Part II

Chapter VIII: The Dead Man

My friend lapsed into a dark silence, his cold pipe clenched in his teeth. I still had questions, but when he was like this, his mind was somewhere else entirely, constructing and tearing down delicate edifices over and over until he found one that could stand independently, even when shaken from all sides.

My own thoughts examined what he had revealed, and I tried to imagine an entire world at war. Smaller battles and wars are fought every day in every corner of the planet, but I couldn’t conceive of something on the scale that Holmes implied. Granted, the Crusades, spanning hundreds of years, had been along the same lines, but they were confined to smaller and focused geographical areas and separated by great distances, and travel to those places had taken inordinate amounts of time. The Mongol invasions of previous centuries, reaching to central Europe before withering, had been more like what Holmes feared, but those long-ago battles had been about conquest for territory, and not whipped to a frenzy by men of great influence with modern motives.

No, what Holmes described was war on a global scale, taken to a level of deadly destruction that would have been unimaginable just a generation of so earlier. Gone were the days when England and Europe had been protected by distance. This would not be like the various local conflicts, earth-spanning as they had been, of the Seven Years War more than a hundred years in the past. The ability to inflict death had achieved entirely new levels. The American Civil War of a quarter-century before had shown the world that warfare was now a completely different type of animal indeed. Modern transportation and communications could move armies in a fraction of a fraction of the time that it had taken just a century before. And if some brilliant general or tactician happened to wrest for himself a position of leadership within the councils of our enemies, by way of a mistaken belief in a supposedly magical rock, then we could indeed be facing a very grim prospect.

Like all knowledgeable Englishmen, I was aware of the scope and breadth of our Empire, and also the resentment – some of it earned – that it caused around the world. Holmes was correct: If the idol were to fall into the wrong hands, it would be as if a lit match had dropped onto an already wide and thin sheet of spilled lamp oil. The resulting conflagration could flash and spread with incredible destruction.

We remained quiet throughout the rest of our journey, each deep within our own imaginings. I was sure that Holmes was playing out variation after variation, while I was sunk into my own memories of the horrors of war.

Upon reaching the quaint station in Chelmsford, we quietly changed trains, only waiting for a few minutes before heading northeast, toward Sudbury. I had no idea where our final destination was to be, but I was following Holmes’s lead, as I had done so many times before.

As we took our seats, my coat knocked against the woodwork. Holmes glanced toward it and then smiled, knowing that the noise had come from my ever-present service revolver.

Somewhat before reaching Halstead, my companion, still quietly thinking and smoking, shifted, readying himself to stand. I followed suit, and in a few moments, we had disembarked upon a small platform of something between a real station and a mere halt. Locating an official, we were told that there was only one cab for hire, but that it was currently in use, taken by a passenger from the previous train. “They had to go about five miles out. If Thomas – that’s the cabman – is sent back instead of being required to wait, then he should be here soon.”

“Tell me,” said Holmes, with a gleam in his eye, “was the man on the previous train a balding fellow, tired looking in an ill-fitting suit, no coat, and rather nervous?”

“Ayuh, that would be him,” said the official, raising an eyebrow, as if inviting an explanation or further comment. However, he received neither, and Holmes thanked him curtly, turning toward me.

“Williams,” he confirmed. “After he left the telegraph office, he must have made his way directly to Liverpool Street Station and set out for here on the earlier train, no doubt following some instructions that he had been given if this situation ever arose. In the meantime, we made the effort to detour by Ian’s town house.”

Remembering another question, Holmes turned back to the official, who had never really stepped away. “This other man,” he said. “Did he go to the great hall, the Earl of Wardlaw’s residence, about halfway between here and Steeple Bumpstead?”

“Ayuh, that’s right. But it’s more like halfway between Toppesfield and Gainsford End.” He seemed as if he were willing to stand and debate it with us.

Holmes nodded and handed over a coin, for which he received a routine and mumbled thank you. Then, the man took a better look at what he had received, and said, “Much obliged indeed.”

The official left us then and went into an office. Holmes began to pace the platform while I stepped into the station’s waiting room, taking a seat on a worn but solid bench by one of the walls near a stove, struggling and ultimately failing to warm me.

It must have been only ten or fifteen minutes before a ragged carriage became visible in the distance, heading our way. I walked out and joined Holmes at the edge of the platform while the single driver drew near. Finally, he stopped within hailing distance and asked, “Are you gentlemen waiting to hire the station fly?”

When we said yes, he glanced longingly toward a low building that seemed to be a pub a few hundred feet away. With a sigh, he stated that he needed to water his horse, and then he would be at our service.

When we were underway, the driver shook his head. “I go for months without driving out in this direction, and then do it a couple of times in the same afternoon.”

“The man you took before,” said Holmes. “Did he say anything?”

“Not a word after telling me the destination. He did seem anxious, though. He was tense, and sometimes he had to wrap his arms around himself to keep his hands from picking at one another, as he did when he just left them in his lap. Or maybe he was just cold.”

The five miles passed without incident, although I would have imagined that the distance was actually somewhat greater as we wound this way and that on the twisting narrow roads. Finally, after a sharp left bend, we topped a small hill and could see our destination immediately before us. “Wardlaw Hall,” said the driver, gesturing with his whip. It was the only time he had used it on the entire trip.

I was surprised. I’ve learned over the course of my life that nothing ever turns out as one first imagines it. This is true for attending social events and meeting strangers, and especially visiting new locations. In spite of that, I had supposed that this house would be somewhat resplendent, given that Holmes had related how Ian Finch, the Earl of Wardlaw, had been quite fortunate in recent years. The town house in Wellington Square had been nice enough, if rather conservative. I had thought that this would be a showplace. Instead, what was revealed as we came over the hill was a massive structure that had been left untended and unloved for so long that it was in danger of becoming a derelict.

The landscape was completely out of control. There were great hedges, some probably hundreds of years old, now so completely ragged that it was unlikely they could be reshaped without killing them. The lawn near the house, which had probably once been green and well-manicured, was now weed-choked, and numerous low spots had sunken and formed, holding ponded rainwater that was now sheeted with ice, pierced by thick stalks of invasive plants like spears through a glass. Of course, it was January, and one would not expect the landscape to have the vibrant life of spring or summer, but this went beyond something that was merely lying fallow due to winter. This had been left to return to the wild, as if the owner had no further interest in cultivating it.

The dead gray grounds were the same color as the pale washed-out stone of the house. Taken together, they appeared to be some massive watercolor, with the lines between sky and building and earth blurred, as though a bucket of mop water had been tossed on the finished painting, softening the drab colors and letting them all run together.

“This cannot be the house of a successful man,” I whispered to Holmes.

“I’ve kept track of Ian over the years, and I know that he has done well for himself. Seeing this, I’m not sure in what way he chooses to express his success, but certainly he doesn’t measure it by showing off his estate.” A little louder, Holmes spoke to the driver, asking, “How long has the house been in this condition?”

“I can’t rightly say. I rarely get out this way. I do know that it was in this shape the last time I was here.”

“When was that?” asked Holmes.

“Oh, six months or so ago. It’s hard to believe they could let it get to this state. I’m not surprised, though. The Earl let his staff go quite a while back. My cousin used to work here, back when the Earl’s father was alive, and it was certainly different then. She, like all the others, were surprised when the new Earl turned them out. He only kept the butler.”

“Fisk, I believe was his name?”

“No, he died. This one came later. His name is Dawson.”

“Do you know if the Earl is at home now?”

“No idea. They have their own horse and buggy, and so of course I’m never hired by them. When the Earl comes down from London, he wires ahead and Dawson comes out for him.” He flicked the reins, with no apparent acknowledgement from the horse, and added, “I’m the one that brings out the telegrams when one arrives – though those are rare enough.”

“But you delivered one earlier today?”

“I did,” the man said, suspiciously now. “Two, actually.”

“Two?” I asked. I turned to Holmes. “The one sent by Williams, certainly, but who could have sent the second?”

The driver just looked at us, probably wondering why it was any of our business. Holmes asked, “Did you make separate trips for each of the telegrams that you delivered?”

“No, I brought them out together at the same time.”

“But one arrived before the other?”

“Somewhat, I suppose, but there wasn’t a great deal of time between them.” He looked as if he wanted to ask why we were concerned. “We don’t worry ourselves so very much about these things out here, I suppose. I had intended to deliver the first telegram at some point, and then the second one arrived, so I decided I’d better get to it. I thought two telegrams might mean a tragedy, so I brought them and put them into the butler’s hand, and then went back to the station.”

“And then you brought out the man who came down on the train?” I queried.

“No, he was with me when I delivered the telegrams.”

“That’s right. You did say you made ‘a couple of trips’ – this one, and the one with that man – Williams.”

“Three birds with one stone.” The man laughed.

By then we had dropped down the low slope and were approaching the front door. From this closer vantage, I could see that long strips of paint were peeling away from the wood. Holmes roused himself. “The man you brought out before us,” he asked. “Did he ask you to wait?”

“No, although I would have. He was surprised when I jumped down when we got here, and then irritated when he learned that I was just then delivering the telegrams. But then he calmed himself, and just handed me some coins – more than what he owed. The door had opened before we reached it, as if someone had been watching for us. It was the butler. After handing him the telegrams, and seeing as how I hadn’t been instructed any differently by the man from the train – this Williams, I suppose – I turned around and left.”

We stopped, but apparently no one was watching for us this time, as the door remained firmly closed. Handing the fare to the driver, Holmes said, “I trust that this will be enough to retain your services for the journey back.”

He glanced at his palm and smiled. “Certainly will.”

“Excellent.”

We climbed down and approached the door. I could see that the peeling paint was matched by the fine sun-damaged cracks that were appearing in the wood. There were streaks of greenish stains along the stonework arching over us. Simply judging from the front door, one could see that if the house weren’t rescued and repaired soon, it would reach the point of no return.

However, the bell still worked, for we could hear it from somewhere deep inside. Holmes was in the act of ringing it a second time when the door was suddenly pulled open rather violently by a most curious little man.

He was probably an inch or two under five feet tall, wearing a formal black coat that looked like something styled from fifty years before. Resembling the walls of the entry arch in which we stood, it seemed to have been damaged by the damp and streaked with a greenish sheen. He had on a rusty white shirt, and a filthy white waistcoat was buttoned across his round barrel chest. It was stained with something that looked quite like dried mustard.

His odd trunk was supported by short pipe-stem legs, encased in dull black pants. He had very large hands for such thin arms, and they were swollen with arthritis, the knuckles red and knobby. The thumbs were longer than normal, curving out away from his hands, and they had unusually wide but short nails. The most curious feature of all, however, was his head. It was jammed into his body, so that it seemed as if it was an extension of his ribcage, thus forcing him by its fixation to always look straight ahead, turning neither left nor right, or even up or down, without some great degree of pivoting difficulty. The skin of his face was red, and he was clean-shaven, except for a patch or two along his upper cheeks or jawline where he had missed a few stray white whiskers. His hair was thick, although his forehead was high, and it was white and unbrushed, sticking straight up in an uneven tangle that most resembled the wild hedges surrounding the house. Finally, his features were frozen in a scowling grin, or perhaps it might better be described as a grinning scowl, his lips pulled back in a rictus over his unusually big and strong-looking yellow teeth. He looked for all the world like a cross between the Wee Falorie Man, Humpty Dumpty, and some ghastly illustration out of a Dickens novel – although I would be hard-pressed to decide exactly which one had ascendance over the other.

His voice sounded exactly as I would have expected: Rough, uneducated, and somewhat garbled, as if his mouth had difficulties forming the words.

“Can I help you?” he asked in some semblance of serviced politeness.

“We are here to see the Earl on urgent business,” said my friend. “My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate, Dr. John Watson.”

The man may have looked like a caricature, but one could see that he was intelligent, if only in some low crafty way. A flash of recognition at my friend’s name caused him to close his eyelids for a just a fraction. Then, his manner seemed to change, and a note of whinging despair came into his voice.

“Are you with the man who came here before?” he said, a noticeable cringe in his tone.

“We have been trying to catch up with him,” replied Holmes.

The man nodded. “Sirs, I am so glad that you’re here, I am! There has been an accident!” His voice lowered dramatically with that declaration, and he looked at me, as best he could, turning and tilting his entire body. “You are a doctor, I believe?”

“I am.”

“Come quickly, then. Perhaps you are not too late.”

He moved aside, letting us into the house. The strong smell of cool damp and decay assaulted my nose, and I gave an involuntary cough. Clearly the roof was leaking somewhere, perhaps in many spots, to have so let the house get in this condition and to feel this fetid inside.

The door closed solidly behind us, and my eyes struggled to adapt from the weak sunshine we had just left. There was only a single low-burning candle on a side table, and the little man picked it up too quickly, causing the flame to momentarily flicker. “This way,” he said, shuffling through a large doorway that led us deeper into the house. “Hurry.”

“On your guard, Watson,” whispered Holmes as we followed.

We twisted through dark halls and darker passages, moving ever toward the rear of the sprawling building. Finally, the little man threw open a door, causing me to stop in my tracks. I was blinded as my eyes were filled with brightness. We had reached a grand ballroom, lined all along one wall with south-facing windows reaching to the high ceiling. The floor was of white marble, as were various columns around the room. The windows faced into the afternoon sun, now low in the January sky, its light flooding in and reflecting off the countless white surfaces.

The little man had kept walking toward a far wall, and Holmes, who had also stopped beside me, resumed in the same direction. Moving to keep up, I reached them both just as the butler pulled aside a heavy drape, revealing a shallow alcove. He shifted the candle to his left hand and reached out with his right, taking hold of what I could now see was the edge of a door, covered with the same rich plaster-like material as the walls. It would be concealed when closed, and it seemed to be very heavy. It was all that he could do to force it into motion.

“In here,” he said, panting. “There has been an accident!”

I could see that the door was very thick, and appeared to be made of metal underneath the outer covering. Could this be the vault mentioned by Holmes, where the idol had been kept before being moved to the Museum? Was this where it had been kept again following the substitution?

We stepped inside and, by the sole light of the candle, I could see a body crumpled on the floor. It smelled of death in the close little room. The chamber was barely six feet in height, about five feet from side to side, and eight feet deep. Like the door, the floors, walls, and ceiling also appeared to be made of metal. There was no light, save for the thin candle in the butler’s grip.

I pushed my way forward, intent on examining the body. Holmes maneuvered himself behind the butler, allowing the light from the feeble candle to project without being shadowed by his tall thin frame.

“I found him this way,” said the little man. “Can you help him?”

I carefully examined the body. The dead man was crumpled, face down upon the floor. His skin was already cool, and I knew that he was beyond my help.

“He’s dead, Holmes,” I said. “It’s Williams.”

