The Diamond Heist

IV

(Dr Watson's POV)

"Get into the car!" Holmes shouted. "They are going to sell the Crown to the Mafia! That's the only way they'll get out of England!"

Stansfield's task was to track down the car with the car plate number CY57ALY.

"But how can we track them? There isn't any tracker!" I said.

"Oh yes, there is," Holmes replied. "You see, the car was a sedan limo, and as per the law, all buses, coaches and limousine must have a black box installed in their vehicle. So there must be one since the car was bought in the UK."

Our driver came out of his house, grumbling under his breath. He seemed to be saying something about awakening people in the middle of the night. Well, he's right for we are waking him up at midnight. Holmes said he would pay him well for overtime, and to that proposal, he reluctantly agreed.

"Where are we headed to?" asked the driver, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Well, we need to drive towards Canterbury, for now. I'll let you know if there's a change in our destination."

The driver went back in to get dressed and came out grumbling about fickle-minded folks.

We sped off in our car, using shortcuts and avoiding traffic as much as possible. Since the lockdown, the streets are pretty empty, even at midnight. For the first time, London seems to be asleep. While Stansfield tried to hack through the black box and track them, Holmes and I tried to decipher the coded message the drone had found in the dressing table's drawer.

It read:

[IIII] _ T P _ @ _5 r P_f r |/\| C| _ @ _ 3 |\/| _ T 3 3 |\/|
3 |/| 0 r |-| T _ ¥ |-| T _ 3 G |/| 3 \/ /\ : C| |/\| P
¥ 3 r G _ 3 C| 0 ₡

"A lucky thing that it transfers information to our computer, or that would have been lost forever," I said.

"Yes, the telemetry logs are very useful. I have used a powerful firewall so that none of that information can be hacked from our laptop - the GCS (ground control station)," said Stansfield, from the passenger seat.

"They can't do anything about the information we got then. Nor can they do anything about the drone's black box. All thanks to you, Stansfield," Holmes said.

"Not a problem, sir. Besides, how are we going to crack the code?" said Stansfield.

"I think a mirror might do the trick," said Holmes. "There aren't any mirrors, my dear outdated friend," I said. "Flip the picture using that option."

He flipped the image and started decoding the message.

He wrote out his decoded message in his notebook. It read:

MEET US AT DWRF PRS PT [IIII]
PWD: AVENGE THY THRONE
CODE GREY

"Do you understand what it says?" I asked, a bit confused about the meeting location.

"Well, dwrf is Scottish for Dover. And 'PRS' means 'Priory Railway Station'," said Holmes. "But something is not right."

"Does the last two words on that line mean 'Platform 4'?" I asked, surprised. "But, there isn't a platform four at Dover Priory!"

"Exactly," he replied to my exclamation. "There's something that's missing. Or maybe, there is one which is not unknown," said Holmes, brightening up.

"They are not running away this time," he said with a smirk.

"To Dover Priory, sir," he said to the driver.

As always, I was puzzled at what he was thinking. But I knew we would get to know sooner or later. Stansfield had managed to track them, but it kept glitching since the culprits had placed a firewall, but not as strong as ours.

The driver checked the GPS to see the amount of time it would take.

"Two hours from home to Dover, sir," he said.

"On second thoughts, drop us off at St Pancras. Stansfield, buy three tickets to Dover Priory," said Holmes, calculating all the moves.

"When shall we reach there, you think?" asked Stansfield.

"In about five minutes," the driver replied.

Luckily, he got a train right before the ticket counters closed down. We were just in time for our train. We picked up our things from our car and rushed towards it. In a few minutes, we were seated after doing a careful check for anything we have missed out.

"They have probably moved out of the Pilgrims hotel right now. They needed much time to make sure they didn't leave any traces," said Holmes.

"But we are still behind by half an hour," I said, disappointed.

"No, it'll be forty minutes. They will take the lesser-used route to get there. They wouldn't want to catch the traffic on the main road as there was a major accident a while ago," he said, looking into his phone.

I excused myself to the restroom. I felt very burdened with all my thoughts running around. When I came out, I saw both of them smirking.

"What's going on?" I asked, feeling like an outcast again.

"Nothing much," Holmes replied, changing his face back to his normal, pensive one.

I could hear the teasing laugh in his voice. I was annoyed so I just ignored them.

Within an hour, we had arrived at Dover Priory. Holmes calculations were pretty accurate because just when we got out of the station, we saw the sedan limo arrive. We quickly went back in. Holmes gave us the disguises he had packed. Within a minute, we were standing near the entrance of the station again.

"Well, Stansfield, this might be farewell. You know what you have got to do," said Holmes.

"Yes, sir. It has been wonderful to work with the greatest and most honourable detective of all time. I shall always remember this moment," he said, rather sadly.

Since I felt suspicious, I whispered to Holmes, "Is it alright to trust him? You never really trust anyone so easily."

"I just told him that a very valuable treasure of diamonds of your wife had been stolen. Told him some details of how it happened. He was willing to help. I have checked through his history thoroughly, and he isn't the type to snitch," Holmes reassured me.

I nodded, still dubious about the whole idea.

Holmes and I started our way to a dark alley behind platform three. We ended up in an area of abandoned old trains and a repair workshop nearby.

"This is what they call platform four. Once a train comes here, it never leaves this place," Holmes said.

Now everything around seemed to be sinister.

We were nearing a dimly lit turn when we heard murmurs. Sometimes it sounds like soft engine sounds and sometimes it was like people's voices. Suddenly, I found myself being blindfolded. I tried to scream, but I found a duct tape over my mouth. The two people, I assumed, dragged me to the dimly lit turn.

When they removed my blindfold, I saw Holmes right beside me, trying to resist them. When they opened his blindfold, I saw his angry face giving a murderous expression.

Someone removed the tape from my mouth. Someone familiar. He went and stood with the gang in front of us. In the dim light, I made out his face. And then it hit me.

Standing among them with a hideous smirk on his face in the dimly lit alley was the last person I thought would be my enemy. But there he was.

Anthony Stansfield.