WELCOME BACK, READER. TO THOSE WHO HAVE FOLLOWED my adventures so far, you must feel you know me well by now. I hope you may think of me as a friend. That is how I think of you.
Or no…
Let me say: perhaps I do.
If you are one of the human survivors of the apocalypse (which, as I write this, is probably no more than a week away), then yes, I think of you as a friend. More than that. You are the spark of a light I thought might be extinguished, and I would do anything to help you, if I could.
But, it is also possible you are a demon. You’ve picked this book up out of the wreckage and you’re wondering what all the squiggly little markings on the papers are, as you idly pull the pages out one by one and eat them, in order to while away the time before your return to your job at the Murder Mines of Blaglon-Dral (formerly known as Oregon). If such is the case, allow me to express my fervent desire that you gag on the paper.
Right now. This page. Choke on it, you bastard!
And yet, let us assume the best (probably a foolish assumption post-demon-apocalypse, now that I think on it). We shall presume you are human and wish to hear my story.
So… where to begin?
Ah! Bayswater Road! That is where my life began anew in a flurry of reinvention which I had no hope of stopping. I was in love with my new wife, Mary, you see. I didn’t want to be; she was perfectly awful. She bore much the same opinion of me, I am sure. But what could we do about it? Warlock Holmes had bound our souls together, and so we found ourselves stuck. There was no rest for either of us—no contentment or repose—unless we were in the other’s company. No matter how tired I became, I could not sleep without her in my arms. Being with Mary was like scratching an itch. You don’t like the itch. You wish it would go away. But it does not. It stings and burns and vexes you. So, you scratch at it. And instantly, there is this sense of satisfaction and well-being. Comfort. It feels so good to scratch the damned thing. But then, the moment you stop, the itch returns.
Even the pleasures of the flesh—which had been strange to me until that point and which, if I am honest, I had always wanted to try—were tinged with preternatural need. It was as if Mary and I had only one soul now, and it was painful to that soul to live in two bodies. For us, the act of love was tinged with desperation. The ancient Greeks speak of couples as separate parts of one creature, smote in twain, whose severed halves are trying to physically push themselves back together into one flesh. It’s a somewhat romantic notion, until you actually feel it—until you experience the horror of trying to force yourself to meld with your severed half before the trauma of separation causes you to wither and die.
When I think of it now, I burn with embarrassment. And also anger at my friend, Warlock Holmes.
Given the rather… impromptu… nature of our courtship, Mary and I mutually felt there would be no benefit in delaying our nuptials. We were wed just three days after our first kiss—that horrifying, unexpected kiss that changed everything. The church was practically empty. Mary’s employers were there—Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Forrester—tearfully happy to be rid of Mary’s company. Warlock was there, too. He lurked in the back corner, trying to keep from weeping. He seemed proud of himself, in a way—happy he’d avoided my death and set me on a path that looked something like the life I’d always wanted. Yet it was clear he had no idea what to do with himself in my absence and dreaded the coming solitude. Grogsson and Lestrade showed up, out of a sense of obligation, I am sure. My sister did not. She was busy with her family and too far away to come in only three days. She’d heard so little of me over the past few years that I honestly suspect she’d thought me dead—that my Afghan wounds had eventually proved fatal and that nobody had thought to tell her. Ah, well…
So, Mary and I found ourselves in that familiar predicament of most newlyweds: cast out of our old positions and in need of finding a new home for ourselves. Happily, this presented no difficulty. Mary had, after all, been the recipient of some portion of the Agra treasure courtesy of Thaddeus Sholto. Over the years, he’d given her six pearls of such extraordinary quality and size as to make them worthy of inclusion amongst the Crown Jewels.
I convinced her to part with one.
The sale commanded headlines the world over, as did the joy of the new owners—the Russian royal family. Czar Romanoff immediately handed the pearl over to his family jeweler, Karl Gustavovich Fabergé, to see if he could make anything special with it. Though middlemen and go-betweens made off with a good portion of the funds, Mary and I found ourselves with more money than anybody could ever really need in a single lifetime.
We bought a home in Bayswater Road, just across from Kensington Gardens. It was of quite preposterous size for only two people. As Mary began setting up house, I rejoined the career I had striven so hard to obtain. Though some time had passed since I’d practiced medicine in any official capacity, I was instantly successful. This, I must admit, had less to do with my skill and more to do with the fact that I didn’t really need any more money again, ever. If my patients were well-to-do, I certainly charged them. But I did not dedicate myself to milking every last cent of the family fortune the way most doctors did. And if my patients were destitute, I tended to make up excuses. True, this life-saving bottle of medicine might cost one third of the yearly income of that woman who did not wish to see her child waste away and perish, but… well, you know… it was about to expire, after all. I really needed it out of my bag, didn’t I? And under such conditions, why, it would be somewhat unconscionable to charge for it. No, no. I was only glad to be rid of the stuff. My bills tended to be issued late and with no great sense of urgency. No attempt at collection was ever made. Often, I tended to forget to present a bill at all. My successful medical career was costing us hundreds.
Mary didn’t care. Oh, she belittled me for it sometimes, but I think the main point of my practice—in both our minds—was that Mary be wed to a man with some form of reputation. Besides, if I didn’t have something to occupy my time, we should have nothing else to do but sit around all day, staring at each other with resentment and desire. I was glad to be out of the house. Though, I did have frequent compulsions to return to her. Sometimes—no matter how sick my patient, no matter how pressing their danger—I would be stricken with the overwhelming urge to just finish up and hurry back to the side of my tormentor. I could feel at ease nowhere else.
As I began re-teaching myself the forgotten particulars of modern medicine, Mary got up to an altogether different form of mischief. On only our second day in our Bayswater house, she sidled up beside me with a wicked smile and said, “Oh, John! Good news: I’ve bought a butler.”
“Hmm. Hired is what I hope you mean.”
“Oh, details, details,” Mary scoffed. “But now, don’t you wish to meet him?”
“Absolutely.”
Two more clicks of cruelty insinuated themselves into her smile. (I say “clicks” only because I do not know the proper unit of measurement for cruelty. Weight is ounces, distance is inches, but what is cruelty? It’s the sort of question that arose more often than you might think, in the company of Mary Watson.)
“Joachim, come here,” she said.
“Yeth! Abtholutely!” said a rich, husky voice from the corridor. A moment later a trim Spanish Adonis in rather tight trousers leapt in after it. He had that luxurious Madrid lisp, which I am told King Ferdinand made popular some years before. Yet, the confidence of his bearing, the spark in his eye, and the tightness of his legwear gave one to understand that he was actually much more impressive than any boring old king.
“Young Joachim is looking for a change in careers,” Mary informed me. “Formerly, he was a dancer.”
“Yes,” I said. “Clearly.”
“I will do my betht to pleathe you!” he announced. “Let me know if there ith anything you wish for, John!”
“I suppose I wish for you not to call me John.” Turning to Mary, I asked, “Has he any training at all?”
“Oh hush, John! He’s perfect!”
“Well yes, physically, but…”
Three days later, we got our German. Oh! I mean our gardener. Gunter was his name and he was roughly as broad across the shoulders as a yak turned sideways. No matter how much money I set aside for the purpose, we never seemed to own enough shirt to cover him fully. He did a good job maintaining the lawn and grounds, but his chief duty seemed to be standing about in front of the sitting-room windows, lifting heavy bags of seed in a particularly rippling manner with his blond hair flowing in the breeze.
Now, most fellows who spend their days away from the house might be forgiven for feeling some misgivings about their wives’ motives in hiring such manner of help. But I was not among them. Or, let me say, I knew it was not the obvious reason. I felt the pull of Holmes’s matrimonial curse—and knew Mary must feel it, too. The idea that she would cheat on me was preposterous. I almost wished she would, just to have an excuse to try and break away from her. But the truth is she was as bound to me as I to her.
So, what was she up to? For a moment, I thought she was trying to create a beautiful home by filling it with examples of beautiful people. Until, that is, her third hire.
“This is our maid,” said Mary.
“Oh! Erm… hello. What is your name?” I asked.
“Sally Hemsworth, sir, at yer service.”
“And… you’re meant to be a maid?”