“Can you tell how he died?”

“There is no great amount of bleeding. While there may be other trauma that I cannot find without a better examination, there is a wound at the top of his neck, a narrow laceration. He appears to have been killed by the direct insertion of a thin blade into the base of the skull, either severing the spinal cord, or more likely entering the cerebellum of the brain, depending on the angle. An autopsy can tell for certain.”

Holmes took the candle. “You are Dawson, the butler?”

“I am. How did you – ?”

“Where is your master, the Earl?”

“I… I will go and fetch him.” He turned and scampered out of the vault.

I expected Holmes to join me in examining the body. Instead, he put his finger to his lips, and then said, loudly, “If you will just help me turn him over, Watson, I think we can find one or two other interesting facts.”

But he didn’t move to the body, where I still crouched. Rather, he gestured for me to join him, nearer to the vault door. I rose, stepping with exaggerated care so that my footsteps remained silent. We had just stopped when a shadow, clearly that of Dawson, appeared on the outer floor, alongside that of the great metal door. And as we watched, the door began to slowly swing shut!

“Quickly, Watson!” Holmes cried, and we both rushed forward, pushing back against the door and reversing its motion. I heard Dawson grunt, and then with a frustrated sob, he gave up. The door moved freely, and we heard the sound of a falling body as we stepped out into the alcove.

Dawson was already picking himself up from the floor, rolling awkwardly to one side with his stiff frame, when I placed myself in front of him, having trained my gun on him in the process.

“Watch him, Watson,” said Holmes, returning to the vault, this time to truly examine the body without fear of being trapped. “He is as dangerous as a swamp adder.” But Dawson simply lay there, half propped, looking off into space and muttering angrily to himself.

“You are correct – I can see no other wounds,” called Holmes before stepping back into the great room. “Of more interest is this vault. No ventilation, no lights, nothing on the inside of the door that can open it. If this creature had succeeded in shutting us inside, we would have remained in there with a candle and the dead man until we, too, were corpses.” Looking down at Dawson, he snapped, “Where is the Earl?”

“Gone!” snarled the little man, his attention pulled back from his grumblings, and clearly no longer trying to appear meek or bewildered. “He received the warning.”

“Warning? From Williams?”

“Yes. That the truth is known. The idol is no longer safe.”

“Where did he go?”

Dawson only grimaced, and did not offer an answer to the question.

Holmes tried again. “If Williams sent the Earl a telegram, then why did he also need to come here?”

“Part of the plan. Always part of the plan. The Earl did not know but that he would need assistance if this should ever happen. Young Williams had worked for him for years, ever since they met when the statue was first taken to the Museum. My master paid him to keep an eye on things after the real idol was brought back home.”

“But why kill Williams after he arrived? What did that accomplish?

“The plan!” answered Dawson, looking at the floor, seeing something that we could not. “It all becomes part of the plan. The Master realized that Williams could offer nothing else, so he sacrificed him to tie off a loose end. And he saw it as a way to stop you as well. He knew that you would be coming. He showed me how to trick you into the vault.” Then his anger seemed to disappear as his face collapsed into sadness. A tear pooled on one of his rheumy eyes and trickled down his cheek. “I failed. I failed him. I wasn’t strong enough to slam the door. I have failed.”

Holmes turned away in disgust from the figure on the floor. “Give me a moment to look around, Watson. I suppose that Ian is truly gone now, but I’ll just make sure.”

For the next few minutes, I heard him moving through the house, and even outside. Then he returned, explaining that the house was truly empty. “I checked the stables. There is evidence of one horse, which has very recently been hitched to a dog-cart and driven away. I asked our driver outside, who would surely have been sent on his way by our friend here after we were sealed away, if there are any other roads back to the station. Unfortunately, there are a variety of different routes, which explains why we didn’t pass Ian as we traveled.”

“But how did he know for sure that we were coming, Holmes? Just because Williams told him that you had spotted the fake is no reason to assume that we would immediately beat a path here. You said that Williams didn’t spot you when you followed him from the Museum, and there was no one at the Wellington Square house to notify him.”

“Don’t forget the second telegram, Watson. I suspect that someone actually was in Ian’s house in London, perhaps another trusted servant like Dawson here. When we stood near the front door, discussing our plans to travel down here immediately, that person likely overheard us, standing on the other side of the door, and then sent the other wire. Although he only received the telegrams at the same time that Williams arrived, Ian knew for certain to expect us, and soon – although he had time to plan this macabre little trap, baited with Williams’s carcass.”

He stepped over and pulled Dawson to his feet by the grimy collar of the butler’s coat, marching him through the house with us to the front door. Outside, the driver was surprised, but when we explained the situation, he understood, and hurriedly drove away to bring the police.

Dawson didn’t speak again during the period that we waited with him in the house. Holmes used the time to further explore the vast premises, but he failed to discover any other clues, except for signs in the Earl’s disheveled bedroom of a hurried departure.

When the local constable arrived, brought back by our driver, Holmes identified the both of us, and luckily the policeman had heard of him. Soon other men arrived, clearly locals deputized to follow by the overwhelmed constable. After an hour or so of assisting their fruitless and frankly meandering investigation, we were transported back to the small village where we had initially entrained. Dawson was taken and placed in the sole small cell maintained in the village while we stepped over to the tiny post office to inquire about the telegrams that had been received that day for the Earl. Upon learning of our connection with the investigation, the fat man behind the counter rubbed his hands obsequiously and acknowledged that two wires had indeed arrived that afternoon. He showed copies of them to us, revealing that – as Holmes had predicted – the first was the one from Williams, and the other was from someone named Harbottle, sent from a Chelsea telegraph office, indicating in terse terms that two men referring to each other as Holmes and Watson had been at the Wellington Square house, and were overheard to say that they were proceeding on to the Earl’s home in Essex.

“No doubt we’ll find that Harbottle is the caretaker at No. 30,” said my friend. Turning to the fat man and holding up the copies of the messages, Holmes stated, “I understand that these were not delivered immediately.”

“Well,” the man drawled, “that’s right. It’s five miles out and the same back, and I just have Alfred, the boy, here for help around the office.” He gestured a thumb at a slack-jawed fellow in his mid-twenties, standing in the shadows behind him. “He delivers the messages to nearby spots here in the village, but we have an arrangement with the station cab for those that are too far for Alf here. When the second wire came in, I sent Alf to give it to Thomas Keller, the cabbie. Turns out, he hadn’t taken the first one yet, so he hopped to it, and went away with both of them.” He lowered his voice with added gravity. “It’s very rare for the Earl to receive wires these days. It’s been a long time indeed, and I felt that two so close together must mean something important.”

Holmes thanked him flatly for his time without giving any of the additional information that the man so clearly desired. My friend then dispatched a couple of wires of his own, the first to that location where he often sent messages to young Wiggins, one of the many members of that family who had served over the years as leaders of his unofficial Irregulars, asking him to arrange for someone to keep watch on the Earl’s house in Wellington Square, in the unlikely event that the Earl should return and go to ground there. The other was to Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade, our long-time associates from Scotland Yard, advising them to put out the word to be on the lookout for Ian Finch upon his likely arrival in London.

While Holmes was writing, the local constable came in, also intending to send a wire of his own, requesting assistance investigating the murder of Williams, whose body had now been brought back from the vault at Wardlaw Hall. He told us that he wanted to make sure that he adequately took care of any unexpected complications, since he admitted with open frankness that he had never been involved in something like this before. Both he and Holmes watched the fat man pointedly until they were certain that their messages were sent immediately, instead of being simply put at the bottom of a pile of things to be accomplished sometime that day.

Outside, Holmes had a few quiet words with the constable, who showed a sudden surprised expression. As he stepped away, he additionally advised the young man to keep Dawson in custody until further notice, charging him with our attempted murder if need be, as the odd dwarf’s true part in the events had yet to be entirely explained.

Finally, after shaking hands with the officer, we returned to the small station, where we confirmed that Ian Finch had indeed arrived on a dog-cart and caught the up-train that departed not long after we had set out for the Hall. Holmes shook his head in disgust. “A comedy of errors and lost opportunities, Watson. Surely the gods arrange these little near-misses to break up their eternal monotony.”

Finally, the next train arrived and we climbed aboard, to travel back to Chelmsford, and thence ultimately to London and Baker Street.

Chapter IX: Legal Matters

It was getting dark when we opened the door to the sitting room. I was immediately struck by a most unusual and unpleasant aroma.

Holmes noticed it too, as I could hear him decisively sniffing. I concluded that he must have forgotten some chemical experiment that had taken a turn for the worst. It would certainly not be the first time.

Mrs. Hudson had left our mail on the table, as usual, and I was surprised to see a box, about a foot square in both height and width, wrapped in plain brown paper. It was simply addressed to Dr. Watson, 221 Baker Street, London.

I picked it up and found that it was heavier than it looked. Returning it to the tabletop, I reached for a knife to cut the twine that bound it.

“Watson,” said Holmes in a low voice. “As you value both our lives, do not open that.”

“Hmm?” I said, glancing toward him.

“Step away, please. I have a suspicion…” He moved toward the door from where he had been standing in the center of the room. Opening it, he called for Mrs. Hudson, who appeared a moment or two later, having climbed the flight of steps with her usual stately manner, drying her hands with a towel.

“This package,” he said. “I see that it has no postage stamps.”

I looked and noticed that he was correct. How he had observed that from halfway across the room was amazing, and yet it was the sort of thing that he did every day.

“Did it arrive with the regular post?” Holmes continued.

“Why, no,” Mrs. Hudson answered. “There was a ring at the bell, and then I found it propped against the door. It couldn’t have been there for more than a minute or so, the time it took me to get to the door from the kitchen, but I saw no signs of whoever might have left it.”

“I’m sure that you weren’t meant to,” said Holmes, dismissing her with thanks.

He crossed to me and leaned down, peering at the package more closely, and sniffing again. “The smell is coming from here,” he said. As I bent to confirm it, he added, “It is ammonia, of course.”

“Ammonia!” I thought, trying to recall where I had heard that mentioned in the last day or so. And then, I knew.

“Baron Meade,” I sighed

“Correct,” Holmes replied. “He seems to favor explosives using nitrogen-based compounds. They are easily constructed from commonly acquired materials. And apparently he continues to blame you for his defeat the other night.”

“But… I was simply one of many.”

“Yes, but you have put a face to his anger.”

Holmes had the page boy call a constable, who in turn summoned Inspector Gregson. Our old friend had been spending a great deal of his time in recent months seconded to the Special Branch, as there had been renewed concerns since the previous November that a group known as “The Dynamite Gang” might have extended their activities to London, following statements that were made in the press by a radical Irish-American named Cohen. Investigation with Holmes’s quiet assistance had led to the arrest of two possible conspirators, Harkins and Cullan, but tensions were still running high. The discovery of Baron Meade’s home-grown plot two days earlier would only compound the situation.

Gregson soon arrived, bringing with him several of his men, all experts in explosives. They agreed with Holmes that the package was likely a bomb, and that fact was confirmed later in the evening when they detonated it at the special facility constructed for that purpose near the Shadwell Basin.

“It was the same sort of thing that was found in that house the other night,” Gregson told us a few hours later, over brandies by our fireside, “although on a much smaller scale. There was a detonator affixed to the string tied around the carton.” He fished in into his coat and pulled out the string itself, along with the folded wrapping paper. “The string went through a small hole in the box, and was attached within to the device. I knew you’d want to see these. We preserved the knot, but I think you’ll agree that it’s nothing special. No sailor tied it. Just someone who only knew how to produce a regular knot. The string is common. The same with the wrapping paper – exactly what you can find in a thousand places in London. Regular ink and typical pen as well.”

While Holmes examined the items, Gregson smiled at me. “Mr. Holmes is slowly rubbing off on us, Doctor. I, for one, unlike some down at the Yard, am happy to take advantage of whatever modern methods he can teach us to give us an edge on these criminals.” And he took a sip of brandy, holding it in his mouth with obvious pleasure for a moment before swallowing.

Holmes confirmed Gregson’s findings, and the policeman departed soon after, warning me to be careful in the future, as I was apparently being stalked by a madman.

After the inspector left, Holmes and I sat quietly for a few minutes, before he said, “He’s right, you know. You’re going to have to be on your guard.”

“It won’t be the first time.”

“Nevertheless.”

I shifted in my chair, watching the fire. I felt strangely ambivalent. I found that I didn’t care whether I was a target or not. A part of my mind knew that it was related to the ever-present hopeless feeling that was always there beneath the surface since Constance’s death. And I also realized that some part of me welcomed the fact that I was being hunted, as it might give me a legitimate opportunity to confront someone – anyone – and vent my anger. If that someone turned out to be a lunatic, so much the better.

Finally, to soothe Holmes’s apparent worry, I said, “The man is a coward. He won’t try anything face-to-face. He has to plant hidden bombs and send packages. I’ll simply be more careful to examine my mail before opening it.”

With a shake of his head, Holmes stood and wished me good night.

***

In the morning, I looked out and saw that the sky was clear, but not quite as bright as yesterday. It didn’t feel as cold either. I came downstairs to learn that Holmes had already gone, having left a note explaining that he had some things to arrange regarding the search for the fugitive Earl of Wardlaw and the missing idol. He pointedly did not warn me to be careful, but I knew that it was implicit. We both realized that Baron Meade was fully cognizant that his package hadn’t detonated, and that I was still alive.

When Mrs. Hudson came up later to clear the dishes, I warned her again regarding our latest enemy. Threats were nothing new for her, I’m afraid, but this latest variation, consisting of the delivery of an explosive device strong enough to raze the house, was. As always, she displayed her strong Scottish sensibility and refused to be terrorized or intimidated. Seeing her example, how could I offer anything less?

I set out in plenty of time to meet Dr. Withers, in order to sign the papers that would exchange my medical practice, and all the hopes that had been appended to it, for a sizeable payment. I would have traded it all and lived in penury for the chance to redeem Constance from her fate, but that was a foolish and unfulfillable wish. Since her death, I couldn’t stop imagining what might have been, which only led to a greater sense of suppressed anger. I didn’t know how to extricate myself from this cycle, and I felt that it was growing stronger. Holmes had tried to distract me with tales of old cases and adventures, and Mrs. Hudson had overwhelmed me with kindness and favorite foods. But still the feeling persisted.

It was with this on my mind, and my teeth gritted, that I stepped outside, looking from left to right, hoping to see Baron Meade lurking somewhere, so that I might discuss the little episode of yesterday’s “gift”. My fists curled involuntarily, but uselessly – as he was not there.

I hailed a hansom and set out for the offices of my solicitor, Mr. Marchmont, in Gray’s Inn. I looked forward to settling the business quickly, and then perhaps walking to the nearby Ships Tavern and having a pint of the Old Peculier, or maybe two, as a solitary toast to my broken plans.

