“You imagined it, of course,” Holmes said, when I finally told him what I had seen as we made our escape. Sitting in my drawing room, with the early August sun streaming through the window, it was hard to believe that our bizarre experience in the North Sea had happened at all.
We had made it to a lifeboat, the only living souls left on board, or so I kept telling myself. We crashed down onto the waves, moments before the sea finally claimed Das Rabe for its own. With Holmes lying at my feet, I had found a flare, firing it up into the stygian sky.
Thankfully, a courageous fisherman heard my cry for help and braved the storm to find us. Finally, I could let myself be a patient, safe in the knowledge that Holmes was being cared for. We were taken straight to hospital, where a member of the British consulate was waiting for us, armed with an official communiqué from Mycroft.
Holmes had fared worse, of course. His bullet wound was less serious than I had feared, although his body, finally giving in to the ravages of the last two weeks, succumbed to pneumonia.
Mycroft had us shipped back to England, Holmes being afforded the greatest possible care. For a time it looked as though we would lose him. For the second time in a month, I prepared to say goodbye to my greatest friend, but Holmes rallied and was soon attempting to discharge himself at the first opportunity.
We said nothing of the ship until we were alone, other than Holmes expressing a wish to inform Camille Sellman of her sister’s demise. We owed her that much, although Mycroft was ahead of us once again. He surprised us both by revealing that he had visited the Sellmans personally, explaining that Elsbeth Honegger had been employed on official state business but had suffered an accident. There was truth in the lie, of course. Elsbeth had been conducting state business, although for a foreign power rather than our own. Now, the entire affair was in Mycroft’s hands. Elsbeth Honegger’s work had been lost with the ship, her lodgings in Bremerhaven having been searched and found empty. The senior Holmes brother had insisted that we never speak of the matter again, even going so far as to have us sign a written agreement, which he assured me would protect us from the employers of the late Messrs Burns and Hartley. I had no reason to disbelieve him, but spent the next few days looking over my shoulder all the same.
My wife returned to London and proceeded to wrap me in cotton wool, a task she likewise attempted to perform on Holmes when he too returned to Chelsea to convalesce. Needless to say, she was encouraged in no uncertain terms to leave him be. However, I could tell that Holmes was grateful to her, and she in turn treated him like one of the family, which was exactly how it should have been.
Finally, after days of studiously avoiding the subject, I broached what we had witnessed on the ship.
“How did he find us?” I asked, as we sat alone in the house, my wife having gone out earlier in the morning.
“Agares?”
“I thought Inspector Tovey was keeping him under lock and key.”
Holmes’s eyes sparkled. “As you were supposed to.”
I sighed. “You knew he was free.”
“Tovey was to release him the moment we left the country, letting slip where we were going first, of course.”
“To what end?”
“To bring all the pieces together, what else? I must admit, the appearance of Burns and Hartley was something of a surprise. For once, I had no idea we were being followed.”
“Used to sniff Elsbeth Honegger out, you mean.”
“And there I was thinking that Inspector Tovey was the bloodhound.”
“But how did you know Agares would find his way onto the ship?”
“I didn’t, although I am glad he did. Mr Agares turned out to be more resourceful than even I predicted; following the ship out to sea, blowing his way through the hull.”
“Using what? Dynamite?”
“What else could he use? His bare hands?”
I was beginning to wonder.
“But what did he want with Elsbeth Honegger?”
“What he said. He wanted to know how to die.”
“You gave him that answer.”
Holmes gave the ghost of a smile. “As we have already discussed, Agares believed his fantastical tale, believed that he was the creation of Victor Frankenstein.”
“Cursed with immortality.”
“And yet, he knew that Elsbeth Honegger had killed one of his own, butchered Adam at Abberton Hospital. That is what he was looking for in the hospital, not the bone, and that is why he followed us halfway across Europe. The man wanted to die, and thought she was the only one who knew how to achieve his goal. He wanted release, the mad fool.”
“You believe he was insane, then?”
“The last few weeks have led me to question much about existence, Watson. I am uncertain what I believe at present, but I am grateful that even as my life reaches its end—”
“Come now.”
“Its twilight years then. I am grateful that there are still lessons to learn, still mysteries waiting to be solved.”
“Still miracles to be performed?”
My friend’s smile grew. “You really believe what you saw as we fled, do you not?”
I sighed, shifting in my chair. My body ached even after all this time.
“I don’t know what to believe, Holmes. Agares rolled over.”
“The tilt of the ship, nothing more.”
“He looked straight at me.”
“A trick of the light.”
“He’s dead then?”
“How could it be otherwise? He went down with the ship.”
“And what of the face in the window? He was calling for help, Holmes. He was alive.”
“Did you want him to be?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did you want to believe that after everything that had happened, Miss Honegger’s work would be a success?”
“You said yourself that it was the only plausible explanation for the body, for John.”
“A possible explanation; I am not so sure that I would describe it as plausible.”
“But all that business about science, the world being flat and so on.”
“I stand by what I said, and I admit that I don’t know for sure. As a young man, such an admission would have been unbearable, but now…”
“Don’t tell me you’re changing with the times, Holmes, no matter what they bring?”
My friend sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. “It’s a brave new world, Watson, full of new thoughts and new men to think them. As for myself, though it pains me to say it, some things are best left unknown.”
My friend, Sherlock Holmes, it seemed, was finally accepting that there were answers he would never find, mysteries he would never solve.
I didn’t believe him for a moment.