“Oh, yes, sir! I can clean anything. Sweep a hearth, lift a stain. I can even cook a fair bit. Oh, and mending! I’m tops at mending! You’ll see!”
“Now—and I hope you won’t resent the question—how old are you, Sally?”
“Ten this summer, we think. Not quite sure, ’cause I never knew me mum.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head thoughtfully. “I just… I feel like this should be illegal.”
“Well happily, it isn’t,” Mary hissed through a disingenuous smile. “It’s a tale as old as time: a happy home torn asunder, all because the husband’s wandering eye comes to rest upon the maid. I do not intend to fall prey to such misfortunes.”
“Not for another decade or two, clearly,” I agreed.
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Mary. “We’ll fire her before then.”
Little Sally began to cry. I tried to comfort her—tried to convince her Mary wasn’t being serious. Yet, as the days went on, I realized she was. Mary had a hard and fast rule: no female household member was to be more attractive than she was—not by a long shot. Conversely, no male servant was to be less attractive than I. Again, not by a long shot.
Very long.
Very long and toned and hot and throbbing.
But, at least, as Mary’s collection of luscious man-meat continued to grow, her hidden purpose revealed itself: Mary intended to turn our house into the social hub of the neighborhood. As she herself was utterly devoid of charm and social skills, this had to be achieved through guile. She began hiring speakers and inviting the local ladies around to hear them. Said ladies knew they must attend at least once, for propriety’s sake. On their first visit, they were rather shocked by the state of our butler. Even more so by the state of our butler’s trousers. And most of all, by the fact that the tea service was kept on a low shelf, behind Mary. Thus, whenever one of them wanted a splash of milk, Joachim was forced to turn away from the assembled guests and bend deeply at the waist. They were, of course, scandalized. Or no… that’s not the word I’m looking for.
Jealous: that’s the one.
Not only was Mary horrifyingly wealthy, she was married to a successful doctor who thought nothing of leaving her alone in such mouth-watering company. The neighborhood women were more than a bit interested in exactly what was going on with that.
We began to become popular.
And not just with the guests, but with the lecturers, too. Mary filled our drawing room’s social calendar with painters, poets, sculptors, writers, wits and wags. Not the good ones, you understand. Oh no, no. Those had been snapped up by trendy social circles years ago. We got the leftovers. But the advantage to these fellows was that they were willing to clear their schedule in exchange for quite nominal fees, just to feel they were making money in the artistic endeavor they were embarrassing. And did they notice how freely the drinks flowed at Mary’s little soirées? Yes. Yes—to the detriment of their livers—they rather did. Even better: Mary was what they called a patron of the arts. By this they meant that if they had accidentally trotted out some unsaleable sculpture of Venus (or maybe some roses, depending which angle you looked at it from) Mary Watson would buy it.
They came in droves. I think it took less than forty days for Mary to establish herself as the absolute queen of London’s third-tier artistic set. Evenings at my house were loud, boisterous, and not particularly intelligent. I spent a great deal of time in my upstairs study, trying to ignore it all. Or—whenever I could manage it—lingering about on Baker Street.
How I yearned for a glimpse of Warlock Holmes. Sometimes I rehearsed little harangues I would use to dress him down—to humiliate him for his unfair treatment of the man who had been his faithful companion through so many adventures. Sometimes I only wanted to throw myself in my familiar chair by the fire, to complain of this everyday vexation, or that one. To ask if Holmes had any interesting cases at the moment. And inquire if, perhaps… he needed my assistance?
Yet it was to no avail. I had no trouble finding Baker Street, but 221B was oddly absent. I could easily retrace my steps to that familiar and beloved place, but when I looked up to see that battered old door… it just wasn’t there. The whole middle part of the building was missing. And it seemed as if the street were thirty feet shorter than it ought to be. What’s more, I noticed that the addresses on either side of where I thought 221 should be were 335 and 339. So, it did seem as if there was an address missing, but not 221.
I could not fathom why. Had Holmes changed them to keep me from finding my way back? Was he hiding from me? Or had this always been part of the magical defenses that stopped the army of enemies he’d built over the last two and a half centuries from finding him and murdering him where he slept? Had it only been the fact of my residence at 221 that had allowed me to perceive it? Now that my residence was dissolved, was I prey to the same tricks that had fooled Moriarty’s minions for all these years?
Or was it a question of need? I recalled that during “The Adventure of the _eckled _and”, Holmes expressed wonder that our client had even come to him at all. He’d said something to the effect that the only people who ever found him to ask his help were the ones who particularly needed his help. Was that the problem? Did I not need Holmes?
I felt like I did.
In the end, it was not any effort of mine that brought me back in contact with the world of adventure I had lost, but one of Mary’s friends. Or rather, her friend’s drug-addled husband.
Let me explain…
One night, Mary and I stood by our door, ushering out the last drunken dregs of her gang of suffering writers (who probably ought to stop suffering and bloody write something). Suddenly a lone waifish, wife-ish person burst in against the flow, nearly knocking me to the floor.
“Oh!” I cried. “Who is that?”
“Why it’s…” said Mary, and directed her gaze to our doorman.
Yes, we had a doorman. Mr. Chives was the one male servant who broke the handsomeness rule. Chives was elderly. Even in his youth, he could not have been an impressive specimen, for he had a somewhat round little body and a head like a discount gourd. No, what truly recommended Chives was his impressive memory. Having once heard a person’s name and any details about their lives, he could be counted on to dredge the information up at a moment’s notice, no matter how much time had passed.
He discreetly mouthed, “Kate Whitney.”
“…it’s Kate Whitney!” Mary exclaimed. “Why, Kate, whatever can be the matter?”
“My husband! Oh, my husband!”
“Yes, your husband. Er…” Mary looked over at Chives. “Isa Whitney. Yes, poor Kate is constantly having trouble with Isa, because he is…” One more look at our doorman. “…positively riddled with drugs.”
“Oh, I see,” I said.
“He’s done it this time,” our guest wailed. “Two whole days he’s been gone. He’s killed himself for sure.”
“Nonsense, Kate,” said Mary. “I’m sure he has not. John, you are a doctor. Assure Kate that Isa has not killed himself.”
“Well, I don’t know. He might have done.”
“John!”
“What? Drugs do that to you sometimes.”
“John…”
“Oh, very well. I’m sure your husband is fine, Mrs. Whitney. He probably just… I don’t know… got extra tired and stopped off somewhere to sleep for a few days. In the presence of no other ladies, I am sure. There. Better? Now, I’m afraid our party is concluding for the evening, so if you could just—”
“No!” she cried. “I must have some news of him—even if it is the worst. I could not possibly leave this place until I know! Not possibly!”
And with that, she threw herself onto our fainting couch in a semi-swoon. I hated that couch. All fainting couches, really. I can’t help but feel they encourage such behavior.
Even worse, when I turned back to Mary, I could tell she was thinking up some kind of cruel plan. By God, I could practically see those hateful gears turning behind her eyes.
“Well done, dear husband. Now, tell me: how do you intend to put this right?”
“Me? She’s your friend.”
“Ah, but you are the one with the medical knowledge to aid poor Isa.”
“We don’t even know where he is!”
From our fainting couch came a thin wail. “The Bar of Gold! Oh, The Bar of Gold! I’m sure that’s where he went this time.”
“Oh, but you can’t go there,” Mary said, with affected concern. “A woman alone? In a place like that? At this hour?”
“Would you… Would you come with me?” Kate asked.
“No, no, no! Two women alone? Why, that’s twice as bad!” Mary gave a cold, merciless smile. “But I’m sure John would not turn away in your moment of need.”
“He’ll come with me?” said Kate, brightening.
“I’m sure of it,” Mary replied. “Though, you know… the more I think of it… why should you have to go at all? My husband is ever so fond of helping those in distress. I’m sure he could manage it.”
“What? But… hey!” I protested. “I don’t even know what the man looks like.”
“He will probably recognize his name, though. Don’t you think?” Mary asked.
“Well… all right but… Ah-ha! I don’t know where The Bar of Gold is!”
“Upper Swandam Lane,” said Kate Whitney, most unhelpfully.