But that plan, too, was destined to fail.

A taciturn secretary ushered me into the large room where Marchmont met with clients. The lawyer, a heavy-set middle-aged fellow, stepped forward, his chubby face wreathed in a smile, to wring my hand in both of his, while past him, I could see Dr. Withers rising in greeting.

Beside him, no surprise I suppose, was seated his daughter, Jenny.

There was no reason why she shouldn’t have been there, but again, there was no reason why she should have, either. I ought not to have been surprised. Her plans and future were as bound as those of her father to my old practice. It was to be her home as well, and I had the impression that she would be of some daily assistance in her father’s work, to one degree or another. Yet, I found myself somewhat irritated by her presence, and I didn’t know why.

Dr. Withers offered a hearty greeting, and Miss Withers nodded with a quieter but no less sincere, “Doctor.”

Marchmont settled me on one side of the table, across from the doctor and his daughter. The lawyer and a member of his staff placed themselves at one end, and with the two interested parties on each side, began to explain the several documents that were involved. His assistant kept them in order, passing and retrieving them as necessary to be signed by one or the other of us, or both. I found myself recalling a similar scene, just a bit over a year before, when I had attended the same sort of ceremony, but that time as the eager purchaser. Constance and I were not yet married then. In fact, she was still traveling from the United States with her mother. After the procedure was concluded, I had immediately taken myself off to Kensington and my new home, and had let myself into the empty building to wander about, somewhat in shock at my good fortune. The world had stretched before me, full of promise.

Now, all that I could see before me for certain was that I planned to have a pint at a nearby pub, and that a madman was trying to kill me.

My reveries were far more interesting than what was occurring in the office, and at one point, my attention had to be called back to the present when I was asked to turn over my key to Dr. Withers. “Oh, of course,” I said, pulling it from my pocket. The lawyer laughed and rubbed his hands, and then progressed to other legal pronouncements, as I again lost interest.

Then Marchmont was congratulating us, and asking if I wanted his office to take care of depositing so large a check at my bank. “Cox and Company?” he confirmed. I nodded.

As we all stood to leave, Dr. Withers said, “We must celebrate. And I have something I’d like to discuss with you, Doctor. Will you join us for lunch?”

My first reaction was to apologize and excuse myself. But I saw that Miss Withers was looking intently, as if she was as sincere as her father sounded. I thought one last time of my plan to walk to the Ships, and then let it sail away.

“Excellent,” said Dr. Withers. And he led us outside to find a cab.

If Miss Withers hadn’t been with us, we could certainly have walked, in spite of the cold. We drove south for only a few blocks before angling into Aldwych, and thus into the Strand. There was only time for a bit of polite conversation about the weather before we arrived at our destination, Simpson’s.

I knew that women were not allowed to join us, but I felt that my long association with the place would earn a blind eye from the staff – as it did. Long a favorite of both Holmes and myself, I was a regular patron of this historic restaurant. It was often the chosen setting to celebrate the conclusion of a particularly difficult case, or simply the obvious destination if one wanted a good bit of roast beef. I should have felt some relief in that it had never been a favorite of my wife’s, as she hadn’t ever warmed to British cooking, and thus dining here would hold no memories of her. However, the fact that she had simply expressed an opinion about the place, even a negative one, was still enough of an association that thoughts of her flooded into my mind.

Understanding the doctor’s kind offer, I pushed aside my feelings and resolved to devote myself completely to being a gracious guest. Still, I couldn’t help but observe the prominent mourning band on my own sleeve as I raised my arm and reached out to assist Miss Withers as she stepped down from the cab.

Inside, we were led up to the first floor dining room that looked out over the busy street. It was comfortably lit, with the high north-facing windows illuminating the room without overwhelming it. I suspected that at certain times of the year, the afternoon sun would painfully reflect off the glass across the street. The same thing happened during summer mornings in Baker Street.

The food, as usual, was excellent, and the company quite companionable. We each opted for the famous roast beef, traditionally cut for us at the table from a distinctive rolling cart. The doctor and I had a Yorkshire Pudding with our beef and vegetables, but Miss Withers opted to avoid it. Conversation ranged from doings in Portsmouth versus London, individuals that we knew in common, and polite questions regarding my association with Holmes. Neither seemed to be either very aware or interested in his investigations, which was something of an unusual relief. There was also a pointed avoidance of my recent bereavement.

Dr. Withers related how he had come to injure his leg, explaining the limp that I had noticed the day before when he descended the stairway. “It was in early September of ’72, and my unit was in Honduras. Things had been tense for several years, ever since the Icaiche Mayas, who controlled the jungles in the lower peninsula, had occupied Corozal Town a couple of years earlier. I had only been at my post a little over two weeks when they attacked Orange Walk Town, resulting in a retaliatory raid.

“It should have gone like clock-work. We had incendiary devices that would fire through the air, allowing us to burn the natives out of their houses while staying well back from any return fire. They were thunderstruck, and quickly surrendered. They lost the taste for the fight and overthrew their leader, a surly chap named Canul, who had been in charge for several years by then.

“But there were still a few pockets of resistance, and I was attached with a group making a routine sweep when we encountered one of them. Some unexpected shots wounded one of our commanders, not fatally as it turned out, but as I was treating him, a bullet entered my leg from behind, subsequently exiting from the front with a chip of my knee-cap along with it.

“Miraculously, there was no more serious damage, and I healed rather quickly. Over the years, it hasn’t really given me any difficulties, except when descending stairs, or during cold weather, like we’ve had for the past few days.”

“Father was sent home to recuperate,” added Miss Withers, “and while he was here, mother passed away.”

Dr. Withers nodded. “She came down with a fever, and as I was flat on my back recuperating, I was unable to assist in her treatment.” He added, in a softer voice, “I couldn’t spend any time with her at all at the end.”

Miss Withers laid her hand upon her father’s. “She knew how you felt.”

Conversation faltered at this point, and nothing more was said until the waiter returned to ask if we needed anything else. The doctor requested pudding and coffee, and in spite of the fact that I felt quite full indeed, I joined him.

As we were finishing the last bites, talk turned to the practice itself, as Dr. Withers picked my brain regarding certain patients, and which of those he might expect to retain following the transfer of ownership. Of course, as part of the purchase process, he had been given access to various documents, including patient records, in order to determine the viability of the operation. He was excited to obtain the lease to the building because of its excellent location, but in acquiring the practice, he was also paying for something much more ephemeral, for there was no guarantee that the clients that I had worked to earn would stay with him.

Some patients would naturally leave for different physicians, while others would remain, either out of habit, or simply to give him a try. Certainly, he would take on new clients who had shown no earlier interest in seeking my advice, and eventually, if he worked hard and proved to be a good doctor, as he seemed to be, the practice would continue successfully, and would even grow. But he still wanted my opinion to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

“It is related to that,” he said, “that I wished to discuss something else with you.” He cleared his throat and continued. “I – that is to say, we – realize that your loss was very recent.”

His mention of something that had been approached indirectly but tacitly avoided so far throughout the conversation surprised me a bit. I saw that Miss Withers was watching me intently, and I nodded noncommittally, a reaction that could mean anything.

“We understand your desire to divest yourself of any painful connections to your former home and practice. I must admit that I felt the same way when my wife died. Newly widowed, I chose to leave the Army in order to raise Jenny. I couldn’t bear to stay in that house where we had all lived, as every aspect of it reminded me somehow of my wife. The furniture we had picked together – each piece suggested a memory or story to me. The wallpaper, unnoticed by others, reminded me of the decisions she had made to select it. Eventually, I did what you are doing, and sold out and moved to a new location.

“Now obviously, as the purchaser of your old practice, I cannot turn around and tell you that you’ve made a mistake. I understand what you’ve done, and why. But I can tell you that starting over somewhere else is going to be a lot of work, should that be your plan. From what I’ve seen, and from the records that I’ve examined, you are a good doctor. A man of good character as well. And even if you plan on stepping away from a practice altogether, I must urge you not to completely sever your ties from what you’ve accomplished.”

I believed I understood the direction he was taking. “Are you asking what I think you are? For me to maintain a connection with the practice?”

He nodded, looking relieved that it was now out in the open. “I am. I know that there is a natural tendency for a man in your situation to withdraw for a time. I felt it myself. But, knowing what I know now, I believe that it is the incorrect path. You should work through it, and keep moving forward, and avoid losing the professional momentum that you have attained. If you allow yourself to roll to a complete stop, every day afterward will be that much more difficult in terms of breaking yourself loose again, and inertia will own you.

“You know this practice,” he said, leaning forward intently, “and you know these patients. You will not have to learn anything new by remaining involved in their care, and quite frankly it would be of benefit to me as well, in order to ease the transition. I’m not asking that you continue to be associated on a full-time basis. Rather, you will act as a consultant, assisting part-time as you wish and as needed. You can still work in the hospitals, or as a locum for someone else, even fulfilling that function for me as well. You might even have time to assist Mr. Holmes on the occasional investigation, as you have done before.”

He leaned back before concluding, “Well, I hope you’ll consider the idea. Work is the best antidote to sorrow.”

My eyes widened slightly at that. It was what Holmes had told me regularly, beginning right after I had returned to Baker Street.

“I, too, hope you’ll be joining us, Dr. Watson,” added Miss Withers, touching my arm gently while putting a different emphasis on the word hope than her father had done.

I kept myself from looking down at her fingers, resting upon my sleeve. I nodded to move past the conversation, merely meaning that I would consider the offer, and not realizing then that what I was doing might be construed as a tentative agreement of sorts. But even as I was shaken by the idea, I knew that I had no intention of accepting it. In my mind, my life in Kensington was now a closed book. Today’s sale of the house and associated medical accoutrements and appurtenances had been absolute. If I had wanted to maintain a connection with the place, I wouldn’t have divested myself of it so quickly.

Clearing my throat, I thanked them for both the consideration, and for lunch. “Most appreciated,” I added.

We made motions of conclusion, and the waiter approached. Dr. Withers settled up, and we went down to the lobby. Retrieving our overcoats, we helped each other get prepared to return to the cold outside. As we started to walk toward the door, Miss Withers said, “One moment, Doctor,” and touched my arm again. She left her hand in place.

Her father noticed, smiled almost knowingly, and said, “I’ll secure our cab, my dear.”

As he passed on through the great revolving door, Miss Withers took a step to the side, placing herself in front of me. “We are quite serious, Dr. Watson,” she said. “About wishing for you to join us.” She moved her gloved hand upwards to brush the mourning band. “I understand how you feel, and know that it has only been a few weeks since your loss. But you are so much like my father, and watching him come to terms with my own mother’s death taught me that pushing past it is the only sure way.”

I started to speak, feeling that there were numerous unspoken implications hidden within her words. Before I could frame a response, however, she continued, “Growing up as I have has let me understand that clinging to the past can be like finding oneself trapped in quicksand. Refusing to move on, and also worrying too much about what society requires of us, can be such a terrible thing. Day-to-day conventionality is the same sort of trap.” She lowered her eyes, and then said, without looking up, “I’m sure you understand.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could not speak. I began to suspect what she was implying.

Misunderstanding my confusion, she gave a small knowing smile. “You are so like my father,” she repeated. “He told me that this would be your reaction, and he tried to prevent me from broaching the subject too soon. But I have always been strong-willed, as you will come to know, and I do get what I want. I know how to get it, and I’m not afraid to do the things that need to be done.” She placed her hand directly onto my mourning band and squeezed. “I know you think it’s too soon, and possibly it is too soon, but really, that mindset is just another conventional snare. I suspect that – ”

But while I thought that I knew, I was not to learn for sure what it was that she suspected, as the unmistakable sound of gunfire erupting in the street interrupted her further declarations.

Chapter X: Field Medicine

I rushed out of Simpson’s to discover Dr. Withers, lying in a crumpled heap near the street. Although it had only taken seconds to exit the building and reach him, there was already a pool of blood widening underneath his left shoulder.

I came to an abrupt stop as I saw who was standing just beyond him, a smoking gun hanging from his right hand. The screams of nearby women receded into a dull roar as my eyes met those of Baron Meade.

His gaze had lifted from the wounded doctor, and when he first saw me, he showed no signs of recognition. Then a look of amazed surprise spread across his face as he realized that I was standing before him, and not lying wounded on the pavement. I instinctively understood that he had been waiting for me to leave the restaurant, having known I was there. He must have been following me all morning, as he undoubtedly had the day before, when I had sensed that someone was watching me.

He would have known that his plot to bomb our rooms in Baker Street had failed. Surprisingly, he had decided to try something more direct. But waiting outside in the cold and anticipating his chance to take his vengeance for such a long period while we dawdled over our meal had made him careless. When Dr. Withers stepped out of the restaurant, the Baron had seen someone who had a strong resemblance to myself, and had jumped the gun, firing at the wrong man. Now, his confusion was obvious, as he found himself in the presence of what he must have believed to be two Watsons, one wounded or dead on the ground before him, but the other one – the correct one – alive, and willing, nay anxious, to fight. Even as I wondered to myself if there was a constable anywhere near, I launched myself toward the would-be killer.

He tried to raise the gun, but I swung my stick around as I ran, completing its arc on the Baron’s wrist. The strong wood, loaded with extra weight as a precaution learned long ago after aiding Holmes in his investigations, came to a satisfying stop as its momentum was arrested by the bones of Baron Meade’s arm, and the gun dropped from his lifeless hand. Before he could utter a cry, or prepare himself further, I slammed into him with my propelled weight, forcing him over backwards.

I grimaced as the impact jarred my teeth, and a shooting pain raced through my long-ago wounded shoulder. It never even occurred to me that my own gun was in my coat pocket, and I doubted that the mere threat of “Stop or I’ll shoot!” would have made any difference at all.

I felt my grip loosen on my stick, but rather than try to retrieve it, I let go and then curled my hand into a fist, swinging and catching the Baron on the jaw. There was a roar in my ears as I looked at this criminal, a man willing to indiscriminately take the lives of others as a recompense against his own loss, and at that moment I illogically associated him with the random unfairness that had taken my wife before her time. Just then, he represented everything that had caused me such terrible pain for the last few weeks, and I quite simply wanted to beat him with my fists until the rage that had been building inside me was gone and he was a pulp of shapeless meat, Hippocratic Oath be d----d.

With the prone figure laid out before me, I didn’t want to avenge Dr. Withers, or punish Baron Meade for his attempt to set off an explosion that might have killed hundreds. I simply didn’t know what else to do with my constant anger. It was always lurking just beneath the surface, and this man’s earlier plans to injure so many innocents, and this present attack on another undeserving victim when he stupidly believed he was attacking me, was enough to ignite the flame that I had tried to ignore.

