Reilly Leaves London

After Reilly had regained his composure, and with assistance of some brandy, he looked at me and said, “A son. I never imagined that I’d be a father. Not with my life. Never. And tell me again, Tatiana, she’s completely all right?”

“Yes, yes. As a doctor and as a friend, when I left her and the family she was fine.”

“My God, where are they? Are they in London? Where are they?” He was practically shaking me.

“Calm down, Reilly, calm down. No, they’re not here. They’re in the Bahamas. On the island of Eleuthera.”

“I haven’t heard of it.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a beautiful place. I was with them for about a year. And, I must tell you, I’m the one you have to thank for spanking your namesake into the world.”

“You, you were the doctor for Tatiana?”

“Well, of course. Who the dickens did you think? The bloody head of the Royal Medical Society?”

“No, no, I meant that I couldn’t be happier that Tatiana and the baby were in your hands. They couldn’t have been safer.”

“Quite true, quite true. Now compose yourself further because Elizabeth will most certainly be here shortly to see just what has become of me. I’ll simply introduce you as an old and dear friend from the army, a comrade I haven’t seen in years.”

“Perhaps you can choose a word other than ‘comrade’, doctor.”

“Yes, yes. Of course.” And they both laughed just as Elizabeth knocked at my study door.

After Elizabeth satisfied herself as to my safety and saw how sincerely happy Reilly and I were, she left us in peace once again with a twinkling, “Please don’t get too rowdy. We wouldn’t want to disturb our nice neighbours, now, would we?”

I then began to relate all that happened to me and Holmes and the Romanovs after Reilly had taken leave of us in Russia.

I told him of our voyage to the island, of our becoming settled and happy, of the hurricane, of the birth of baby Sidney, and of everyone’s health when I departed on the fifth of July. It seemed so long ago, but had only been less than a month since I left Eleuthera.

Then, after a very deep breath, I told him of the supposed death of Holmes and Yardley and Preston, their homeward-bound ship supposedly sunk by the Germans. I told him of the visit of the man with the red beard and what he had told me: that “they” whoever “they” are, had Holmes in their captivity and if I wrote of his last great adventure serving his King and country in the Great War, Holmes would remain alive. If not, he would disappear “like coins the hands of a cheap magician.”

I told him of the killing of Newsome, of my direct meeting with Lloyd George. I told of my meeting with Clay who had gone off to discover if Holmes was still alive, and of my promise to dramatize Clay’s own death at the hands of disgruntled henchmen, which I did in “Feet of Clay”, so that he could adopt another identity and be free.

“So Holmes may still be alive somewhere?” he asked.

“I most fervently hope so.”

I then took from one of my desk drawers a sheaf of newspaper clippings I had saved about Holmes’ heroic death and then my own deceitful tale of his death.

Finally, I told of the visit of my smaller nanny who had come to repay a favour Holmes and I had done for his family, by unspooling the web woven by Lloyd George and what I had dubbed “the Black Faction”. But Reilly knew nothing of a red-bearded man and his tale of Holmes still being alive.

Now, spent myself, I said to Reilly, “I’ve told you everything, I believe. But I’ve not the mind to decipher the puzzles that you and Holmes find so elementary. Other than Holmes, I cannot think of another, but you, who I would expect to untangle this Gordian’s knot.”

He said not one word, at first, but sat immobile looking into my eyes. But I saw wheels turning behind them, as I had so often in Russia.

Finally, he spoke. “Watson, while I appreciate my equation with Holmes, our minds work in a very different manner. Holmes’ mind divines the mystery, my mind devises it. I’ve listened very carefully to all you’ve just said, but until I have the time to ponder this at length, I have no answer or assurance of Holmes’ fate to give you.

“However, our government has separate divisions, which, ironically, remain divided in every respect. One will work against the good of the other so that it may be more successful even though it may cost England most dear.

“As you may suspect, I have my resources both within and without, government which I will use to the utmost. But, Watson, as much as I truly wish to aid you about Holmes, I wish to see my wife and baby even more. I’m going to see them first, before anything else.”

And though he immediately saw my desperate disappointment, he heard me quietly say, “I understand. I do.” I then gave him the secret and detailed information he would need to find Tatiana, baby Sidney and the Romanovs at the compound on Winding Bay.

As Reilly left me, with one hand holding hard my right and his other on my shoulder, he said, “John, for the good of your family, if only the loyal, loving hound could but turn into a jackal.”

With that he was gone. And I could not have known at that moment that the faint words of hope he had given me about Holmes were nothing more than gossamer comfort.

I was not to hear from him until he appeared once again at my door, more than two years later.