“Oh, come now! That’s halfway across the city!” I protested.
“Then you’d best get started, I suppose,” said Mary. “And, Kate: don’t go until you’ve had a drink with me. To calm those nerves, you know. When you’re ready, you can head back home and I’m sure John will have Isa there in no time.”
Clever, clever Mary!
In only a moment, she had set herself up as neighborhood hero, provided herself an excuse for another drink or two, ensured that Kate Whitney knew she must not attempt to stay the night, and given me an odious mission in the far east of London, just out of spite. Damn! How well she had managed it. Thus, rather than gaining my warm bed, I gathered up my boots and coat and headed out into the night.
Outside, I found a cab meandering by and hailed it. Apparently, the bohemian dissipation my wife fostered amongst our visitors had spread to the entire neighborhood. The cab man was fairly falling off his seat with drink. I asked to be driven to The Bar of Gold in Upper Swandham Lane and settled in to think.
Strangely, I had this sudden upswelling of hope. The adventure is beginning! I thought, and it took repeated reflections on the matter at hand to remind myself that this was not true. Yes, in my time with Holmes, such late-night excursions heralded the onset of criminal—quite frequently magical—intrigues. But…
Those days were gone.
This was nothing more than scooping up some junkie and delivering him to his wearisome wife. All so I could get back to my wearisome wife. By God, what a lucky fellow John Watson from a year ago had been and he hadn’t even known it.
Our progress was somewhat ponderous. The cab man—for no reason I could discern—kept trying to turn left. And though the horse would get his head pulled back halfway to his shoulder, he resolutely continued to trudge forward, occasionally giving little neighs of protest as if to say, “But… Upper Swandham! That’s this way!”
The cab man swore and cursed. Well… and drank. Whenever he wasn’t fighting with his horse, he took constant nips from his flask, which—he assured me—were only meant to ward off the (nonexistent) cold. Yet through all this, the erstwhile steed continued to advance towards East London.
For my part, I was only glad someone competent was in charge.
By the time we reached Upper Swandam Lane, the man had fallen silent. Spotting a dirty little sign that read “The Bar of Gold” I cried, “Just here, driver.”
The man made no response.
“Just here, please,” I said. But as this produced no result, I decided to try, “Woah!”
The horse stopped.
Clambering down from the cab, I went to the front and asked, “What do I owe you?”
Again, there was no response. With a sigh, I reached into my waistcoat pocket and began producing coins. “Here is what I think I owe you,” I told him. “Now, will you wait for me? My business will not take long and I do not like to be on such a street at such an hour with no transport.”
As he refused to answer, I turned to the horse.
“Will you wait for me?”
He gave me a reassuring sort of snort. That was the best I was going to get, it seemed. I turned away to find The Bar of Gold. Despite the sign, it wasn’t easy. There was no door, you see. There was this irregular sort of crack between two buildings, as if they had once stood straight, but had fallen in against each other. At last, lost for better options, I made my way into that crevice. By God, it reeked! I found it paved not only with human excrement, but more than a few execrable humans. Some lay in the shadows begging, some mumbling incoherent ramblings and one—I will swear—decomposing.
A dozen feet in, I found the actual door to The Bar of Gold, swung it open, and entered into a filthy den of vice. The air was filled with thick brown opium smoke. The only light came from a few oil lamps, flickering sickly in the gloom. Dozens of men lay in terraced wooden berths, their bodies flung into fantastic poses. Most held pipes in languorous hands, or pressed between their lips. A few seemed to be sleeping—though the distinction between that state and wakefulness might be a bit hazy at the moment. The air was filled with heavy breathing and muttering.
It was my first opium den.
And I could already tell something was wrong.
Deeply wrong.
For one thing, all the stupefied men drew their ragged breaths in perfect unison. From a medical standpoint, I understood why they should gasp and wheeze.
But not why they should synchronize.
And if one’s powers of observation were not equal to discerning such a subtle cue, there was a more obvious one. Their mutterings. Apropos of nothing, every single drug-blasted sufferer suddenly decided to mention:
The Spider returns to the empty web.
His body has left him.
An empty spider for an empty web.
He shall live forever.
The rest shall perish, all.
Beware the Spider who cannot bite!
Moriarty! Moriarty!
My jaw dropped open in dread at this unexpected but familiar name.
At the back of the room, an old Chinese man with both his eyes plucked out scratched furiously at a leather-bound book with a battered quill. He was smiling, I recall. The loss of his eyes seemed to bother him little, though it must have been recent, judging by the two trails of scabbed blood that ran down his face and onto his threadbare robe. He made sure he had every word scrawled down into that journal of his. He never missed when he dipped his quill.
A short-haired serving boy bustled by me with balls of opium on a long plank made of fired clay. And do you know, none of the men around me paid him the least attention. He went to a strange metal contraption in one of the walls. At first I thought it was an oven or at least the door to one. Yet when he swung it open, it led not into a fire but out into the alley behind us. The instant he opened it, a feeling of deep discomfort overtook me.
Was there…?
Was there a light in the alley?
If so, it was of no color I could name.
I had seen such a thing once before: when I beheld my first demon on my second adventure with Holmes. The thing that had so nearly killed me had been of no color either. I could spy it only as areas where my limited, mortal perception failed.
I was sure there was such an area in the alley by The Bar of Gold.
The boy dipped his plank of opium out through the strange metal door into the unlight beyond. I saw his head bobbing rhythmically, as he slowly counted to twenty. Having reached that number, he withdrew the plank, closed the metal door, and turned back to the room. Now the men on their wooden beds took note. They reached towards him, howling and whining. Now they found their separate voices and used them to beg, to cajole, to insist that it was their turn—that the man beside him had gotten some of the last batch and they had not.
The boy rolled his eyes at them. He knew who was due and who was not. Silently, he shuffled down the aisle towards me, handing balls of sticky tar to every happy fellow whose turn had come. These they pushed into their long pipes with trembling hands. Matches flared. Pipe bowls were thrust eagerly to the oil lamps. Parched and puckered lips sucked at pipe stems and—in only the time it took to exhale that first breath of wicked smoke—the chanting started again.
Who is the thief of secrets?
Who is come to hear the truths he will not speak?
The speaker is damned.
His ear deserves to hear the word that wrecks him.
Yet who will know the truth, who will not shed his blood for it?
Shame be upon him.
I could only assume they meant me.
“Ha! No. You misunderstand,” I said to the assembled mass of dead-brained men. “I am not a thief. I am a doctor. I have no interest in your secrets. I mean, I’m sure they’re wonderful, but… um… Isa? Isa Whitney, are you here?”
He was.
If I’d been less startled, I might have picked him out earlier. Amongst that crowd of poor sufferers—of workmen with broken wills and broken backs—there was only one who wore clothes suitable for my wife’s parties.
I mean… they might certainly profit from a good pressing, but…
He sat on one of the splintered wooden planks, staring at me, as if his name were a vaguely familiar thing he thought he might owe some allegiance to.
When I saw his eyes turn towards me in foggy uncertainty, I urged, “Isa! Hello! Yes, it’s time to get up now, all right? Let us go. Kate is waiting for you! Your wife has been waiting this two days for you! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“So I am,” the wasted specter replied. “But you’ve got it mixed, for I have only been here a few hours. Three pipes. Four pipes? I forget how many. But I wouldn’t frighten Kate—poor little Kate... Give me your hand. Have you a cab?”
“Er…” I said, reflecting on the unconscious cabman and his excellent horse. “Maybe?”
But at that moment Isa Whitney’s voice—and all the other sufferers’ as well—took on an entirely different tone. They all drew a simultaneous breath—many of them through opium pipes—and spoke as one:
The eaters of the sacred smoke must arise.
They must stop the ears of the thief with blood.
They must throw themselves against him.
And, if not his ears to stop, they must stop their tongues.
Either the thief of secrets must die, or the keepers.
Secrets must abide.
“No, no!” I cried, grabbing Whitney by the wrist and pulling him to his feet. “As I said, I’ve no interest in your secrets! I am leaving. There’s no need for anything to be stopped with blood, thank you. Good night!”
Yet, as I turned back towards the door with Isa Whitney’s limp arm over my shoulder, I got the greatest shock of the night.