Yet, as I braced myself to strike him once again, my foot slipped in the spreading puddle of blood, jamming backwards into the wounded doctor’s side. He didn’t make a sound as my foot kicked him, and a part of me was grateful that he was in his heavy coat, which might have just protected him from obtaining several broken ribs – provided that he was still alive.

I regained my footing and lurched forward, attempting to grab the Baron’s coat as he also stood. Part of me remembered just a few nights earlier, when I had held on so tightly to this very same coat as he had attempted to escape from the explosive-filled house following the disruption of his terrible plan. On this occasion, however, my fingers could not find a grip.

Baron Meade was torn between his desire to stand and fight me, and a cowardly urge to flee. He took a step back, and my tentative hold on his coat was lost. I reached blindly, and my fingers rasped against his face. I could feel that he had not shaved in days, likely since his earlier escape. He cursed and turned, but I managed to hook my fingers on the collar of his coat, yanking him backwards. I pulled him to me, and with my other hand, I began to piston a fist into the area of his kidneys. However, it wasn’t doing any good, as all of my blows were completely negated by the heavy fabric of the garment.

He pivoted on one foot, and my hand, still grasping his collar, was twisted painfully, while my entire arm was curled into a position around his neck, seeming as if we were entering an unholy embrace. I could see his face, very close now, and his teeth were clenched in rage. His breath was foul, and his eyes were bloodshot. He had several old bruises on his skin, no doubt caused by me the other night.

With a cry of rage, he pushed at me twice, and then raised his arms in a whipping motion, breaking free from my grip on his collar. “Don’t you understand?” he screamed. “They killed my son, and they have to pay! Why are you helping them against me?” He then lurched backwards for a step or two while I regained my balance, wincing at the fresh pain in my arm. Before I could recover, he turned and dashed down the Strand toward Trafalgar Square.

“Where is the constable?” I thought to myself. For a fleeting instant, it crossed my mind that the Baron possibly felt the same helpless anger and pain that I did, with the death of his son haunting him every day, but on a much greater and more destructive scale. I pushed the feeling aside, rationalizing that while I wanted to punish this one man who had just committed a murderous attack, Baron Meade wanted to kill hundreds who had never even heard of him, and who deserved none of his misplaced vengeance.

I remembered the gun in my pocket only then, but even as I reached for it, I knew that the fugitive would be beyond range before I could retrieve it. If I fired in frustration, I would likely hit a pedestrian, or send a stray bullet through one of the many windows looking down on the street. My only choice was to chase after him.

As I moved to pursue, and had only taken a few faltering steps, I heard a voice scream behind me, “Doctor!”

I stopped, watching the Baron dart this way and that through the mid-day crowds, like a deer cutting between bushes before reaching the safety of the trees. Turning to see who had called for me, and realizing vaguely that the voice sounded familiar, I saw Miss Withers, on her knees beside the wounded man, her own coat now soaking up her father’s blood.

“Father needs your help!” she cried urgently. I was frozen. Her words made perfect sense, but they didn’t seem to connect. I wanted to run down the Baron. Didn’t she understand that he was getting away? I realized my hands were clenched into fists, so tightly that pain was shooting up my arms.

“Doctor Watson!” she said again, this time with an edge to it. Commanding. “Do your duty as a physician!”

That reached me. I was a doctor. It was my obligation and covenant to treat the sick and injured. But I wanted nothing more in that moment than to injure rather than to heal. And yet, despite what I felt, my feet began to propel me in uneven steps toward the fallen man.

Dropping to my knees on the other side of the figure from where his daughter rested, I reached out carefully and determined that he still had a strong pulse. I couldn’t see the wound, and was considering the best way to turn him, when a voice interrupted.

“Here, now, what’s this?” Looking up, I saw the silhouette of a man wearing the distinctive helmet of a bobby, shadowed in the early afternoon sunlight behind him. I didn’t recognize him, but he apparently knew me. “Why, Dr. Watson!” he said. “What has happened?”

Rather than try to explain the nuances of the incident, I stated concisely, “This man was shot by a fugitive wanted by the Yard. Baron Meade. I attempted to stop him, but he just ran off toward Charing Cross Station. I’ll attend to the wounded man. You try to stop the fugitive.”

“How will I know him?”

“Middle aged. Dissipated. Dark thinning hair, heavy tweed coat. Looks as if he’s been in a fight, probably out of breath and acting suspicious. Be careful.” I noticed Baron Meade’s gun, which appeared to be a .22 caliber target pistol, still on the pavement. “He dropped that, but he may still be armed.”

“Right,” said the constable, leaving the gun and turning to lope off toward the west. Say what he would to criticize the official police, even Holmes was always willing to praise the bravery of the men who served on the Force. This time it was no different. As Constable Rawlins, for I now remembered who he was, turned without question to pursue a man willing to kill, carrying nothing more than his truncheon, his fists, and his number twelve boots, I could only admire him. I knew that it was nearly impossible that he would capture the Baron, or even overtake him, but it was still the best that could be done, an honest effort made by a good man.

As Rawlins’ boot-steps faded away, I could hear that he had pulled his whistle from his pocket, using it fiercely while he ran. Perhaps, if others became involved in the chase as well, there might be a chance that Baron Meade would be captured, although I remained doubtful.

Dr. Withers groaned and moved an arm, as if he were trying to gain leverage to turn himself over. Letting him know in a soft but clear voice that we were going to take care of him, I helped him to shift, so that he was lying on his back. Still not knowing how seriously he was wounded, I wanted to make sure that any movements didn’t make things worse. As the doctor sighed and settled back with his eyes closed, a man standing nearby stepped forward and placed a folded garment underneath the victim’s head. I saw without looking up that it was one of the distinctive coats used by the Simpson’s doormen.

Dr. Withers opened his eyes then, but he was clearly not yet entirely conscious. I pulled aside his coat as gently as possible, causing him to vent an involuntary cry. I tried to set aside my queasy recognition that he had been wounded in same general area that I had been at Maiwand. But this was different. The ragged projectile that had damaged my subclavian artery was fired from a Jezail rifle, and very unlike a .22 revolver bullet. It did not seem as if there was nearly much injury to the tissue here as what I had endured.

Dr. Withers’ shirt around his left shoulder was soaked in blood, and an initial examination showed that there was a bullet entry wound somewhere below where the trapezius muscle wound up and over his shoulder and the through the arch of the collar bone. Pulling back his coat further, I saw no blood pooling near the shoulder blade, or even staining the back of the shirt, indicating that the bullet was still inside him somewhere. Luckily, this meant that there was no ragged exit wound, with the terrible damage that would have been associated with it.

I feared that the bullet might have been deflected in some way, and thus traveled along a deeper path into his body, but feeling along the top of his shoulder through his shirt soon revealed an unnatural lump, which was almost certainly the bullet resting there, just beneath the skin. Most likely, the impact as the projectile went through the collar bone had been enough to slow its momentum, preventing it from exiting the body. The doctor was most fortunate. An exit wound have been much messier and larger than an entry wound, and even though this meant a painful recovery, especially while dealing with the shattered bone, he would not have to be probed in order to find the bullet in some other part of his body. The threat of infection still existed, but with proper care, he would most likely make a full recovery.

I pulled my handkerchief from my pocket and placed pressure on the wound. I was pleased to see that the bleeding already seemed to be stopping on its own. I realized that Miss Withers had been speaking. At first I had ignored it, thinking she was comforting her father. But then I understood that she was addressing me. “Dr. Watson,” she said, with some force to get my attention, “will he be all right?”

“Yes, I believe so.” I explained to her about the bullet’s path, and how the object would be easily recovered. “It could have been much worse.”

Her lips tightened, and she seemed to be trying not to speak. However, what she wanted to say would not be suppressed. “It certainly would have been much worse indeed, if you had persisted in running off after that man.”

“But… he had just shot your father,” I tried to explain defensively.

“You are a doctor,” she hissed. “Your duty is to the injured.”

“You don’t understand,” I explained. “The Baron intended for me to be the victim…” I trailed off, seeing a sudden confusion cross her face.

“What do you mean?”

“The man. His name is Baron Meade. Holmes and I stopped him the other night from a plot to blow up half of – well, a plot to use a bomb. He escaped, and now he apparently blames me for what happened. He left another bomb for me last night in Baker Street, and now – ”

A look of horror spread from her eyes outward. I thought that it related to what the Baron had done, but instead, she said, “My father was shot because this man thought that he was you? Because of something that you had done, relating to one of those investigations?” She said the last word as if it were filthy and unmentionable.

I nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

She started to speak again, but pursed her lips when Dr. Withers groaned then and reached up, grasping my forearm. “Dr. Watson,” he said. “What happened?”

“You have been shot through the left collar bone,” I said, speaking clearly and simply so that he would understand. It was the same as I had done so many times before on the battlefields, and how my own wounds had been explained to me when I had finally reached the Base Hospital at Peshawar. “The bullet is still inside you, lodged underneath the skin, high above your shoulder blade.” I eased the pressure on the wound and lifted the handkerchief. Other than minor seepage, the bleeding appeared to have been controlled. I knew, however, that we would need to be careful when shifting him to an ambulance so that the bullet’s entry wasn’t reopened.

Miss Withers stroked her father’s brow, but didn’t look up or speak to me. “Miss Withers,” I began, not sure of what I wanted to say, but unwilling to end the discussion. I felt the need to explain further, but at that moment, a constable pushed his way through the crowd that had formed around us, stopping beside me. I didn’t look up, but noticed the solid stance of his regulation boots as he stated, “Dr. Watson, I’ve summoned an ambulance. Rawlins sent me back to tell you that Baron Meade got away. He first cut down toward the Embankment, but then circled back and got into Charing Cross, where he made it onto a train. We’ve sent out word to be on the lookout for him, but he’ll have changed trains or gone somewhere else on foot before we can trap him, unless we’re just lucky.”

I thanked the man, and then helped to load Dr. Withers into the ambulance, which arrived at that moment. I ordered the driver to take us to Charing Cross Hospital, just down the street in the direction of Trafalgar Square. Miss Withers rode with us, but continued to whisper to her father, never deigning to look my way. I felt as if I should apologize, having inadvertently allowed my own difficulties to result in the mistaken attack on her father. But I didn’t know quite what to say, and she clearly didn’t want to hear it right now.

At the hospital, I succinctly explained the situation to the surgeon on duty, and helped to get Dr. Withers stabilized. The patient was conscious but somewhat confused, and after he was given morphine in preparation for the extraction of the bullet, he quickly fell asleep. I felt that there was nothing else that I could provide.

I walked out into the hallway, where Miss Withers was waiting, sitting alone on a cold chair, her coat pulled tightly around her, her father’s blood still staining it and the dress underneath. I related again the basic facts of her father’s condition, and what was now being done to remove the bullet. She nodded, stating with a cold expression, “I have assisted my father before, Doctor, in medical procedures. I’m aware of what is involved.”

Once more, I felt the need to add something that would elaborate upon all that she did not know or understand, and also to apologize for the way that she and her father had been pulled into my problems. “Miss Withers…” I began.

“Thank you for your help, Doctor Watson,” she interrupted, without looking up, her voice flat and cold. “As I’m sure you can understand, I would really prefer to be alone now, until I can see my father.”

“Is there anything that I can – ?” She shook her head, decisively.

Clearly she had nothing more to say to me, and I could only envision that any further attempt on my part to elucidate upon the facts of the matter would simply result in fumbling awkwardness. Choosing a different path, I told her that I would check back on her father tomorrow, and that if she needed anything from me to please let me know. Then, bowing my head, I departed.

Chapter XI: A Baker Street Conversation

I returned to Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson sensed my mood and offered to make some tea, but I wanted something stronger. Settling into my chair with a glass of whisky, I allowed myself to relive the events of the day. The visit to Marchmont’s offices, the lunch at Simpson’s – which was initially more pleasant than I would have expected. The following conversation in which Jenny Withers reemphasized her father’s offer, along with the implication of a second more subtle consideration for my future, and then the gunfire from the street and everything that followed.

I was unsettled, wishing to both venture forth and roam the streets looking for Baron Meade, and also to stay inside and while away the day until there was no time left to go anywhere. If I went out, I would have no idea where to search. The only way I might find the man, other than some infinitesimal chance encounter, would be to hope that he was already back on station, watching for me as he had undoubtedly been doing for the few days, waiting for another chance to kill me. I swirled the whisky in my glass, looking at it and considering the afternoon light visible from the windows beyond. It was a foolhardy thought, but part of me wanted to walk outside and attract his attention in order to lure him to me.

That part, the man who had lost his wife just weeks before, did not care about his own safety. But I found that another part still did, although when I asked myself why, I couldn’t provide any satisfactory answer.

I was still having these thoughts when I heard the front door open. It was immediately obvious that Holmes had returned. He bounded up the steps in one of his fits of enthusiastic energy, singing something that I recognized from Verdi’s Otelo, which had premiered in London nearly a year earlier. I was certainly not an opera enthusiast, but Constance and I had attended a London staging at the invitation of friends, and I recalled this theme clearly, as it was repeated several times throughout the performance, before appearing ominously at the end, altered into a darker and maddened jealous heartbeat when Desdemona is strangled. I wasn’t aware that Holmes had seen the opera or knew of the song, and I thought it an odd choice to sing when one was in an apparently ebullient state of mind.

He opened the door and, seeing me, threw a greeting my way while placing a heavy black leather case along the wall behind the door. Then he divested himself of his Inverness and matching ear-flapped traveling cap. Hanging them, he poured himself a brandy and joined me by the fire.

He immediately registered my mood, and his enthusiastic mien vanished in an instant. “My dear Watson,” he said. “What has happened?”

“How do you know that anything has happened?” I asked peevishly. “Might I just be despondent over recent circumstances? I did, after all, spend the morning divesting myself of a medical practice that I worked for over a year to build, all in the hopes of…” I fell silent.

Holmes cast his eyes down. “Your shoe tips are scuffed and the knees of your trousers are unusually and newly worn, as if you’ve been recently crouching on pavement. Your knuckles are freshly scuffed, indicating a fist fight. And most telling of all, there is quite a bit of dried blood on the cuff of your right sleeve. It isn’t difficult. Something has happened.”

I glanced at my arm and saw that he was right, but I felt no need to immediately change my shirt. The stain was like a badge, reminding me of what had happened. “I’m tempted to mention that there was really nothing to those observations at all, as even I would have been able to notice those signs on my own person, if I had bothered to look.” I paused to take a swallow, noting that I had barely consumed hardly any of the whisky since pouring it. Rather, I had sat in thought, merely holding and tipping it back and forth in the dying light from the windows. A glance at the clock showed that it was later than I had realized. “Suffice it to say, I had an interesting afternoon,” I said, “but I’d rather hear first about what made you so happy while running up the stairs.”

