Holmes smiled. "I am not altogether incompetent," he said.
"Those sailors Trepoff sent for were submariners," Moriarty told Barnett. "From where could he acquire a submarine?"
"Not from the Royal Navy," Barnett said, remembering Lieutenant Sefton's story. "They don't use them."
"There is one," Holmes said, "at the Thornycroft yards at Chiswick. It was dredged from the bottom of the Thames after sinking three times in three trials. Not submerging, you understand, sinking. It is not in working order."
"Holmes!" Moriarty said. "You never cease to amaze me. I had no idea you were interested in submersibles."
"I'm not in the least," Holmes said. "My brother, Mycroft, however, is a fount of such information. Among other things, he does some work for the Admiralty. Only last week — no, two weeks ago— he was after me to take on a case involving the theft of some Whitehead torpedoes."
"Ha!" Moriarty said, taking his pince-nez glasses off and polishing them with a small rag. "A case which you were unable to take up because of your involvement with the abduction."
"That's correct," Holmes said.
Moriarty fixed Barnett with his gaze. "If I remember correctly," he said, "you told me that one of the features of the Garrett-Harris submersible was its ability to release Whitehead torpedoes while submerged."
"That's right," Barnett said. "But it blew up. Do you think there's another one?"
Moriarty waved a hand at Holmes. "There's your misdirection," he said. "They didn't want you investigating the theft of those torpedoes."
"An intuitive leap," Holmes sniffed.
"Not at all," Moriarty said. "Barnett, your knowledge of coming events must be copious. What event is coming up in the next week or so involving the sea? Something major."
"The sea?"
"Correct. The launching of a new battleship, perhaps. I don't suppose the Tsar is coming for a state visit by ship? Something of that sort?"
"Nothing," Barnett said. "Of course, I might have missed something. I can go to the office and check the file."
"Nothing nautical?" Moriarty said.
"Not on the scale of battleships," Barnett said. "There's the regatta tomorrow, but they're small private yachts."
"What regatta?" Holmes demanded.
"The Queen's something," Barnett said. "I don't remember. Wait a minute and I'll get the evening paper. I'm sure the St. James Gazette is covering the story in full." He left the room and was back in less than a minute, riffling through a newspaper.
"Yes, here it is," he said. He creased the paper back. "The annual regatta for the Queen's Cup is to be sailed Saturday, August first — that's tomorrow — between ships of the Royal Yacht Squadron and ships of the Royal West of England Yacht Club. Her Majesty will give the cups out herself. There are actually several cups, apparently. Let's see; there will be one winner in each class, and a special cup for the club with the highest point average."
"Fascinating," Holmes said. "Go on," Moriarty said.
"I don't know what else you want," Barnett said. "The Prince of Wales is the Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and H.R.H. the Duke of Wessex is Commodore of the R.W. of E. Yacht Club. The course, something over fifty miles, is laid in the Solent. It begins at Cowes, goes eastward to the Nab lightship and around, back past Cowes to Lymington, and then back past Cowes again to Portsmouth, finish line lying between the block house and the Victoria and Albert, the Queen's own yacht, from which she will be watching the affair."
"That's it!" Moriarty said.
"Could be," Holmes admitted.
"What?" Barnett asked, folding the paper.
"The Garrett-Harris submersible," Moriarty told him, "was not destroyed. I should have realized it weeks ago. It is a fatal error to make assumptions based upon facts not in evidence."
"But I saw it blow up!" Barnett said.
"Did you?" Moriarty asked. "What exactly did you see?"
"Well," Barnett thought back, trying to recapture the moment in his memory. "It was going through the water, just submerged, leaving a phosphorescent wake, the slight 'V' of foam from the periscope imposed over that. Then it sighted its prey — a sloop — and began stalking it. The submersible sank beneath the sea until it was totally invisible and moved forward to line itself up for the torpedo launch. As it launched the torpedo, it exploded. A great geyser erupted from the sea, drenching the ship I was on, and the two broken halves of the submersible appeared briefly on the surface before going to their final resting-place in the mud below. It seemed to me that I saw the body of a man in one of the sections. At any rate, neither of the operators was ever found."
"A wonderfully concise description. And it shows that you saw nothing."
"I saw the whole thing!" Barnett protested.
Holmes clapped his hands together. "It has always fascinated me," he said, "how people will swear to have seen something when an analysis of their own description clearly shows that they didn't and couldn't have."
"It's the principle of most sleight-of-hand," Moriarty said.
"What didn't I see?" Barnett demanded.
"You didn't see anything," Moriarty told him, "from the time the submersible disappeared under the sea."
"If you mean I didn't have the craft directly in my sight the whole time," Barnett said, "then you're right; I didn't. But the inference of the following events is certainly valid."
"Is it?" Holmes asked, chuckling.
"I offer you this scenario, Mr. Barnett," Moriarty said, speaking clearly and distinctly as one explaining the obvious to a child. "Let us suppose that Trepoff, for whatever reason, wanted a submersible."
"Okay," Barnett said. "Let's."
"So, hearing that the Turks are testing one, he went to Constantinople. It would be a coup to get one from Russia's traditional enemy, the Ottoman Empire. He went to where the submersible was docked and managed to get access to it."
"How?" Barnett demanded.
"Three or four methods occur: forged papers, bribed guards, stealth, or some combination thereof. We may never know which method he adopted. Once there, he determined that he would need some time to effect the removal of the craft. I assume it had to be hoisted aboard some freighter, disguised as a large piece of machinery.
"What better way to gain time than to make it appear that the craft has been destroyed? Trepoff quickly acquired a large metal structure of the approximate size — I suggest a large boiler of some description. He towed it to the appropriate spot the night before and sank it, along with a powerful bomb. Trepoff is good at bombs. Possibly he planted a body on the boiler."
"What about the two Americans who ran the ship?" Barnett asked.
"One of them was undoubtedly the body that you saw. The other was kept alive. Somebody had to run the craft. That he was subsequently killed is shown by Trepoff's need for the four submersible-trained sailors."
"Possible," Barnett said.
"And then they took it out and ran it for the sea trials that you saw. Up to the point where the craft submerged. At that moment it turned away from the show and headed back toward the freighter, which was to pick it up and take it to England. The explosion a minute later blew the boiler and the murdered American submariner to the surface for one brief appearance, which was enough to convince the onlookers that it was the submersible."
"And Trepoff," Holmes said thoughtfully, "returned to England with the Garrett-Harris submersible, which is capable of releasing Whitehead torpedoes while submerged."
"That is my theory," Moriarty said.
"And a pair of Whitehead torpedoes was stolen from the naval establishment at Devonport a fortnight ago. Each of them, according to Mycroft, possessed of several hundred pounds of the latest explosive."