He was in the corner, just beside the door. As I’d come in, I’d overlooked him. I’d walked straight by, with him scarcely two feet from my right elbow. But there he was, plain as day: a tall, gaunt fellow with hawkish features and long, bony fingers. He wore a grand moustache, which cleared his face by a good six inches on either side. One of his trouser legs was longer than the other. He wore a jacket of garish color, patched and re-patched with theatrical abandon. His eyes were glazed and dim.
My mouth fell open in amazement. “How my heart leapt, to find him there! A sudden wave of joy and wonder took me.”
“H-Holmes?” I stuttered. “Holmes, what on earth are you doing in this den?”
He smiled at me. “Ha! Disguised as a common Irish working addict, I have infiltrated this house of iniquity!”
“Well then,” I suggested, “had you best not be a little quieter about it?”
“Why?” he scoffed. “These fellows are all quite stupefied, I assure you.”
“Are they? Have you been listening to them?”
“Well… a bit, I suppose. But I’ve had other things on my mind, Watson. Speaking of which: it’s good to see you again.”
“Holmes! That is not… Well… It’s good to see you too, actually. Get up, though! We’ve got to get out of here!”
“But I haven’t solved my case yet!” Holmes complained.
“Never mind the bloody case! Get up!”
“I am surprised at you! Why, the John Watson I knew would never—”
“Get up!”
“Oh, very well,” Holmes groused, and tottered to his feet.
He wasn’t the only one. All around us, bleary-eyed men were pulling themselves from their wooden benches on knees and elbows, like shipwreck survivors dragging their weakened bodies out of the surf. There was something horrible about their expressions. There was no malice as they came towards us. No pity. No hint of self-preservation. Just the abiding impression that whichever way this was about to go—whether we were about to die or they were—they were a bit sad about it. The only thing they had resembling hope was the aspiration to get this over as quickly as possible and get those pipes back in their mouths again.
“We should go now, I think. Now, now, now!” I screamed, hauling my two companions through the door. With Whitney drooping over my right arm and Holmes sprawled against my left, we burst out of The Bar of Gold and into the filthy alley.
“Hmm… Dreary sort of place, isn’t it?” Holmes noted. “I believe you said you’ve a cab waiting?”
“Well, possibly I do. If the cab man’s woken up, he’s probably gone by now. But if not, it’s all down to the horse. And the horse—I think—we may rely upon.”
“Good horse, eh?”
The alley was so narrow we had to go down it sideways. I bustled Whitney out first, then myself, and finally Holmes. Behind us, the alley was filling with dead-eyed men. Some staggering after us on their feet. Some crawling. Some writhing in the filth, driving their bodies—wasted so nearly unto death—in vain pursuit. As we hove forth into the notably clearer air of Upper Swandham Lane, I beheld the cab standing just where I had left it, and I answered Holmes’s question.
“Ha! Yes, he is! The best horse! Just the very best horse!”
We stumbled to the cab and I began pushing Isa Whitney up into it. He fell into the forward seat, shaking and twitching, seemingly insensible. As soon as he was in, I began the same process with Holmes. To my great surprise, he resisted me.
“Wait, Watson! Wait…”
“What is it, Holmes?”
“What’s the horse’s name?”
“…”
“…”
“Are you serious?”
“I would just like to know the name of my rescuer, if that is not too much to ask!” he huffed.
“Well I don’t know it and I don’t care!” I shouted back. “Let’s just call him Best Horse, shall we?”
Holmes gave a satisfied nod. “Perfect.”
“Good, now get! In! The! Bloody! Cab!” Each of my last words was accompanied by a mighty shove. Or perhaps a kick. By the time I had Holmes stuffed in on top of Whitney, our horde of shambolic pursuers was hardly ten feet from me. I turned to the front of the cab and called, “Driver, take us to the…”
But there was no point. The man was completely insensible. So I turned to my only remaining source of hope and shouted, “Best Horse, get us out of here!”
He gave a whinny of agreement and I only just had time to leap onto the sideboard as he pulled away. One of the besotten men’s hands brushed against my coat tails as we went. Another had managed to grab onto the back of the cab and was dragged some ten or fifteen yards before he finally fell off, shrieking with rage and pain. Our driver gave a sleepy little “harrumph” as if to let us know that it was very rude to interrupt a fellow’s nap in such a manner.
By the time we were halfway down the street, I’d managed to pull myself into the cab. I flung myself into the seat across from Holmes, banged the door shut and demanded, “By the gods, Holmes! Whatever were you doing in such a place?”
Best Horse, get us out of here!
“I told you, Watson,” he replied, with a languorous sort of disinterest. “I was working on a case.”
“A case?”
“Yes, which you are not allowed to help with!” he insisted. “We all know what happens when you do. You get all doomed, remember? And then I am forced to bind your soul to the first woman I can find. Oh, speaking of which: how is Mary?”
I gave him a very hard look.
“Well you needn’t be snippy about it, John. I’m sure if I hadn’t done it you’d be dead by now, what with all the intravenous sorcerer bits you were injecting into yourself. And that is why you may not be involved in any further adventures with me. I mean… except maybe this one.”
My eyes flicked up to him, full of eagerness and hope.
“Hey! No! Don’t make that face! You can’t come along. Maybe… Maybe you could just give a bit of advice though, eh? I’m a bit stumped, if I tell the truth.”
Even that was enough to lift my spirits. The idea of solving a case with Holmes again was intoxicating. And he said he was stumped! Perhaps I could prove he needed me.
“Of course my powers are at your disposal,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could.
“Right, but no investigation of any dangerous areas!”
“Oh, no, no.”
“And no monster-fighting.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Very well, then,” said Holmes, with a nod. “The facts of the case are these: I was approached by Lilly St. Clair, wife of Neville St. Clair. She was rather upset. Her husband had just disappeared, you see, and the police were at their wits’ end.”
“No surprise,” I mumbled.
“No, indeed,” laughed Holmes. “Especially when there are elements of the fantastic in a case, I often find the police’s wits’ end is rather near the police’s wits’ start. Though I confess I have not done much better. This past Monday morning, Mr. St. Clair bid his family adieu at his home near Lee, in Kent. He promised to bring his little boy a box of bricks when he came home. But he never did. It is thought he took the train into town as he did every day to do his job… whatever that is…”
“You didn’t inquire?”
“Oh, I did. But Lilly is unsure of the exact nature of her husband’s employment.”
“She doesn’t know her husband’s job?”
Holmes shrugged. “There’s some thought he may be a freelance journalist. That’s what he used to do. Two years ago, he wrote a major article on the life of a London beggar that garnered quite a bit of attention. It seems his investigations of London’s more wretched—and therefore more successful—beggars turned up evidence that they made significantly more than your average clerk. Since then, however, very little has appeared in any paper with Neville St. Clair’s name on it. Still, whatever his new job is, it’s fairly lucrative. The family’s fortunes have much improved over the last two years. Yet, whenever he speaks of his employment, he simply says he’s ‘in business’.”
“And in his defense,” I said, “there’s many a businessman whose job description is a bit vague. Why, I’ve known a few who have so much trouble explaining what it is they actually do that I’ve often suspected they don’t know themselves. Then again, he may have been up to something questionable. Perhaps I am getting a bit ahead of the story, but… given where I found you this evening… is there any chance his ‘business’ may have had something to do with the importation or distribution of heroin?”
“Very smart, Watson, for the last place he was seen alive was indeed The Bar of Gold.”
“Seen by whom?”
“His wife, of all people. And not too long after she’d said goodbye at breakfast. It seems that as soon as he’d left, Lilly turned her attention to the post. One of the letters informed her that a package she’d been awaiting had arrived at the Aberdeen Shipping Company on Fresno Street. Now, Fresno comes just off Upper Swandham Lane. As Lilly came down Swandham, she happened to glance up at one of the windows on the upper story of The Bar of Gold, and who should she happen to see?”
“Her husband?”
“Her husband! She gave a cry of surprise and called out to him. She says she’s sure he saw her, for he gave a cry too, and looked down. Lilly was very upset by his expression—he wore a look of terrific fear!”