He could see that I had no intention of explaining any more before he told his story, so he began. “I have spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon researching aspects of Ian’s background. I began by conferring with various specialized individuals within the government who are aware of the idol, and the threat that it represents. I learned that they have kept regular tabs on it at the Museum, as mentioned by Williams. They were not, however, aware that the Earl had made a substitution and was concealing the real thing in the hidden vault in Essex.

“I then had a meeting with Sir Quintin Havershill at the Museum. He wasn’t a great deal of help, as he had passed the years between the time the substitution was made and now happily believing that the object in the locked chamber was the real thing. He indicated that the responsibility for it rested with Williams, the murdered man, and no one else, so there isn’t another soul that can provide any more useful information. Williams had been with the Museum since the early ‘70’s, obtaining his post straight out of University. He was a quiet man, not given to mixing with his coworkers. He was moderately ambitious, but had refused several upward promotions into other areas, instead remaining at his same level within a sub-department of his discipline, indicating that he would prefer to rise in that area instead of obtaining some easier advancement in another department.”

“That isn’t necessarily an unusual desire to have,” I said. “Perhaps he was more comfortable with his one certain area of expertise.”

“Possibly, if that were the only consideration. But I was able, in the company of Inspector Gregson, to examine Williams’s lodgings in nearby Coram Street. They were quite modest, but he had a small art collection of his own, with several original pieces that would seem to far outstrip his regular wages.”

“Purchased through funds received by a legacy, perhaps?”

“Ah, Watson, you are asking the right questions, but they have already been answered. I cannot impress you enough regarding the concern that the missing idol has caused at the highest levels. When the officials are moved to act, they can accomplish great things very quickly. An examination of Williams’s financial dealings, instigated with great urgency and efficiency by these events, revealed no inheritances that might have accounted for this private collection. But we did learn of the dead man’s bank account, which currently holds a balance of something over £30,000.”

“Good heavens!” I cried, sitting up a little straighter in my seat. “On a Museum employee’s salary? Are you certain that such a sum didn’t come from a rich relative? How could he possibly have saved that much?”

“Because,” replied Holmes, “he was receiving a generous monthly stipend in addition to his modest salary, and had been since 1878. Very soon, in fact, after the statue was first stolen from the Museum by the mysterious John Goins. And who do you think was providing Williams with these funds?”

I began to dimly follow what Holmes was driving at. “Surely it must have been from Ian Finch, the Earl of Wardlaw.”

Holmes slapped the arm of his chair. “Exactly. Ian seems to have conceived the plan of substituting the idol soon after his father arranged to have it loaned to the Museum. Knowing that Williams would be in direct charge of it, Ian bought his servitude. This explains Williams’s reluctance to take a promotion into a different sub-department. He was ambitious enough, but only wanted to rise in a position where he would still receive the extra money and have control over the storage of the sculpture.”

“And to report if or when the substitution was ever discovered,” I added. “That explains why he was so quick to leave yesterday, when he realized that you had spotted it. His first action was to notify his secret employer, the Earl, who then killed him.”

“Oh, Ian didn’t kill Williams, Watson. Did I leave you with that conclusion?”

“What? But surely – ”

“No, there is no doubt that Ian is on the run with the idol, but it is more complicated than that. The murder was committed by that odd little butler, Dawson.”

“When did you decide on this?”

“Yesterday, when we found the body. The angle of the wound into the base of Williams’s skull is clearly from a man much shorter than Ian. In addition, the footprints on the vault floor indicate that it was only Dawson who ever approached the body. Ian wears a much larger shoe, and there were no fresh prints of that size anywhere nearby.”

“But surely he must have gone into his own vault at some point in the past?”

“Of course he did, as evidenced by the older larger prints near the door of the vault. Indications are that he entered regularly, no doubt to meditate with his idol. But as it was kept near the front of the vault, he had no reason to venture any deeper. None of the Earl’s prints extended into the back where the body lay.”

“Then was the Earl even present at the time of the crime?”

“He may or may not have been there at that precise moment, but his footprints were certainly intermingled with those of Dawson at the front of the vault at nearly the same time. They overlap one another quite a bit.”

“But why would Dawson kill Williams?”

“Who knows? Orders? An impulse? Protecting his master? Something to do with his own agenda? To be certain, I’ve made sure that the police will continue to keep him under lock and key, although without letting him know that his true actions have been discovered.”

Holmes went on to explain that, after he had made sure that Dawson would be held locally, the government’s concern had led to the transfer of the butler to London the previous night from the village jail where he was being incarcerated, pending further investigation into the facts of Williams’s murder. “He has been given to understand that we still believe his assertion that Ian committed the crime. The charge right now is simple association with the killing, so that we don’t tip our hand about how much we know, to either Dawson or anyone else that might be connected to these events.

“I met with the man myself early this morning, without letting him know that I knew the truth, and he could really offer very little that was any more substantial than what we heard from him yesterday. He did explain in greater detail about how Ian had caused a replica of the statue to be made years ago, even before his father, the Earl at the time, had fully arranged for it to be transferred into the Museum’s keeping. He recalled the name of the craftsman hired to create the replica – Hayes, in Church Street in Stepney.

“I made a trip to Hayes’ shop earlier this afternoon, but I learned nothing except confirmation that the counterfeit had indeed been made during the period indicated by Dawson, and some specifics about the materials used. Hayes did his best to replicate the marble from the original, but it seems as if Ian was frustrated that he couldn’t make it even more precise. Still, it seemed as if Ian realized he couldn’t do any better, and in the end he accepted possession of the false idol. Obviously, Hayes was told nothing about what was to be done with it. And knowing all of this really adds nothing to the case, other than verifying the assorted facts.”

He gestured toward the black case that he had set by the door upon returning. “If we need a better idea of how it looks, we can examine the copy whenever we want.”

“What?” I asked, half-rising. “You have it here?”

“I do. I intend to hide it here for the time being. It was accomplishing nothing, locked as it was in the Museum’s vault. Ian knows he has the true idol. The people who seek to find it will either believe it still rests in the Museum – since the vault where it was supposedly kept remains inaccessible, whether or not an idol is actually in it – or they will become alerted somehow that Ian is on the run with it.”

“But why bring the false idol here?”

“I have a little idea about a way that it might be useful.”

“As a decoy, perhaps?”

“Perhaps – if word gets out that the carving is once again obtainable by those that would use it. Right now I’m not sure that is the wisest path. The search for the real idol must be discreet, and we must play our cards carefully. It was naively suggested to me, for instance, by a youngster at the Foreign Office, that we could take photos of the counterfeit, since it looks enough like the real thing, and make advertisements to help locate the authentic article. He had neglected to consider that, if one hands out flyers to every constable on the beat, word will inevitably get out even faster that the statue is on the move, if it hasn’t already, and that is what we are trying to prevent. So far, it’s just possible that the watchers who are looking to liberate it – and you can be sure that they have never stopped looking, Watson – may still believe it is locked in the Museum vault. Therefore, we must find Ian before he mistakenly reveals the true idol and starts a war.

“The only other information of value that Dawson could provide was about some of Ian’s habits of late. It seems that he lived as one might expect of someone in his situation, an individual with wastrel tendencies, and a second son as well, elevated unexpectedly to a better position in life than he had ever anticipated. Following the death of his father in 1879, he divided his time between Essex and the Wellington Square house in London. He seemed to have a regular and steady series of notable financial successes in whatever he touched, through no great skill of his own, and he was quite forthcoming to Dawson, who held his full confidence, that he privately attributed these achievements to the possession of the idol, which he venerated as an object of power.

“However, several months ago, he seemed to change, becoming upset at the slightest provocation, drinking more and sleeping less, and generally giving all the appearances of someone who was constantly in an agitated state. He saw enemies everywhere, stopped traveling to London, closed the Wellington Square residence, and instead became almost a hermit in the Essex house. Dawson isn’t sure why, as he is not aware of any specific occurrence that could have caused the change, but he feels that the lifestyle that Ian was leading was finally catching up to him. He became more and more obsessed with the fetish, fearing to be too far away from it for any length of time, and terrified that it would be discovered and stolen. He stopped attending social functions, and ceased welcoming any visitors as well, with the exception of one man, whom Dawson simply identified as ‘Sir Edward’.”

“Sir Edward? Did you find out who that is?”

“Yes. After Dawson mentioned his name, he seemed to regret it, and afterwards steered the conversation in a different direction whenever I attempted to learn more. It took me the better part of an hour to track down that he is actually Sir Edward Malloy, recently knighted over his successful trade negotiations with something involving North Africa.”

“Malloy. One of the names of the men who were with the Earl when he found the idol.”

“Exactly. The same man.”

“If he’s the only man to have remained in contact with the Earl after other social encounters ceased, he may have some insight as to what is going on.”

“More importantly, he might be able to tell us how to find Ian, so that the idol can be returned to safe-keeping before terrible events are set into motion.”

“Did you try to speak to Sir Edward?”

“I went to his home in Mayfair early this afternoon, but was told that he is unavailable. I was prepared to depart and obtain the full clout of the government behind me in order to gain entrance, but before I needed to do so, his man further informed me that I would be welcomed at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” Holmes turned up his glass and finished the last sips of his brandy before setting it on the small table beside his chair. “And so the incident stands. The authorities are quietly looking for Ian, and I have also spread the word through less official channels, and also to watch for Baron Meade as well. However, I don’t expect much immediate success for them in terms of my old acquaintance, as Ian has no doubt burrowed into some hidey-hole that he has long prepared for just this eventuality.

“By the way,” Holmes continued, crossing his legs, “I confirmed that Ian’s man Harbottle is staying at the Wellington Square house, and that he was the one who overheard us through the door yesterday before passing on the information to Ian in Essex. He’s been at that house for several decades, since it was owned by Ian’s father. He has been questioned, and could provide no other information. He was simply following instructions, as he had been told to keep the door closed, make the place appear deserted, and report on anything that seemed important. He has been removed to a place of safekeeping, and replaced by a government man, in case Ian shows up there. I don’t foresee him attempting to return to Wellington Square, as that would be too obvious, but if he should, he will be taken.

“And equally obvious is the fact that my efforts to keep an eye out for the Baron have been unsuccessful as well.” He gestured toward my damaged clothing, pivoting to a new subject. “I take it that there was another attack.”

Briefly, I explained how, following our meal at Simpson’s, Dr. Withers was shot by Baron Meade, who believed that he was shooting at me. “The doctor will make a full recovery, provided no infection sets in,” I said. “But Holmes…” I looked at the glass of whisky, still essentially untouched, and realized that I didn’t want it in the least. I set it down beside me.

“Holmes,” I began again, “I understand the need to find the Earl and his idol. No one knows more clearly than I do the destruction that a war such as you describe would cause. I saw something of the sort at Maiwand. The savagery… the butchery. And the women… they were worse than the men. The soldiers that fell into the paths of those women during the retreat – It was… it was simply too awful. Should a spark ignite and spread, across all those unprepared towns and cities, the families who only want to live in peace – it simply cannot be allowed to happen.”

He started to speak, but I waved him to silence. “I understand all of that, and will help in any way possible. But my first duty must now be to find and stop the Baron. He has made this personal, for no reason that I can understand. He attacked Dr. Withers, just because the man has a slight resemblance to me, and if things had worked out differently, he might have injured or killed the doctor’s daughter as well. Or other bystanders on the street. They didn’t deserve any of this. It only fell upon them because of a temporary association with me.”

Again, Holmes started to say something, no doubt to logically refute my self-blame, but I cut him off, speaking more quickly now. “It could have been Mrs. Hudson yesterday if that package had detonated. Or you. I couldn’t bear that. You are… you are both…” I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t bring myself to say that they were the only family that I had left.

Instead, I cleared my throat and continued, “Or he might decide to do something worse, and some other innocent might become a collateral target as well.”

“And certainly if he remains uncaught,” agreed Holmes, “he will no doubt quickly attempt to repeat what he nearly accomplished the other night, with that unholy houseful of explosives, injuring countless innocents.”

“Perhaps the only reason that he hasn’t done so already is that, in his madness, he has shifted his anger to me.”

“That,” said my friend, “is something else to consider.”

I nodded. We were quiet with our thoughts, and the various implications of the attacks on me. “But that isn’t the only consideration,” I finally said. “I also realized it today when he and I were fighting. He… he also became the focus of my own anger, as I am to him. He put a face onto the emotions that I’ve felt for the last few weeks, much as I have apparently become the object, at least temporarily, that personifies his own revenge.”

I lowered my eyes, ashamed. “Holmes, perhaps you cannot understand the way I’ve felt. The frustration that has accumulated over the months as I, a doctor, was unable to heal my wife.”

“Watson, you know you cannot heal everyone – ”

“No, Holmes, it’s more than that!” I snapped, my voice rising. “It’s the overwhelming regret, knowing in hindsight that she had so little time. That we had so little time, and that I was unable to spend it with her. The traveling she did with her mother to better climates – if I had sold out and gone with her, instead of trying to stay here and build up the practice for our future. Did I really think that she would someday acclimate herself to London, and would then be able to live in health here?”

“Watson, you must not – ”

“Why did I waste all of that time? Every day was precious, and I plodded along, investing in a future that would never have been tenable.”

“You could not have known. No one can ever see how the threads of their lives will be woven.”

“But what if I did know, secretly, somewhere inside? Was I selfishly choosing to devote all my efforts to staying in London, while realizing deep within that it would end like this?”

“No, Watson, you most definitely were not,” my friend said firmly. “You forget that you weren’t functioning in a vacuum during all of this. Do you not recall all of the conversations that we had last year, during your visits, when you and I sat in these very chairs? We have wrestled with these questions already. You kept me apprised of your wife’s failing health throughout that time, and many various options were discussed, including the possibility of your moving to a location better suited to her health. You had never ruled it out, and if the sudden diphtheria hadn’t struck last month, it is very likely that you would have positioned yourself to move away. But you know, in your head – if not yet your heart – that you weren’t yet able to set those things into motion. What happened last December is no different than if she had been killed in a railway accident, or struck down by a runaway cab. It was fate, cruel fate, that interrupted your plans. But just because they were interrupted is no reason for you to forget that you did have plans. You are not to blame.”

“But the anger, Holmes! I have never felt like this, not even when I returned to London following my injuries in the war, turned out of the Army that I had believed would be my future, into this cesspool where I had neither kith nor kin.”

