Watson strode over to the corpse and gave it a swift kick to the groin. He then pulled out the air gun that killed his wife from his left hand pocket and put a second, though smaller, hole in the perforated skull of the Professor. It wasn’t necessary, but highly satisfactory I could see. “Just a minute, Watson!” I interjected. My shot did not have appear to have raised alarm from anyone down the hall. Maybe being so close to the foundry and rail yards had caused inattention to single sudden loud noises. I went to the corpse and searched his pockets. I tossed a wallet to Watson to go through as I recovered a notebook. I later confirmed what I had found out about his agents, but it also revealed several unknown agents and exposed other secreted schemes which were currently progressing or soon to commence. Watson handed me the wallet, indicating with a wag of his head that it had nothing of significance. I pulled out sufficient monies from the wallet to replace the cost of the coat I had ruined when I shot through the pocket, and tucked it back into the pocket of the corpse from where it had been retrieved. “I won’t charge you for the execution bullet,” I growled at the bleeding corpse, “ that’s my treat.” “Holmes, I hear someone coming, ” Watson warned. A rather large man knocked on the door, quietly called Herr Catseby and peered around. Watson had screwed on the large silencer onto his gun, while I had been gathering all the plans I could about the project. I had stuffed two large wastebaskets with the plans on the table. The safe was open because the expired Professor had been working on the plans. I grabbed as much as I could and stuffed them next to the others. Because of the bulkiness of a gun with silencer attached, we had kept them off as we entered the premise. We also had not brandished the guns while in the hallway in case someone saw us walk the hall. He quickly shot the bodyguard several times in the chest while the bodyguard was reaching for his gun, which he went for as soon as he had seen the Professor lying in his own blood. He fell forward at Watson’s feet. Watson rapidly pulled the body fully into the room. Looked down the hallway and seeing nothing that indicated the incident had been observed, he closed the door. I nodded to him to remain there as I poured the flammable mixture all over the plans. I lit the papers, which instantly flared and billowed smoke. We left the briefcase and exited the room, closing the door behind us. We met no one on the stairway as we descended. On the bottom floor, we hurried past Hans and his partner who were still engaging the receptionist in contradictory and confusing questions. They broke off their distraction and followed us out. We heard someone upstairs start a cry over a fire. Outside as we jumped into our carriage, we saw smoke billowing out the rear office windows. We headed out the back way, into the rail yards and through the open gates while a train was backing cars in to be loaded. The office building we had apparently set on fire was too far behind us to observe how it was being evacuated and dealt with. We didn’t return to our hotel, but Hans drove us all night to a rail station several towns west of Essen. He personally accompanied us onto the train after dismissing his partner. The travel by train was uneventful and we had no problems at the border with false Swiss passports and miscellaneous papers Hans had given us. We leisurely headed on while he returned to what ever he had to do. We made our way to the Zurich hotel, Swissotel Zurich, where we had sent our things previously, to await our arrival. The check-in was without incident and we were shown to our suites. We were once again able to don our own clothes from our interrupted supposed holiday tour. I made a special trip to a men’s clothing store and purchased a leather smoking jacket with the Professor’s money. Many a night I would enjoy its luxurious softness and appreciate the late Professor’s ‘generosity’, a superb trophy of a most satisfactory hunt. We began a much-needed recuperation for two men who were feeling their age and an anxious wait for news of Jack’s mission. My shoulder was healing slowly but completely. We were compensated in our latest wait with a much more luxurious surroundings than our two previous stays, the spas and excellent dining room made the wait a pleasant experience. There was nothing we could do to aid Jack, so we just waited with anticipation. The glorious mountains that we viewed out our windows were soothing to our disturbed souls. I was going through the late Professor’s notebook and pointed out to Watson that the Professor was going to increase the size of the uranium pellets from the meteor in his forth-coming experiment. Siberian Fireball
June 30, 1908 Witnesses in the Russian town of Kirensk and nearby towns at the same distance saw an explosion like a pillar of fire, and that then turned into a cloud of smoke rising from the ground. A huge cloud of black smoke grew considerably fast, and a rain of ash fell from the horizon.