I shook my head. “That is only natural. I would think nearly any man would, who had just been caught by his wife at such an address.”
“Perhaps,” said Holmes, “but we may never know. The next instant, he disappeared from the window. Lilly St. Clair is unsure whether he jumped back of his own accord, or was dragged. Alarmed, she made her way into The Bar of Gold.”
“She what?”
“Well, she was concerned for her husband!”
“Still… Lilly St. Clair must be an exceedingly brave woman.”
“Oh, and determined,” said Holmes. “When she got inside, she was confronted by the tough old lascar who runs the place. She told him she’d seen her husband in an upstairs room and wished to go up and see if he was all right. The lascar told her that was impossible, for he had no second story.”
“A particularly feeble defense,” I noted.
“Especially as he made this claim at the foot of the stairs,” Holmes agreed. “Yet though Mrs. St. Clair insisted those stairs must go somewhere, he would not let her pass. She ran back out into the street and—by happy chance—ran into two police inspectors, talking with two police constables, not fifty yards away.”
“Anybody I might be familiar with?” I asked.
“Bradstreet…”
“I don’t believe I know him.”
I gave a low whistle. Lilly St. Clair could hardly have done better. Torg Grogsson was a close friend of Holmes’s and mine. He was in excess of seven feet tall, and about half as wide. As far as I could determine, he was some sort of ogre-like species, doing his best to pass himself off as a regular human. His physical strength was prodigious. However, his ability to self-govern was… shall we say… limited. Add to this his particular fury whenever he learned a woman was in distress. This should in no way be interpreted as noble. It was entirely self-serving. He rather hoped to try kissing a woman some day, and always did his best to seem worthy.
“Things went downhill from there, I suppose?” I asked.
“Well, Inspector Bradstreet was of the opinion that Mrs. St. Clair should come to the station and file a report,” said Holmes.
“And Grogsson’s opinion?”
“Differed. He marched straight in with Mrs. St. Clair and demanded to see the upper story. The lascar—a preposterously brave and stubborn fellow—continued to insist there was no such place and, even if there were, the two of them were not welcome there.”
“And how did that go for him?” I asked, with no small quantity of dread.
“Did you see a lascar there tonight?”
“I did not.”
“Did you at least note the rather impressive bloodstain all across the back stairs?”
“No matter,” said Holmes. “Yet, suffice it to say, the lascar is unlikely to be of any help determining the fate of Neville St. Clair. Not unless I resort to necromancy.”
“Don’t you dare, Holmes!”
“Calm yourself, Watson. I am resorting to you instead. Now, do you want to know what they found upstairs?”
“Please.”
“The entire floor is one open storage area. It has windows on all four sides, looking out over Upper Swandam Lane, the dirty little alley that leads to The Bar of Gold, the dirty little alley behind The Bar of Gold, and the Thames. But the thing that really makes it special is that it is the living chamber of London’s most famous beggar, Hugh Boone!”
“Who?”
“Oh, he’s grand, Watson!” Holmes enthused. “You know how you found the best horse? Well, I’ve found the best beggar. People come from halfway round the city to see him. He’s the most bent and miserable fellow you ever saw! Just hideous! As if every single accident of birth and fortune has inflicted itself upon the same fellow. He pretends to trade in wax vestas, but everybody knows his real money comes from begging. People say he’s made a fortune. And why not? How could anybody give a penny to any other of London’s beggars, once they have seen Hugh Boone? The man is a living miracle! I mean… not a pretty one, you understand, but still…”
“Was he in residence when Grogsson and Mrs. St. Clair arrived?”
“No. He was rolling around outside on the river-facing side of the building. Now, of course he could have been there very recently—it seems he’d had a ladder installed from his upstairs haunt down to the alley behind The Bar of Gold. They found him languishing just around the corner from his ladder, rubbing muck all over his face.”
“Eh? Why would he do that?” I wondered.
Holmes shrugged. “Trade secrets, I suppose. Making himself look more pitiable, I shouldn’t wonder. He was in his underpants—”
“Outside? Where were his clothes?”
“Upstairs in the room, with Grogsson and Mrs. St. Clair. Oh, he had the most wonderful array of begging rags up there. One set for each day of the week. Like a master thespian’s costume closet, he—”
“But he wasn’t wearing any of them? Why not, I wonder…”
Holmes shook his head with annoyance. “Look here, Watson: if I ever meet Lancelot, I do not intend to question his swordsmanship. If I have lunch with Mozart, you will not see me nitpick the notes he chooses. Nor do I intend to second-guess the begging acumen of Mr. Hugh Boone. What I would do, Watson, is stand in humble awe, marveling at a man who has managed to perfect one of the earthly arts, and in so doing, to touch the divine.”
He gave me the sort of look one directs at an absolute philistine, who has no appreciation for the finer things in life. I gave him the sort one gives to someone who supposedly has a point to come to, but is failing to do so. To prompt him, I asked, “And in this singular beggar’s chambers, did our erstwhile heroes find any trace of the missing man, Neville St. Clair?”
“Oh! Yes, they did! On a crude table, they found a box of children’s building bricks—just as he promised to bring home to his son earlier that day.”
I considered this a moment. “It is suggestive,” I admitted, “yet hardly conclusive. They could have belonged to anybody. Perhaps Hugh Boone had some use for them. They do not prove Neville St. Clair’s presence in the room.”
“No,” said Holmes, with a mischievous look. “That did not come until later. At the moment Mrs. St. Clair believes she saw her husband in the upstairs window, the Thames was at its height. When it ebbed later that day, Inspector Bradstreet made a troubling discovery. All of Neville St. Clair’s clothes had been shoved into his jacket, tied into a bundle with the jacket’s sleeves and then thrown into the Thames—presumably through one of the windows in Hugh Boone’s room. This impromptu bundle did not float, as the pockets of the jacket had been weighted with 421 pennies and 270 half-pennies.”
“Which London’s most successful beggar might certainly have on hand,” I reasoned.
“Ha! Just so!” said Holmes. “And that is why Inspector Bradstreet had Hugh Boone taken into custody, regarding the disappearance of Neville St. Clair.”
“Hmmm… Does that not seem a bit fantastic? From what you say, Hugh Boone does not seem like he’d have been able-bodied enough to murder St. Clair, strip him, dispose of the body, dispose of the clothes, and then somehow escape in the space of time you describe.”
“Ah, but, Watson, there was blood on the window sill!”
“Oh?”
“Yes! Oh, but… but then…” Holmes’s enthusiasm diminished somewhat, and he admitted, “There was rather a bit of blood about everywhere, so…”
“Blood everywhere? What do you mean?”
“Well, the lascar had been foolish enough to say that if Grogsson wanted to get upstairs he’d have to go through him, so…”
“By God! He didn’t!”
“…he pulled the poor fellow straight in half and stepped between the pieces. Quite literally went through him. Thus—as it was Inspector Grogsson who conducted the initial investigation—”
“All the while, dripping with gore…” I moaned.
“—there is some possibility the crime scene may have been compromised.”
“I should say so, Holmes. I should say so.”
I wove my fingers together and tapped them against my lips as I sat, considering. The carriage bounced and swayed, shaking the sleeping cabman. The night was cool and clement and—now that the crowd of heroin-zombies was far behind us—a fine night for an adventure. Best Horse seemed to be trundling roughly back in the direction of my home, so I saw no need to correct him. I sat in the corner, pondering. Yet, I was to have no time to let my thoughts coalesce for Isa Whitney’s eyes suddenly popped open and he cried, “Oh! Agh! What has happened to me? Where am I?”
“You are in a cab,” I told him. “We have rescued you from a filthy drug den.”
“But… why does it hurt so badly?”
“Because you have been poisoning yourself with opium! And corrupting your mind and soul with otherworldly magics!”
“Actually,” said Holmes, pointing one finger at a telltale crease in the cab’s seat, “I think he landed on his keys.”
“Oh. Well, yes. That’s no fun either,” I admitted. “We’ll soon have you put right… There you are!”
Isa Whitney gave a contented smile and slumped into unconsciousness once more.
Holmes gave a sympathetic little snicker and asked, “So what do you make of my case, Watson?”