“Watson, you were the wounded party then. You were ill, and you turned inward as you healed and moved slowly toward your recovery. There was no room then for the anger that you feel now. But if you recall, you were not completely passive at the time, either. You weren’t simply complacent when notified for good that you were deemed no longer fit to return to the Army. You were quite upset, and you made it well known to those ‘idiots’, as you called them, when making your case at their various offices. And you worked past it.

“In the case of Constance, you were observing from the side, able to see with your medical training and full faculties that something, possibly something terrible, was slowly taking place, but unable to do anything immediately effective, except to allow your wife to be removed to healthier locations by her mother, until such time as you were in a position to make the move permanent. But then fate struck unexpectedly, no different for her than the Jezail bullet at Maiwand was to you.

“Is it all random, this unexpected occurrence of our souls knocking around the universe like so many billiard balls, unknowing as to which direction they may be sent next, or by what? Or was it predetermined at the beginning of time? I have no clue. We are all too small to see the great pattern of fate, or if there even is a pattern. But I do know this, my friend: You will continue to have anger, and you will have pain for a while, and there is no reason that you shouldn’t. It would be abnormal if you didn’t. But you also will heal, with each passing day. And as I’ve told you before, and certainly will again, work is truly the best antidote to sorrow.”

Rarely had my friend acknowledged the things of which he just spoke, and I did not know what to say. In spite of his efforts to present himself as simply a perfectly balanced reasoning machine, divested of human emotion, there was a great heart there as well as a great mind. And, as I respected him as the best and wisest man whom I had ever known, I knew that I should listen to, and try to find, the wisdom of his words.

“Never fear, Watson,” he added. “We will stop the Baron. How can we not? But we must also work to recover the idol before an unexpected tragedy is aimed toward all of these other unsuspecting people that would be caught up in the resulting war, affecting their lives like Constance’s illness did to her, or when the projectile was fired at you by the murderous Ghazis. I promise you, Watson, that we will not neglect Baron Meade.”

I had been looking at my hands, twisted in my lap, for most of this conversation. Now I lifted my head, and saw my friend, sitting forward in his chair, his attitude deadly serious, his gaze focused like that of a predator. I nodded my agreement. It was time to turn my anger towards something useful.

Chapter XII: The Knight’s Tale

Holmes and I continued our discussion long into the evening. Mrs. Hudson once again provided one of my favorite dishes, and afterwards, over a final pipe, it was decided for now to trust in the police and Holmes’s agents to keep up the search for both the Earl and the Baron, while he and I would visit Sir Edward Malloy at his home in Mayfair.

We were up early the following day, and I descended from my room to find Holmes already at the table, idly pushing his breakfast around on his plate. Settling in, I reminded him that before our appointment in Mayfair, I wished to stop by Charing Cross Hospital to check on Dr. Withers. He nodded in silent acknowledgement, clearly preoccupied with thoughts of his own.

I knew when we crossed from the front door of 221 to the waiting cab that it was likely that Baron Meade was watching me from somewhere. In spite of the knowledge that Holmes had loaded the surrounding streets with his Irregulars and other lesser-known agents, to hopefully let us know if or when the Baron had entered within our defensive lines, I could not relax. Although I was loathe to credit it, I had to acknowledge to myself that I was unable to sense his location. Still, I had that indefinable feeling that could not be ignored of being watched.

The cabbie, with the unusual name of Cable Hitch, was known to Holmes and myself. He was aware of the situation, having been summoned specifically that morning by Eldridge, one of the more responsible of Holmes’s brigade of street Arabs. Hitch took a round-about path to the hospital, through less-traveled streets that were even emptier and still during that very early hour. This was partly to make Baron Meade more obvious if he was following us, and also to avoid the loss of innocent lives should there be some new attack. Because of all our efforts, or perhaps in spite of them, we saw nothing.

At the hospital, I was informed by the surgeon on duty that Dr. Withers was progressing quite well following the successful extraction of the small .22 bullet. “A wonder that Baron Meade hadn’t managed to acquire a more effective firearm,” Holmes murmured.

“A fortunate wonder,” I replied. “And now he’s lost that one as well.”

I had noticed that there was no sign of the doctor’s daughter, but I didn’t want to specifically inquire as to her whereabouts. The question was answered in a moment, however, when the surgeon stated, “I’m afraid that you won’t be able to speak with the patient right now, as he’s sleeping. He had a fitful night. Didn’t do well with the morphine, I’m afraid. His daughter sat up with him, and only left a few hours or so ago, when he finally dropped off to sleep.”

“Very good,” I said, explaining that I would be by later to check again on the patient’s condition.

Outside, we regained our cab and set off for Mayfair. “You seemed relieved that Miss Withers was not present. You were looking around for her, and then you visibly relaxed when informed that she had gone home.”

I nodded, debating whether to elaborate. Then, deciding to offer something of an explanation, I said, “Our parting yesterday was understandably strained. She was angry that her father had been wounded by someone who thought he was aiming at me.”

Holmes thought for a moment, and then said, “But there is more than that.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Before the shooting, I had been asked by the doctor to continue to assist him with the practice on a part-time basis. I politely acknowledged it, but have no intention of actually doing so. However, Miss Withers and I had a moment alone inside while her father went to summon a cab, and she reiterated his offer.” I thought to stop there, but plunged ahead. “It was rather awkward. I had the feeling that she was intimating that there should be a… deeper relationship between the two of us in the future.”

“Indeed?” said Holmes, his eyes cutting to my mourning band. “After meeting just a very few times. Most forward thinking on her part.”

I nodded. “She spoke of how she doesn’t agree with conventional behavior. She seemed to give an indication that my further involvement with the practice was only to be a prelude to my… to a future relationship between the two of us. Of course,” I added with not a little embarrassment, “I may have simply been incorrectly perceiving the meaning of her words.”

“I very much doubt it,” countered Holmes. “You have always had a special understanding of the ways of women. You may be somewhat numb after the events of several weeks ago, but I do not think that you could misunderstand something like that.”

“Perhaps you’re right. The idea certainly seemed obvious as she was speaking, but before she could become more definite, and more importantly before I could tell her that what she implied would not be possible, we were interrupted by the sound of gunshots.” I paused for a moment, and then said, “It seems certain that her anger related to her father’s wounds will push that idea out of her mind.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow. “Now you sound as if that disappoints you.”

“What?” I said with surprise. “No, certainly not. She’s a lovely girl, and in the little time I’ve known her father, I’ve grown to like and respect him. But Holmes, my wife died less than a month ago. What kind of man would I be if I were to completely disrespect her memory and immediately begin to pursue another woman? Or in this case, allow myself to be pursued? In either case, it is completely dishonorable.”

“But Watson,” said Holmes, “you yourself have railed in the past against some of society’s conventional behaviors. Yesterday we were discussing fate, and the unpredictable events that unfold in each life. What if this is your destiny? I’m not advocating it, certainly, or trying to talk you into anything, but if you are supposed to be with this woman, should the circumstance of unfortunate timing, or the fact that you are put off by her forward behavior, be enough to bring it to an end before it begins?”

I shook my head. “No, Holmes. Your Devil’s Advocacy aside, it simply isn’t right. I can feel it. And I would prefer not to discuss it any further.”

With a wave of his arm and a flick of the fingers that looked suspiciously like a Frenchman washing his hands of something in disgust, my friend became lost in his own thoughts. And we remained that way until we arrived at Sir Edward Malloy’s very tasteful abode.

Hitch’s horse was skittish, and it took a few extra seconds to get the four-wheeler steady before we could step down to the street. Holmes led me to the heavy double door, surrounded by a stone arch with a faux keystone carved upon it. Within moments, it was opened by a thin, sour-looking butler who led us inside. Our coats and hats were taken, and we were steered through the house to a dimly lit receiving room. Standing by the fireplace was a man about our age, his hands clasped behind his back. Stepping forward, he nodded, saying, “Mr. Holmes, thank you for returning this morning. I am sorry that I was unable to receive you yesterday. I had other pressing business.”

Turning to me, he said, “You must be Dr. Watson. My pleasure, sir.”

He offered refreshments, which we declined. The butler was dismissed, and Sir Edward gestured toward a grouping of tall chairs nearby. We sat, and he said, “I understand from the message you left yesterday with Crye that Ian has gone missing?”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that,” said Holmes. “There has also been a murder.”

“So I’ve since learned. But surely Ian could not be involved in that,” the man said softly. “There must be a mistake. Some other explanation.”

“The incident occurred at his Essex home, and he fled immediately thereafter. Additionally, his man there, Dawson, has related that the crime was committed by the Earl, so that seems to be well established.”

I had known Holmes long enough to keep myself from giving anything away. Not only was he allowing Sir Edward to believe Dawson’s assertion that the Earl had committed the murder – he was also relating it as an established fact.

Our host raised an eyebrow. “What? Dawson has implicated Ian as the killer? Impossible.” He shifted in his chair, sitting strangely tense for all of the calmness in his measured voice. “Simply impossible. I confess that after your visit yesterday, I instructed my solicitor to find out what Ian had gotten himself into. He spoke to a superintendent that he knows at Scotland Yard, but information from that quarter seems to be singularly restricted.”

“That is upon my suggestion,” said Holmes. “The murder relates directly to the idol which you, the Earl, and a man named Conner, helped to bring back to England years ago

“The idol? Do you mean The Eye of Heka? But how is that possible? It’s been locked in the bowels of the British Museum for years and years. No one knows or cares that it’s there, any more than they pay any attention to all of those other dusty stones and trinkets that litter the place. It’s been there ever since Ian’s father became fearful because of all the attempts to steal it out of their house.”

“Then you didn’t know, Sir Edward, that the statue at the Museum is a clever fake? You weren’t aware of that fact?”

Sir Edward’s eyes widened. “That’s ridiculous. There is no fake. The idol has been put away in the basement of the Museum for a decade.”

“Still, the facts indicate that the Earl had a duplicate made and then swapped it with the assistance of the murdered man, a Museum employee named Williams. He had secretly been in the Earl’s employ for quite a while.”

“But why would Ian murder him? This simply doesn’t make any sense to me, Mr. Holmes.”

“After I unfortunately gave away to Williams that I had spotted the false idol, he was prompted to notify the Earl that the deception had been uncovered. He then immediately traveled down to Essex. Dawson later told us that the real idol has been kept there in the same vault that was originally constructed by the Earl’s father. Upon Williams’s arrival, the Earl, apparently in a paranoid or delusional reaction, killed Williams and fled, taking the real idol with him.”

“I see, but I still don’t understand. Frankly, this is hard to believe, gentlemen. I cannot imagine any reason why Ian would have behaved in this manner.” He glanced down for a moment, and then asked, “May I ask why you’ve come to see me?”

“There are several reasons,” said Holmes. “First, to determine if the Earl has attempted to send you a message you since he fled two days ago.”

“No, I haven’t seen Ian in months. I understood that he had closed up his London house.”

“We have confirmed that, as well as reports that he was acting strangely in the time leading up to his move. Had you heard anything along those lines?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid that my involvement in other situations has caused me to lose touch with many of my old friends.”

“Speaking of which, can you tell me anything about the other man who joined you on the expedition, this man named Conner? I’ve been unable to find out any real information about him.”

“Alas, poor Herbert. I’m afraid that he died years ago, not long after our return to England with the idol, in fact.”

“Can you elaborate?” Holmes asked.

Sir Edward seemed nonplussed by the question, as if his statement about the man’s death was all that needed to be considered. “Herbert was the son of Mr. Abel Conner, of the banking family, you know. Grew up around the corner from here, actually. Like Ian and myself, he was also a second son, and as such, we all initially had lower expectations for our futures. However, I’m sure you’re aware that Ian’s brother Jimmy died while traveling. Herbert and I were both already acquainted with Jimmy through Ian, and as Jimmy had never had many friends of his own, we were suggested as companions for him on his great tour. Ian never really could stand his brother, and had refused to go. Herbert and I, however – well, we felt that we couldn’t turn down the opportunity.

“While down there, we learned of the location of a lost tomb, and planned an expedition to find it. But on the way, before we reached the location, Jimmy’s tent caught fire and he burned to death, elevating Ian unexpectedly to the position of heir.

“Soon after we returned to England, there was a scandal in which Herbert’s father and brother were implicated, and it was revealed that they actually had very little money. Furthermore, Herbert’s older brother, Raymond Conner, was found to be embezzling from the bank. Both Abel and his son Raymond committed suicide, not long before their arrests.”

“I remember something of it now,” said Holmes. “The double suicide of both father and son was considered rather unusual, as was the method.” He turned to me, stating, “They seated themselves in an upstairs parlor of their home – as you say, Sir Edward, just around the corner – and turned on the gas, filling the room. I recall reading that they were discovered by the unfortunate Herbert Conner.”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. Unfortunate indeed. I did all that I could to help, and Herbert and I even worked together in a few business deals, but without any great success. He wasn’t really cut out for business, you see. Not long afterwards, Herbert threw himself into the Thames. It was believed that he decided to end his life because of the shame associated with his father and brother’s activities, and also due to his own reduced circumstances.” He lowered his voice, adding, “I should have recognized the signs in him, and done more to prevent it. Conner always was rather weak, you see.”

“Your own expectations as a second son also improved,” said Holmes unexpectedly, and rather improperly as well, I thought.

“Yes,” said Sir Edward, sitting back a bit in his tall chair. “My own older brother was killed in a hunting accident a year or so before my father’s death. Like Ian, I was elevated to the position of heir to the estate when my father passed.” He seemed disinclined to add anything further.

“You have certainly made a success of your situation,” said Holmes, waving a hand. “I believe that, like the Earl, you’ve been able to increase your holdings tremendously in the years since.”

Sir Edward shifted straighter in his chair. “I’m not sure that that is any of your business, Mr. Holmes, or what any of this has to do with Ian’s disappearance. But, in fact, you are correct. I have been fortunate, and it turned out that I have some skills in these things.”

“I simply ask about your situation in relation to the Earl’s success, as both you and he seemed to prosper following your return with the idol, whereas Mr. Conner had a much more unfortunate fate.”

“Although Ian and I have lost touch with one another for the most part over the years, I understand that he has also done quite well for himself. From what you tell me, however, his path will likely follow a different course from this point forward.” He shook his head. “Murder. Dear me.”

“Are you aware that he credited his successes to the idol?”

“What?” His eyes cut up from his considerations. “By magic, you mean? That is ridiculous!”

“That is what his man, Dawson, related to us when we spoke to him in Essex two days ago. Apparently the sculpture, always an unhealthy fascination for the Earl, held an ever-increasing amount of his attention, and he believed that it was the source of his steadily improving good fortune. That’s why he wanted it with him, instead of leaving it in the Museum, and it also seems to be why he has now taken it with him following the murder of the Museum employee.”

