watery red trail brought us in sight of the steam launch. She was headed back toward us, pulling away from a large black barge which had a curious superstructure, and seemed to have been outfitted with some sort of engine at the rear. At any rate, the barge was moving slowly under its own power even as the Isolde pulled away. The deck of the Isolde was crowded with men and, as it seemed probable that there were even more men inside the cabin, it looked as though the crew of the black barge were going home for the night.
    We altered our course slightly to make it appear that we were headed for the opposite shore, and tried to look like two middle aged gentlemen who were passionate about rowing, perhaps recapturing their youth. As the Isolde approached us we waved in a friendly but disinterested manner, and two of the men on deck replied with similar salutations. Who, I wondered, was fooling whom? I hoped it was us, them, or our story might have quite a different ending than we had intended.
    “What now?” Holmes asked me, when it was clear that the steam launch was not going to turn around and investigate us more closely.
    “The black barge,” I said.
    “Of course,” Holmes told me. “I repeat, what now?”
    “As it’s still under power, although making slight headway, there are still men aboard,” I said. “So just pulling alongside and clambering on deck is probably not a wise option.”
    Holmes lifted his oars out of the water and turned to glare at me. “Astute observation,” he said. “I repeat, what now?”
    “We could swim over to it underwater if the water wasn’t so cold; if we could swim that far under water. We could come alongside and flail about, claiming to be in distress, and see whether