“Hmmm… Still too many pieces missing to say anything certain. It might be good to speak with Hugh Boone,” I reflected.
Holmes instantly brightened. “Oh, you should, Watson! He’s marvelous! Just marvelous! I say, are we very far from Bow Street? No, I don’t suppose we are. Best Horse! Take us to Bow Street Police Station, please!”
By way of answer, the carriage veered right up Catherine Street.
“That really is an excellent horse you’ve stumbled across,” Holmes noted.
And no less an excellent beggar, Holmes had found. Hugh Boone did not disappoint. As soon as Best Horse trundled to a stop outside the police station, Holmes and I entered to find Inspector Bradstreet having a glum debate with one of his constables regarding the fate of their prisoner. The black bags under Bradstreet’s eyes bespoke a man who owned much more fatigue than hope. Yet, if the local mood was dour, Holmes took no note of it. He sprang at the weary inspector, crying, “Hullo, Bradstreet! This is Watson! He wants to see Boone, please! Yes. Everybody should see Boone.”
Bradstreet must have heard something of me from either Holmes or Grogsson for his eyebrows went up hopefully. “Watson? You’re a medical doctor, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Then perhaps you should see Boone. And better today than tomorrow, for I’m not sure he’d have much use for you then.”
“What? He’s dying?”
“You’d be a better judge than me,” said Bradstreet with a shrug. “Come on then.”
He led us down the corridor to the holding cells, slid back a heavy wooden slat over a barred peephole, and motioned me to look inside.
How shall I describe Hugh Boone?
I suppose I can start with this: he was kicking himself in the chest. His left knee was hideously mangled or… I don’t know… reversed? And though the femur seemed somewhat shortened, the bones of his lower leg had lengthened such that, as they doubled back over his upper leg, they brought his foot to rest just beneath his right shoulder. His right leg twisted into a sort of corkscrew pattern behind him. His arms likewise were bent into grotesque and useless angles that splayed to either side. No two of his fingers faced the same direction. But worst of all was his face. It was as if someone had smeared the right half of his teeth and jaw up and backwards into a macabre grin. It did not seem as if he was even capable of opening and shutting his mouth—perhaps a good thing for his right ear, which he must surely have chewed off if ever this were affected. Such were the severity of his deformities that I suffered something of a medical-vocabulary malfunction in my first attempt to seek clarification as to his condition.
“Hot, blazing ninnymuffins! What is that?”
“Dr. Watson! Language!” Bradstreet urged.
“He’s right, Watson,” Holmes agreed. “It’s not like you.”
“Yes, but… but… but…”
Holmes raised one eyebrow and gave me a broad smile. “I told you he was great.”
A half-intermitted gasp caused me to turn my attention back to the cell. It was hard to tell if Hugh Boone was sleeping or not. One eye was closed, the other partially open but rolled back into his head. His breathing was tortured; the sounds he made caused us all to wince.
“Been like that for days now,” said Bradstreet. “Can’t get him to take no food. Poor bastard can’t open his mouth, not even a bit. Got a few ladlefuls of water down him, but that’s all.”
I shook my head. “That makes no sense. He must have been feeding himself somehow, all this time.”
“Well he’s in no condition to tell us how,” said Bradstreet with a shrug. “He’s said nary a word the whole time, and frankly, I don’t think he can.”
“Water is not the critical concern, in any case. And certainly not food,” I told him. “It’s his breathing. Hear how labored it has become? Hear that rattle? His lungs are filling with mucous and he has no power to clear them. See how weak he has become? Something must quickly be done, or this man will smother!”
“All right,” said Bradstreet. “But what?”
This, I deemed, was my signal to improvise. I found a disused old prison bench and had Bradstreet’s constables knock two of its legs off. Once we had it fairly steady on its remaining two legs and one side angling down to the floor, we constructed a set of leather straps that would hold Hugh Boone on his chest (well… and leg) with his head on the downhill side.
“There,” I told Bradstreet, when we had Boone in position. “That should help the mucous drain down and out of his mouth, rather than back into his lungs. You must check him frequently to make sure it does not stuff up his mouth or nose. If you tip him upright every now and then, he should be able to swallow it. Give him a few sips of water once an hour or so.”
“Awwww, come on now,” Bradstreet protested. “You can’t expect us to do all that!”
“Well, you shouldn’t have arrested him, then.”
“But… how long must this go on?”
I shrugged. “Until he is either freed or hanged for the murder of Neville St. Clair. Yet if you are building a case wherein you propose Hugh Boone overpowered and killed a fit fellow in his thirties, I might suggest that a successful resolution is some ways off. Now, good day to you. The hour is late—or perhaps early—and I have yet to return my new friend Isa Whitney to his wife. Ah! I just realized: I do hope neither he nor the cabman have woken up.”
“Or died,” Holmes added.
“Egad! I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Ha! And you’re the doctor!”
Luck was with us, however, and—aside from some added weariness in the corners of Best Horse’s eyes—we found our companions in much the same state as we’d left them. As soon as we were settled in and headed west, I opined, “A very strange case indeed, Holmes.”
He said nothing, but cleared his throat. Guiltily cleared his throat, it seemed to me.
“Holmes?”
“Um… yes, Watson?”
“Holmmmmmmmmmmes?”
“All right! Fine! Fine, damn it! It’s just that, as you said that last bit, it sort of occurred to me that it’s actually more like two cases and—though I certainly do enjoy this one, because of all the wonderful murders and twisted-up men—the other makes me a bit uncomfortable!”
“The other?”
“Yes! The smiff!”
“The what?”
“The smiff!”
I stared at him levelly for a few moments.
“Which is a word I’ve recently made up,” he explained, “to mean something like ‘a rather worrisome weak spot in the borders of our reality, through which significant quantities of magical/demonic energy seem to be leaking and for which Watson and I may be largely responsible’.”
“Oh? I am responsible?”
“As a matter of fact, you are. I don’t suppose you remember that little dust-up I had with Hugo Baskerville about two years ago?”
“You mean the night he tried to bend all my bones out through my skin? Yes, I seem to recall it.”
“And do you also recall that the particular danger that evening was that my battle with Sir Hugo took place upon the convergence of five great ley-lines?”
“Again, I do.”
“And…” Here Holmes let a particularly worried expression cross his face. “Do you remember that moment where it seemed like at least one of them sort of broke?”
I thought back to those horrifying moments as the other worldly light of the lines reached its straining point, to the terrible cracking sound and the sudden increase in the power of all Baskerville Hall’s ghostly inhabitants.
“Ohh… Now that you mention it… yes, I do.”
“Well one of those lines is just knackered, I’m afraid. Specifically, the one that takes its genesis at Baskerville Hall and runs across England, all the way from Dartmoor to the alley behind The Bar of Gold, where it abuts the Thames. And where now—unless I miss my guess—there is a bit of a smiff!”
“How is that my fault?” I demanded. “You were the one fighting Sir Hugo!”
“Yes. And I do admit my part in the fiasco,” said Holmes. “However, I would never have been there in the first place if my smart friend Watson had done his damned smart-person job and solved the case and outmaneuvered Sir Hugo and put everything to rights before I even got the chance to travel down to Dartmoor and arse everything up, now would I? So, perhaps a slight display of contrition might reflect well on your character!”
He threw his arms across his chest and settled in to a guilty sulk. Holmes was a good man at heart—in point of fact, a very good man, better by far than me. Yet he was also the single greatest threat to the continuation of our world and he knew it. The hurt and frustration it caused him was a terrific burden, especially in moments such as these where the true cost of his failings was made clear to him. I gave him a sad little smile.
“What’s to be done, Holmes? How can we put it right?”
“I’m not convinced that we can, Watson. Think of floating in a boat with a thin iron hull and a cannonball hole in the side. You could patch the hole, if you could get some extra iron. But the only place to take it from is some other area of the ship. And even then, the patch would be rudimentary and not come up to the quality of the original hull—which you would have just holed again to attempt the repair. To say it is a zero-sum game would be over-optimistic. So far as I can tell, it is nothing but a losing gambit.”
“Oh. So, how should we proceed?”
“Well we at least ought to stop everybody mucking about with the smiff and using it for mischief. By the Twelve Gods, Watson, did you see what they were doing with that opium?”