“I cannot imagine why Ian would think such a thing. When we were sold the map, we all had ideas that we would discover a lost tomb filled with riches, or important archeological discoveries. Even after Jimmy’s death and Ian’s arrival, it was on that basis that we talked him into going on the search. Instead, what we found was simply a plain chamber containing a single ancient coffin, and all that it held was the curious but rather plain stone figure. We were told at the time of some legend or other, and how the idol related to an obscure local god, this Heka for whom it’s named, but it was just so much nonsense and superstition. Those sorts of stories are scratched on every rock out there.

“I did know that there were subsequent attempts by men who had followed it to England to steal it back, but they were certainly just the ignorant and the superstitious with their own agenda. Maybe the conviction that these people felt it was important and gave credence to such a notion was enough to plant the idea in Ian’s head, making him believe he’d actually found a magic talisman.”

“But the power of belief is an important thing,” said my friend, shaking his head. “Dr. Watson here will affirm the importance of the placebo effect when dealing with illness. Making the patient believe he is being cured is sometimes enough to actually cause the cure. Belief in an object can sometimes be enough to focus hopes and plans in one’s self, thereby allowing one’s desired outcomes to be achieved.”

Sir Edward smiled and shook his head. “Surely you don’t believe in this magic rubbish, Mr. Holmes.”

“No, but I know that there are people who do, and they can use the power and motivation of that belief to make things happen, or as an excuse to do things that otherwise would be abhorrent to them. Such as murder.”

“You feel, then, that Ian believes his idol is being threatened, and that has caused him to take it. That sounds as if he has lost his mind.”

“That, too, is a possibility. His behavior was reported as being erratic in the months leading up to these events. As far back as when he closed the London house.”

Sir Edward frowned, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m forced to wonder why you came to me to ask these questions.”

“We are simply seeking further knowledge regarding the Earl’s fixation upon the idol. It is obviously a motivation for his actions. This can possibly be accomplished by determining his history with the object from the beginning – a topic for which you have obviously provided a great deal of information. Also, I wanted to determine if you have had any recent contact with him, especially since he vanished following the murder in Essex.”

“Well, I’m afraid I cannot help you any further. It is distressing that my old friend has taken this path, and I hope that you find him quickly, but I don’t know what else that I can do to help.” He stood and we followed. “However, please feel free to let me know if I can answer any additional questions. In the name of our long-ago friendship, I owe Ian that much.”

He rang, and in a moment the butler, presumably the man Crye of whom he had previously spoken, entered, only to lead us back through the house and into the entry hall, where we donned our outerwear. On the street, the cold air passed across my face like a freezing liquid. As the door closed, I said softly, “You didn’t mention to him any of the possible ramifications should the idol fall into the hands of those who would abuse it. He might have thought of something to add if he knew just what was at stake.”

“Later, Watson,” said Holmes, looking sharply at our cab. I followed his gaze, not seeing anything unusual for a moment. And then it hit me – our cabbie, Cable Hitch, was not the man sitting in the driver’s seat!

The fellow that had replaced him was bundled up in a coat very similar to that which had previously been worn by Hitch. In fact, it might have been the very same one. But this man, sitting calmly with the reins held loosely in his hands, had nothing of Hitch’s plain and stolid British features. The new driver was much smaller by many stones, and his skin was darker. I could see that he had on what was likely Hitch’s cap, but it did not hide his thick black hair, the sharp features of his face, or his oddly light-colored eyes.

“Do not worry,” the man said with a low but pleasantly accented voice. “Your friend is being well-taken care of. I assure you that he will not be harmed. I must earnestly ask that you accept my invitation.”

Holmes took a step forward with a frown. “Invitation?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. You and the doctor will meet with my – with someone to discuss the events related to a certain idol which has gotten loose from its moorings.”

“Indeed. And who is this ‘someone’?”

“All in good time, Mr. Holmes. All in good time.”

“Then tell me, where is this meeting to take place?”

The man on the box gestured vaguely east. “I can have us there in less than an hour, if you’ll just climb into the cab.”

Holmes looked at me. I nodded, lightly tapping my overcoat, where my service revolver rested. “I’m game if you are.”

“I expect that we’ll certainly find out more this way than what we just learned from Sir Edward,” he replied. “After you.”

I climbed into the cab and Holmes followed. Without another word, and with just a quiet snick to the horse, our new host turned the vehicle sharply with skill and set off toward the north and then east.

Chapter XIII: Beneath Limehouse

We had barely begun before I whispered, “This does not bode well for the plan to keep knowledge of the missing idol a secret.”

“I’m not so sure, Watson,” Holmes replied, quite softly. “Clearly this driver is somehow connected to John Goins – ”

“Not so clear to me, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“The eyes, Watson. They are similar to Goins’. You won’t have forgotten that the man who sold the original map had light eyes, as well as the other who tried to stop the expedition. It’s very likely,” Holmes continued, “that the person at our destination will exhibit the same characteristics. But if that is the case, why would they need to speak with us?”

“What do you mean?”

“All of the events connected to this business over the last few days have started because we went to visit the Museum, and Williams was provoked into sending a pre-arranged warning to Ian. It seems that his plan to swap statues and keep the real one at his country home had gone undetected up until that time. Those who wished to recover it had apparently been deterred or fooled by Ian’s substitution and the Museum’s security measures, and had made no further efforts over the years to retrieve the thing, willing to play a wait-and-see game. It was only when Ian panicked and went on the run with the idol that we now find ourselves invited to take a cab ride.”

“To be fair, Holmes, it’s only been two days since the Earl bolted. Regardless, whomever it is that we’re going to meet has now involved himself in this mess, when for years there has been no activity. For whatever reason, we are in some way required.”

“Too true. There have evidently been watchers in place to see if the sculpture ever became recoverable. The events of the other day, including Williams’s dash to Essex and Dawson’s subsequent arrest for his possible involvement with the murder, were not completely hidden, and have obviously come to the attention of the watchers. They must also be after Ian and the idol, wherever he is, even as we speak. After our appearance in Essex, our involvement in the problem has been clear as well. We were certainly found quite handily this morning.”

“We are being too easily stalked from all directions,” I muttered.

Holmes continued, “So why are we being taken to visit this mysterious person? What does he or she expect from us? I have inadvertently flushed it for them. What else do they need from us? Is this meeting to warn us off from additional involvement? Surely it cannot be thought that we will assist in the recovery of the idol for the agitators that wish to make use of it.”

He glanced toward the roof of the cab and then lowered his voice further. “Don’t give away anything,” he said. “Let them tell us what they know. And let them reveal whether or not they are aware of the false idol in the Museum. If they don’t know about it, we might use that to our advantage.”

Throughout this conversation, we had steadily headed north out of Mayfair, and then east onto that long latitudinal passage across London, initially known as Oxford Street, and then High Holborn, Holborn, and so on. It was still early enough in the morning that traffic wasn’t too entangled. I was aware of various locations and fixtures as we passed them, including Bloomsbury and the Museum to the north, where the carving had supposedly rested for all of these years, adjacent to Holmes’s old Montague Street rooms. And then somewhat later, we skirted that area of London around Barts, where I had obtained a great deal of my medical training, and had first been introduced to Holmes. I still pondered where my path might have taken me, had not I met this unique fellow, then not quite twenty-seven years of age. I’ve long suspected that, returning as I recently had to London as a wounded soldier with few prospects, I might very well have ended a drunkard or worse, if I hadn’t had the distraction of Holmes’s investigations to pull me out of my despair and pain, along with the nurturing care of Mrs. Hudson, whom I would not have known at all but for meeting Holmes.

Holmes had fallen silent as he considered our situation, leaving me free to continue to observe the surroundings as we traveled. I had never been overwhelmed with too much imagination, and my time in the military had taught me to separate myself from any anxiety that might be manifested before an upcoming battle, so I was able to remain relatively undisturbed during our passage across the great city. But perhaps I would have been better off had I been worrying about what was to come. Instead, I found myself falling into the familiar feelings of despair related to my recent loss. And yet, strangely, I also discovered that I was returning to the conversation of the day before, when Miss Withers had indicated that joining her father in the newly sold practice might be just the first step toward a completely unanticipated future.

I shut my eyes, as if that would keep me from examining these thoughts that were unexpectedly surfacing in my mind, continually drifting into my field of vision like a lifeline that I was determined to ignore. I had no doubts whatsoever that selling the practice had been the correct decision. And likewise, I knew that I didn’t feel any genuine attraction toward Dr. Withers’ daughter. Granted, she was beautiful, and she radiated intelligence. But I simply wasn’t interested in pursuing a future relationship with her. I still loved my wife.

Then I remembered yet again – as I was forced to dozens of times each day – that Constance was gone, and all that stretched before me now seemed empty and unfulfilling. Perhaps –

But no. This was not worthy of me. I made myself recall the tightness of the mourning band on my arm, while being quite careful not to raise my hand and make any move to touch it, lest such an action be noticed and interpreted in some way by my companion, as he certainly would. In any case, after the events of the previous day, it was clear that Miss Withers should have obviously changed her mind about a man such as myself, whose associations placed those around him, and most recently her father, in the gravest of peril.

I checked my watch and saw that we had been traveling for approximately forty minutes. Not knowing our destination, I could only guess that we would be arriving shortly, as based on the estimation of our driver during his invitation. We were now making our way awkwardly around Aldgate, before entering the Commercial Road, and thus into Whitechapel. Here the traffic thickened noticeably, and the view from the windows revealed a slice of a London that many will never see, although it was not unfamiliar to me. There were people of numerous nationalities and races, all jostling together, calling out to one another in so many languages that Babel itself must have seemed as only a dim precursor to all of this. There were stalls set up along the edges of the main street, and the flowing foot traffic was occasionally pushed into the road like water diverted around a rock. And yet, it all seemed to piece itself together without any difficulty.

Although still relatively early in the morning, the merchants and sailors intermingled with dubious women and mothers with their children. There were colorful costumes interspersed with dark winter coats, and the whole of it surged and seethed like a single living organism.

Soon enough, though, we left much of the bustle behind as we continued down Commercial Road, nearing Dockland. We were passing through the northern edge of Shadwell when the driver turned to the right, and so down the Stepney Causeway. A left on Brook Street, and then right into Cranford. Immediately, the noise of the busier thoroughfares was cut off, and all that could be heard were the echoes of the horse’s hooves on the cobbles, returning from the dark irregular bricks making up the close buildings beside us.

“We are on the outskirts of Limehouse,” Holmes said softly. We took a sharp left into a narrow alley labeled Bere Street. On our right was a building of a lighter-colored brick, broken up with three or four separate doorways.

The cab pulled about halfway down the alley and stopped. The far end narrowed before opening into another cross street. Immediately to the left and just before this intersection was a tall building, four stories, with an odd arched window at its top, overlooking the surrounding neighborhood. I idly wondered if one could see the Thames, only a few blocks to the south, from that high perch.

At the base of this building was a recessed doorway, nothing more than an upright rectangle, deep in shadows cast by the edifice across from it, stretching down the south side of the street. Standing just outside the door, barely visible as he halfway leaned out, was a man wearing a curious mélange of a garment combining styles from several continents. It was finished with loose sandals on his feet. I thought that he must be very cold indeed to be wearing such inappropriate clothing.

Holmes and I climbed down, as it seemed to be implied that we had arrived at our destination. We looked back at the driver, who gestured toward the doorway. Holmes didn’t look away from him, instead asking, “What of our cabbie?”

The man looking down at us smiled, and there seemed to be no malice there at all. In fact, the only feeling that he betrayed was one of a great and gentle weariness, overlaying what seemed to be an old and kind soul. “I give you my word, gentlemen, that Mr. Hitch has not been harmed, and that his cab will be returned to him immediately, with more than adequate compensation for his troubles. It was unfortunately necessary to use these means to guarantee your cooperation.”

“It was not necessary at all, but you could not have known that,” said Holmes. The driver simply smiled again and looked back at him silently, and then nodded, as if an understanding had been reached. Holmes did the same, and then the driver turned the horse’s head, pulling him back around to depart with the same gentle skill he had displayed when removing us from Sir Edward’s street.

We turned and walked across the short distance to the doorway, where the robed fellow awaited us. When I was closer, I could see that he was older than I had first thought. His skin was weathered, and his black hair was shot with streaks of gray. A most noticeable feature about him was the great scar running down the left side of his face, crossing from forehead to cheek, directly through where his left eye had been. Now, it was just a closed and puckered thing, long healed, but still an angry red in contrast to the brown of his face. His right eye – light-colored, I noticed – glared.

“This way,” he said, in a surprisingly rumbling and deep voice with a strong accent. He cocked his head to the side, compensating for his monocular outlook. Gesturing us over the threshold, he pulled the door shut tightly behind us. Inside, there was a single lantern hanging nearby, so that the entryway wasn’t in total darkness. The room was very cold, really no different than outside, and it seemed obvious that the building was long abandoned from its original purpose.

Taking the lamp down from the peg upon which it was hanging, our guide began to lead us deeper into the building. It wasn’t long before we reached a narrow stairwell that descended into darkness. “Mind the steps,” said our leader unnecessarily, and with no apparent malice.

I could see that he was putting a great deal of trust in us as he held the lantern high, so that we might better find our footing. No implication of any weapon or even threat had been produced. Allowing us to be behind him on such a stairway opened him up to attack, should we so choose. However, both Holmes and I were thoroughly interested in following this thread of Theseus on through the Labyrinth toward whatever Minotaur might be awaiting us, and it would have accomplished nothing to force our guide to take us where we were already going.

I was relieved when we reached the bottom of the steps, one level below the ground floor, and started off through the center of a long open room, pitch black beyond the short range of the lantern light. I had feared that we might keep going deeper and deeper into the earth, dropping down through other stairways and even ladders and tunnels, into some pernicious and hidden stronghold. Doing so wouldn’t have been the first time that Holmes and I had ventured into such a rat’s warren, buried deep beneath Limehouse, but fortunately this time was quite different, and we were soon to speak to someone far different than that evil man whom we had previously encountered on those other subterranean sojourns.

In the shadows, I could see the featureless detritus remaining from whatever commercial function had once been carried out here. I also heard the unmistakable brushings made when loathsome rodents were carrying out their Muroidean business in the darkness beyond the lamp’s reach. It was with some relief that I saw we were approaching a closed door, with light showing through the crack at the bottom. For good or evil, I thought, we were about to get some answers.

The robed man knocked, opened the door with a prosaic knob – how different from the portals in those underground chambers of that other Limehouse resident! – and motioned for us to precede him. Holmes went first, and I followed. Our personal Diogenes, bringing with him not one but two reasonably honest men, came last and closed the door behind him.