I nodded. “I did not understand, but I certainly saw. Now that I know the whole story, it would seem they are thrusting the opium out the hatch in their back wall and into the smiff, letting it absorb demonic energies, then distributing it to hopeless drug-heads like Isa here and recording the prophetic observations they issue once they have smoked it.”
Holmes gave a sad sort of shrug to show he concurred, then wondered, “What should we do?”
I rubbed at my eyes. “Nothing tonight, I should think. No, you must give me time to reflect on this whole mess for a while. For now, I should get this idiot Isa back home and make sure our cab driver is not dead.”
Holmes nodded at the wisdom of this and called, “Best Horse, stop here, if you please.” Once the carriage halted, Holmes jumped down to the street and said, “Think on it, Watson. If you have any breakthroughs, you can reach me at 221B.”
“Actually I can’t, Holmes. It seems to have become invisible to me.”
“Well, send a telegram then. And now, good night; I can make my way home from here.”
“Holmes,” I said in my most warning tone, “no teleporting.”
He gave a wounded sniff. “You are no longer the boss of me, Watson.” He then took a moment to digest his own words and added, “I mean… and you never were.”
“No teleporting.”
“Fine,” he said, and turned on his heel. He headed off up the street in the direction of 221B or another cab, whichever should come first. This left me free to slap Isa Whitney in the face over and over, until he at last could be cajoled to tell me his address. Once this was duly related to Best Horse, I settled in for the ride and to reflect on the night’s events. How should I proceed on the morrow? How could I shed light onto the strange disappearance of Neville St. Clair, the one-time writer who had once rocked London with his exposé on profitable beggars and who had now, perhaps, been done in by one? I would start, of course, with the more bizarre aspects of the case. Most notably, the ladder Holmes had mentioned. Why would a man with legs as useless as Hugh Boone’s ever request a ladder be attached to his quarters?
Oops! Damn! The ladder!
I had it.
I’d solved it.
Strange, but in that moment of triumph I felt a profound disappointment. Was my return to adventure to be so brief? No back-and-forth with the forces of evil? No monsters to slay? No further exploration of the darker corners of the world, whence to shed my light?
No? I just solved it by myself sitting in a cab?
Ah, well… There was nothing for it now but to try and make it seem impressive to Holmes in the hopes he might find use for me again.
Nobody answered the bell at Isa Whitney’s house. Perhaps they were all abed. Or perhaps he’d slurred his words in his opium-induced stupor and I was ringing the bell of a perfect stranger. Whatever the case, I’d had quite enough of young Isa. I just left him in a bundle on what I hoped was his doorstep and hastened back to the cab. From there, I had Best Horse drop me at my own home. As we parted ways, I took the largest bill I had—a fifty-pound note—folded it, and tucked it into Best Horse’s harness. “That is for you, because you are amazing,” I told him, then jerked my head at his driver. “Don’t let him have any of it.”
I returned to my own quarters to find Mary gently snoring in our bed. (Try telling her that, though. No torture man has devised could ever drive Mary to admit she snores.) I dearly wished to join her—compelled not only by my own weariness, but the strange pull of Holmes’s matrimonial curse. But no. I had work to do.
I pulled my little side table up to Mary’s side of the bed, so I could be near her—or even reach out and touch her if my Mary-withdrawal symptoms became too acute. There I sat, drafting telegrams—one for Holmes, one for Bradstreet, one for Grogsson, and one for Mrs. St. Clair. When the light of day was sufficiently bright, I gave them to Joaquim and asked that he take them to the local telegraph office and send them.
Then, since I realized how well that was likely to turn out, I took them back and went to send them myself.
* * *
Four hours later, I stood leaning against a hired cab on Upper Swandham Lane with Warlock by my side. Lilly St. Clair sat hidden in the carriage behind us, with the door closed and the window curtains drawn.
“So you think you’ve got it, do you, Watson?” Warlock piped.
“I do. It was the ladder that cracked it.”
“The ladder?”
“Yes. You told me Hugh Boone had one installed, leading from the window of his beggar’s roost down to the alley behind The Bar of Gold. Now, what do we know is in the alley?”
“The smiff?”
“Indeed, the smiff. And how long has it been there?”
“About two years, I should say. Since our little misfortune at Baskerville Hall.”
“Just so. Two years—a timeframe that also happens to correspond with Neville St. Clair’s last successful article. Recall that roughly two years ago he wrote an exposé on the profitability of begging—provided the beggar was hideous enough—and that shortly after this article was published, his family’s finances took a turn for the better.”
“What is the significance of that?” Holmes wondered.
“Perhaps nothing,” I said. “But perhaps more clarity shall come once our police friends have done their work. If I am not mistaken, that loud grunting and the sound of twisting metal indicates that Grogsson is seeing to the first task.”
Sure enough, in only a few moments the hulking figure of Torg Grogsson came skulking around the corner on the far side of The Bar of Gold, dragging a twisted iron ladder beside him.
“All done, Torg?”
“Yah. Laddur gone. Can’t use dat side of alley. I put in rocks ’n briks ’n haf a cart I fownd.”
“You found… half a cart?”
“Nah. But horsie got away wif half.”
A lucky thing for the horsie in question, no doubt.
Warlock made a face and wondered, “Um, Watson… why did you have Torg block off an alleyway and tear down that ladder?”
“Because now there is only one way back to the smiff and—more notably—one way away from it. An able-bodied man near the smiff would once have been able to escape out the other side of the alley. Either that or climb the ladder into the upper story of The Bar of Gold. Now, he could only emerge from the alley along the Thames side and onto the bank just before us.”
“Which is important, because…?”
“Because Inspector Bradstreet is about to release his prisoner. Look, here he comes.”
I am not sure that punctuality could normally be counted amongst Inspector Bradstreet’s good qualities, yet I know this much: he was wise enough not to keep Hugh Boone one second longer than he must. Thus, just at the appointed minute, a Black Mariah appeared, trundled up to the bank of the Thames, reversed itself, and stopped. Two constables swung open the back door, from which Inspector Bradstreet promptly ejected Mr. Boone.
“Um… yep… you’re free to go,” he mumbled, then beckoned to the constables to get the bloody hell out of there.
Boone’s confusion lasted only for a moment. When he realized where he was, a sudden, desperate hope grew in his eyes. Weak as he was, he began dragging himself feebly towards the corner to the back alley. He had one arm that was in decent enough shape to pull him along, aided by strange little kicks from the leg which bent across his chest. By God, I do not think I have ever felt such revulsion, wed to such pity. How I yearned to run to him and help him to his goal, if only to stop this horrid spectacle.
Instead, I knocked upon the carriage window. Presently Mrs. St. Clair opened the door and asked, “Yes?”
“I wonder, is that your husband?” I asked.
“Eugh! No! Of course not!”
“Then we must be patient, I fear. I apologize for disturbing you.”
As the door closed, Holmes gave me a strange look. “We know who that is, Watson.”
“Yes, the finest beggar in all London,” I said with a smile.
“Where he go?” Grogsson wondered.
“Ah! Now there is an intelligent question! He is headed for the smiff.”
“But why?” asked Holmes.
“Why, indeed? And while we are at it, why would a man who cannot walk require a ladder to his rooms? Why would he even take rooms on a second floor?”
Holmes and Grogsson both shrugged.
“Because sometimes he can walk,” I said. “The other useful clue was something else you said, Holmes. You reminded me what occurred at the Battle of Baskerville Hall.”
“We cracked the world open?”
“No, not that. What Sir Hugo did to me. You reminded me of the effects of magic on rigid biological materials—how it is especially adroit at bending wood and…”
At that moment, a hideous screaming rang out from the alleyway.
“…bone,” I concluded.
As I spoke the screams began to change. An element of relief crept into them, until finally, they resolved into maniacal laughter.
I turned to Grogsson. “In a few moments, Torg, a gentleman is going to come around that corner and try to make it into the front door of The Bar of Gold. I wonder if you would be so kind as to apprehend him for us.”
“Shure.”
“Unharmed, please.”
“Awwwwww!”
Torg shuffled dutifully off. A few moments later, a figure emerged from the alleyway and clambered towards us. He was trembling and disheveled, dressed only in amazingly dirty underpants. His build was on the slight side, but otherwise totally normal. He made a weak sort of progress towards The Bar of Gold, until Grogsson bounded from the shadows and caught him up in both hands. The poor fellow punched and kicked and screamed, but Torg took little notice. He turned and trundled back towards us, prisoner in hand.
I gave a second knock upon the carriage window and, when the door creaked open, asked, “Mrs. St. Clair, is that your husband?”
She gave a gasp of horror at the bedraggled man and cried, “No! My husband would never… wait… Neville, is it you? Neville?”
She leapt from the carriage and ran straight towards him, calling, “Neville, what has happened? Why do you look like that?” Then, as she came within a dozen feet, she pulled up sharply and added, “Why do you smell like that?” She stood vacillating. Clearly, she was relieved to have her husband back and happy to see he was all right. Well… mostly all right. But the situation was, shall we say, questionable at best, and her expression repeatedly edged towards one of deep suspicion.
Neville St. Clair did not help matters. “Honey! Hello! Um… good to see you!” he stammered in a most unconvincing tone.
Lilly St. Clair’s face hardened. “Neville, what is going on here?”
“Erm… could we, um, talk about it later? Perhaps after this nice gentleman puts me down?”
“Right now, Neville!”
“But really, darling, it’s not the sort of thing one discusses in polite company. Especially if any of these gentlemen are police. Are any of you police?”
“Yup,” said Torg.
“Perhaps I can be of service, Mrs. St. Clair,” I said. “Two years ago your husband was in this very neighborhood, researching his article on begging. Somehow or other, he discovered the smiff.”
“The what?” said Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair together.
Holmes laughed. “Oh, it’s a word I made up, meaning ‘a weird little area where magic leaks into our world and bends any nearby people into horrid shapes’.”
“Ah,” said Neville, guiltily. “That’s a good word for it.”
“Thank you,” said Holmes, beaming with pride.
I continued, “Somehow or other, your husband began experimenting with the smiff, bending himself into hideous shapes—”
But St. Clair cut me off. “I wasn’t experimenting! I was ambushed! There I was, walking down this glum little alley—horrified, because my article wasn’t going as I wanted. None of the beggars would talk to me; they didn’t trust me. So then I got some rags and tried it myself, thinking I could frame the article as a day-in-the-life-of story. But I must have done it poorly, for all the beggars and the locals knew I wasn’t really the genuine article. I got nothing. I was marching down that alley on the very point of giving up, not paying much attention to my surroundings. Suddenly, I stepped into… something… Oh, God! My head! It filled with a thousand voices, telling me secrets! Whispering! Screaming! My limbs were wracked with pain. I turned to run, but I fell down into the mud. Half running, half crawling, I made it back to the street. Only then did I see that my arm had twisted round behind my back and up over the opposite shoulder. And one of my legs was bent out sideways, which was why I fell when I tried to run. I cried out for someone to help me, but the first fellow whose attention I got just jerked back and said, ‘Jesus! Would you look at this one, Charlie?’”
“Who’s Charlie?” Holmes wondered.
“His friend. They were down having a drink at that pub over there, I think. Well, Charlie got a look at me and said, ‘Bloody hell! Best one ever!’ and threw me a shilling. I begged him to help me. He said he was trying to and threw down another shilling and a handful of coppers. By this time, my cries had attracted the attention of some of the other locals, who gathered round and agreed I was deeply unfortunate and the best beggar they’d ever seen. I kept asking for aid and they kept throwing pennies and half pennies. It went on like that for almost an hour. Finally, I realized I was to have no help at all. What should I do? I went back down in the alley to see if I could come to understand what had afflicted me so. I didn’t think to bring the coins with me, but one of the more caring locals gathered them all up and put them into my pockets for me before I left. Well, I went back to the smiff—as you call it—and started dragging myself all around it. Such a strange light! I could not say the color. I could hear voices in strange languages, but I could not understand them. Finally, in desperation, I pulled myself back through it in the other direction. The voices came into focus. The secrets made sense. And when I drew myself out the other side, I found my limbs were their right shape again. Not only that, I had made 26s 4d in my accidental career as a beggar.”
“I know doctors who don’t make that much in an hour,” I said, then recoiled as I realized, “Oh! In fact… I am one.”
“Now that would make a good article!” said Holmes.
“And so it did. Of course, I omitted certain details.”
“Of course,” Holmes conceded.
“But the article sent shockwaves through London. Why, I thought my career as a journalist was finally taking off!”
“Yet, it did not,” I pointed out—rather more rudely than I meant to. I gave a little cough of apology.
Neville St. Clair fixed me with a level stare. “No. It did not. My next article was highly anticipated, but not very well received. Made more of a ripple than a shockwave, I fear. The one after that: not even a ripple. All the sky-high offers from the city’s editors dried up at once. I had no idea what to do! All that was left to me was the glum realization that I could make far more as a beggar than a writer.”
“Which,” I said to Mrs. St. Clair, “he decided to do.”
“Well, I had to do something, didn’t I?”
“And thus, Hugh Boone was borne,” I declared. “For almost two years, Neville St. Clair took the train into the city every morning, arrived at his place of employment—the storage room he rented over The Bar of Gold. There, he would change into his begging rags, climb down the ladder he’d had attached, wander through the smiff and get himself bent into whatever shape he thought might be most lucrative. When he was done begging, it was back into the alley, through the smiff, up the ladder, into his street clothes and home in time for dinner. It might have gone on forever, if not for a strange happenstance: you, Mrs. St. Clair, and the package you needed to pick up at the Aberdeen Shipping Company.”
“So that was you I saw in the upstairs window,” Mrs. St. Clair cried.
“Of course it was,” said Neville. “By God, I was horrified! What could I do? I heard you come in downstairs! I knew I had only moments! I stripped off my clothes, tied them up in a bundle, stuffed a bunch of pennies in the pockets to weigh them down, and threw them into the Thames. I had no time to dress. I made it down the ladder in my underpants and through the smiff. I thought, maybe with enough mud, people would not notice my lack of clothing, though that proved to be the least of my concerns.”
“Right,” I said. “For how could you know that you were about to be discovered and blamed for your own murder. Matters must have been complicated, no doubt, by the fact that you’d got yourself so smiffed up that you could not write or speak. You had no power to explain the situation, even to save your life, which was in danger given that your new deformities did not lend themselves to eating or breathing.”
By way of confirmation, Neville St. Clair merely shrugged and complained, “Please… I’m so hungry!”
“Ah. Yes. We had better see to that,” I admitted.
“No,” Lilly St. Clair insisted. “Bath first!”
Famished though he might be, Neville did not protest. Holmes gave his head a sad shake. “Well, you’ve done it again, Watson. You’ve seen us through the fog. I must say, I feel dashed guilty about that smiff. It’s done its share of mischief, hasn’t it? Grogsson, I’ll need you to get a message to Lestrade. We’ll want him tonight. There’s work to be done. Maybe battle.”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!” Grogsson howled. By which he meant, I think, that he’d like that very much.
Holmes grimaced. “We’re going to have to clear out a den of mystic-opium zombies, I shouldn’t wonder. And then… I don’t care if I have to buy both buildings and brick up the alley, we have to block off that smiff. I can’t fix it, but I must do my utmost to see it harms no others.”
“What time shall we meet?” I asked.
Holmes’s green eyes flicked in my direction. “You will not be involved.”
“But… it’s my case!”
“And you have solved it. Thank you. Now go home.”
“You cannot—”
“This is exactly the sort of thing we are trying to preserve you from, Watson. Now, go home or I shall do something rather unpleasant that renders you incapable to participate.”
I stamped my foot at him. “Really, Holmes! You have much to learn of gratitude!”
Yet his was not the only sense of gratitude that had been tested that day. With a hint of a tear in the corner of her eye and a slew of emotions on her face, Lilly St. Clair took me by the arm.
“Sir, you have returned my husband to his loving family!” she said.
I blushed. “Think nothing of it, madam. I was happy to—”
“And destroyed our livelihood.”
“Oh…”
“…”