We were in an office, although I couldn’t imagine who would have ever wanted to have such an arrangement down here. Unlike the outer rooms, it was well-lit by lanterns, and cleaned up as well as it could be under the circumstances. A chair and desk were pushed against one wall – apparently the outside wall, as there was a high window above them near the ceiling, probably opening into a window well outside on the street. It was heavily curtained, likely so that no light would escape and reveal that the room was now being occupied.

A small fireplace was on one of the inside walls, but no fire was burning, and the room had a damp and cold feel to it. However, on a small iron stand within the fireplace was a spirit lamp, heating a coffee urn. The smell of the strong brew did much to improve the dismal atmosphere.

A half-dozen wooden chairs were grouped in a loose circle in the center of the room, which was no more than twenty feet square. Standing in front of one of these was a small man, well-dressed in English clothes, but clearly of the same group as the others. His light eyes gleamed in the dim light. His hands were behind his back, and he bowed formally.

The incongruity of his presence and his formal welcome, after the subterfuge of coercing us across London and then down into the abandoned building, was somewhat ludicrous. Yet there was a serious formality to the man’s greeting that added to the mysterious gravity of the situation. I found myself nodding in something of a return bow, and noticed that Holmes did the same, his wary eyes never leaving the man.

Holmes took a step closer. “You summoned us?” he said.

“I hope you will see it as more of an invitation, and I apologize for the necessity of it,” replied our new host, with only a trace of an accent. His voice was soft, yet commanding. “I could not be sure that a mere request would suffice.” He glanced to the left and right. “I felt that talking here might be better. We, that is, the group that I represent, sometimes find it easier and rather necessary to make use of this place, so that our activities might not be observed.”

“You would make a better job of it,” replied Holmes, “if you arranged your approaches better. The way that we were brought into Bere Street up above would have been very obvious if anyone had a mind to look. I noticed one of the residents across the street, for instance, surreptitiously watching us from behind her closed curtains.”

“You are correct,” said the man. “Normally we are more circumspect, and there are other ways into this building besides the direct entrance through which you arrived. But we did not want to inconvenience you further by some of the trials that those ways would require, and regardless of that fact, it was urgent that I meet with you both as soon as possible.”

“I believe that our address in Baker Street is probably not unknown to you. In future, should it be necessary, a message can easily be delivered to arrange an appointment.”

“I understand. But today we did not want to go there and so alert anyone watching you. And as you probably know already, you are being watched.”

“We are aware of that, but thank you for letting us know. I take it that, while you have been carrying out your own surveillance, you have noticed the man known as the Baron dogging Dr. Watson’s steps.”

“Yes, the solitary man in the tweed coat with the singularly intent focus on your residence. We saw him two days ago, when he left a package at your front door. He was lurking there when our man arrived. It seemed to us that he might be your enemy, and that his delivery was related to the visit by the police later that day, after you returned home. We saw that they were carefully removing the very package left by this man that you call the Baron.”

“That is him,” I said. “It was a bomb.”

He nodded as if that didn’t surprise him and gestured toward the chairs. “I’m sorry. Won’t you both have a seat? I apologize for the arrangements. We are not set up here to be one of your St. James clubs.”

Holmes and I moved to chairs where we could face the man. He nodded again and said, “May I offer you some coffee?”

I could see no reason why we would be drugged or poisoned at this point, when we could have been attacked as soon as we arrived at the building – or earlier for that matter. Holmes must have agreed, for he, like myself, nodded. The one-eyed man moved to the desk, where he retrieved cups, and then to the fireplace, where he poured.

He distributed them, and then poured another for himself before joining us at the chairs. Clearly, he was not a mere servant. “Thank you, Micah,” said our host.

Holmes took a sip, and then, with a look of surprise, took another, savoring the coffee in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it. I followed suit, finding it to be quite dark and rich, and – most importantly in that cold cellar – hot. I had enjoyed thick strong coffee such as that before, and had developed a taste for it in my travels. Usually it could only be found in London in certain specialized locations in the East End.

“The man who drove you here – ” began our host.

“Your brother,” interrupted Holmes.

Our host seemed surprised. “How do you know this?”

“There are a number of telling factors. Most importantly are the eyes, of course. That seems to be a family trait. Then there are the ears, which usually maintain a certain family resemblance. Then, you are also both wearing rings of a certain design, probably a family insignia, as is this man here – ” He gestured toward Micah. “Also a brother, I can see.”

“That is correct, Mr. Holmes. You do not disappoint.”

“And our driver? What is his name?

“Andrew.”

“And you are…?”

“My apologies, gentlemen. My name is Daniel Mizer.”

Holmes smiled and raised an eyebrow. Daniel appeared to understand, for he replied, “Our true names do not matter. We have chosen to take other names during our sojourns into the wider world.”

Holmes nodded an acknowledgement. “Your brother, Andrew, then. When he tendered your ‘invitation’, he mentioned something about an idol.”

“That is correct.”

“Might I inquire, what is the idol of which you speak?”

“Come now, Mr. Holmes, we do not have the time to fence around any longer about this. You know about The Eye, and the fact that I am asking about it reveals that I know it as well. I understand your concerns, and why you do not wish to acknowledge it, but I assure you that it is in both of our interests to have frank and open discussion regarding this situation.”

“I’m not yet convinced that I have anything to discuss with you. However, this is good coffee, and I will listen if you care to speak.”

“Then I shall certainly do so, and you will understand that we are not your enemies.

“The idol,” Daniel continued, “as you both undoubtedly know, is referred to as ‘The Eye of Heka’, representing one of the old gods. Very old. Ancient, long before the borders or even regions that you now recognize even existed. There is no need to waste time describing the physical object to you, but I will mention that it is revered by certain groups as a legendary talisman. They believe that it can be used to access and channel power – Magic, if you will.”

“So much nonsense,” prodded Holmes.

“I agree. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that people believe in its power – and a great many more each year. There is a growing interest in and awareness of it both far and wide, both on this side of the world and in America, even if it is only vague and little thought-of in actual day-to-day life. It was believed by most to be lost, and only a distant legend, mentioned mostly in morality tales for children about how a powerful man used it and was subsequently corrupted by it. Upon the death of this man, after a life of wealth and influence that were both used for great evil, the thing was buried with him, sealed up to protect others from its use or its corruption upon the user.

“The man who actually wielded The Eye is known in the tales only as Mustashar, or ‘The Counselor’. Thousands of years ago, he was the advisor of a little-known regional official named Orkahn. It was into that same barren region, far inland from the coasts, that the idol was later found and brought forth by the English visitors, the Earl of Wardlaw and his friends.

“The legend tells that Orkahn was quite wealthy, but he was only a figurehead whose riches and power had come through Mustashar’s use of the idol. The legends tell that Mustashar was the man who had made a bargain with the god Heka, to be able to use the god’s own powers of channeling magic through his very own soul. It was this soul that Mustashar traded for the idol, which he could then use as a tool to achieve his goals. Preferring to work from the shadows behind Orkahn, he plundered the countryside. The people could not understand the manner in which they were being subjugated. But eventually things changed when someone, just a boy, a poor servant in Mustashar’s household, discovered him using the idol, and finally understood the power it was conveying to and through him.”

Holmes snorted, and started to speak, but Daniel raised a hand and continued. “This boy was my ancestor. He was a pure-of-heart lad named Ham-El, who found the courage to cast down both Orkahn and Mustashar. According to the legends, the idol had become so tainted from Mustashar’s use that it could not stand against the rare goodness of the boy. Orkahn attempted to flee, coward that he was, and was killed in disgust by Mustashar from behind as he ran. Ham-El then faced the evil counselor alone, with only his sling and three stones.”

“Rather like David and Goliath,” I interjected.

Daniel nodded. “Except for the difference that Goliath was a giant warrior, and Ham-El was instead facing an adept wielder of magic. It was not a fair fight, however, much to Mustashar’s shock, as Ham-El was able to throw his stones with the sling through the glamours and illusions and powers cast up by the sorcerer. The first stone knocked the idol from Mustashar’s hand. The second hit him in the chest, stopping his heart, and the third hit him between the eyes, for he still lived in that last moment between the second and third stones, long enough to see his defeat overtake him. The evil was overthrown, and his soul was taken by Heka in payment, as per their original agreement, leaving a smoking husk of a corpse, lying on the sand next to the idol.

“The people of the land immediately knew that their oppression was at an end, and both Orkahn and Mustashar were entombed in secret. Through the words of my ancestor to the people, it was recognized that Orkahn was partly innocent, having only been used by his master as an unwitting tool, so his remains were treated with dignity, and some of his worldly wealth was hidden with him, as prescribed by tradition. His tomb is thankfully still undisturbed, and he was buried with some jewels that legend says were secreted within his coffin. But Mustashar was buried only with the idol, sealed in the Counselor’s coffin with layers of pitch. This was done at Ham-El’s insistence in order to prevent it from being taken and used again towards some future evil, and also to keep its corruption from destroying any man who might rediscover it and attempt to use it again.”

“Fascinating,” said Holmes. “To a collector of legends. Similarly, we have men in this country still seeking Excalibur.”

“Ah, Mr. Holmes. Although this is considered just another story from the past, there are some who always knew that the idol itself was real, even if the magic was simply a children’s story. In the centuries that followed, my family divided – some of us remained in the lands where we had existed beyond memory, while others traveled, visiting parts of the world hundreds of years before they were ‘officially’ discovered by European explorers. East and west, north and south, our people have established colonies across the seas. And wherever members of our family settled, secret lines of communication have been kept in place, however tenuous.

“We have never meant any harm, wherever we go. We keep to our ways, never forcing them on others. We have been mistaken for gypsies in some parts of the world, and lost European settlers in others. In fact, it was our people who sheltered the doomed Raleigh settlers of North Carolina in the late sixteen century, guiding them far inland to our own colonies when they were abandoned and then threatened by the natives.”

“And these groups can still be found spread throughout the world, even today?”

“Oh yes. If one knows where to look, members of my family are still in enclaves in the isolated mountains of eastern Europe, and the unexplored interiors of Africa. We are known in the high mountains of Asia, and also in the remote areas of America, especially in what became parts of eastern Tennessee, as well as western Virginia and North Carolina.”

“Ah,” interrupted Holmes. “I should have recognized from the distinctive light-colored eyes, present in many of your family. I have read of this American group, which has come to be known as the Melungeons.”

“Yes,” agreed Daniel. “The Melungeons. From the French word mélange. Supposedly a mixture of many races – it is a belief, an explanation, that we allow, and even encourage. It gives us protection, and peace. Although the various groups from around the world have continued down their own paths, pursuing their own destinies and meanings, the ties between those far away and we who remained in our homeland have never entirely diminished, no matter how the years pass. It has been a story of hardship and oppression, as we have faced mistreatment and worse the world over, in spite of our peaceful intentions. But we are strong, and it has not weakened us.

“Through the long centuries, however, two of the groups have held to the secret ways and stories more than most, never forgetting the old legends. Those located in the southeastern United States have never forgotten the tale of The Eye of Heka, while my own family – the house of Ham-El – never forgot our responsibility for protecting it. We have spent the intervening years guarding against the reappearance of the idol. It is dangerous, either as a magical tool, if you believe that, or simply for what it represents. Far in the past, following the overthrow of Orkahn and Mustashar, the entire region, then liberated, wanted to make Ham-El a ruler, but instead he set himself up as a simple rug merchant, having no interest in the temptations of power. He was quite successful, and what he built has been the foundation of my family’s fortune, and is still the trade of our house to this day.

“But there are always some of us, from every generation, one to the next, who are tasked to protect against the rediscovery of the idol. For countless years, this meant no more than continuing to make certain that the tomb remained hidden. But then, ten years ago, it was found. An old man, a member of our family, lost himself and betrayed us. He stole a map and sold it. We weren’t ready when the idol was found. We examined ourselves and saw that we were woefully unprepared to defend against its removal from our country. We failed to prevent its departure. Guardians had to be appointed – Conscripted, actually. My brothers and I were chosen, and since that time we have been here, in your cold and wet land, keeping watch. We have been unable to retrieve The Eye. We are not thieves, you see, and did not know what to do. Before coming here, I was a scholar. My brothers worked in the family rug business. Thus, our attempts to recover the idol were doomed to failure from the start.

“We finally decided that allowing it to remain in the British Museum would assure its continued safety. After all, even though we were unable to retrieve it to take it home ourselves, it was not being used for evil, as its powers seemed to be ignored and unknown in this country, and it seemed nearly as safe in the Museum as if it were still buried in Mustashar’s tomb.”

“In the meantime, what did you do during all of these years?” I asked. “Did you simply wait, day after day and year after year, watching the Museum?”

Daniel gave a tired smile. “No, Doctor. We have not been so useless as that. While we are not natives of your country, we have attempted to be good citizens while we have sojourned here. I am a teacher of children, as I was in my home. Andrew and Micah have respectable jobs as well. Being near the idol does not take all of our time. Some days I am sad, thinking of how I wish to return to my own land, rather than wait and wait for nothing. I know my brothers feel the same. But we have been prepared to stay here as long as necessary, fulfilling our family’s oath, even if the idol is to be locked away forever.” He sat up straighter, as if what he wanted to tell us next had extra importance. “We have waited all this time, to make certain, for it is our duty to be here, near The Eye.”

“For it remains a threat,” I interjected.

Daniel nodded. “I do not claim that the object has magic, but certainly, when used by someone who does believe in its power, it can intimidate the gullible and give great confidence to the user. It might stir the many to actions that are terrible to contemplate. Little is known about what was actually done with it in the days of Orkahn and Mustashar. The legends vary. There are some who think that the object was used to carve out a kingdom, while it may have only been to do something as insignificant as hitting a neighbor over the head before his stealing his donkey. If you are very poor, the idea of what constitutes great wealth and riches is a relative thing.

“Whatever its past history, the fact is that the idol, The Eye of Heka, was rediscovered by the young Englishmen. After knowledge of the statue’s disinterment was revealed, the word spread quickly, and the poor of the region began to speak of the powerful talisman that had been returned to the world of men, after having been hidden for centuries, and how it would help to change their lives and ease their burdens.

“You know what happened then. Our family made poor attempts to steal it back from the young Englishmen, both before and after it came here to England. Others with less noble motives tried to steal it as well, being interested in its supposed power. There are men who are only interested in fomenting war, using the idol’s symbolic power as a spark, hoping to light a fire that will burn steadily towards a specific goal: To drive out the Europeans, and even possibly extend their own control over European lands here, if such momentum can be achieved. The countless poor would be used and harnessed and directed into the ensuing destruction as if they were mere beasts of no value, their lives to be wasted even as others followed along behind them doing the same, walking over their corpses to replace them. The innocents who would die on both sides would not matter to these rich indifferent men, the igniters of this blaze. They are only interested in power, and what can be accomplished through the turmoil of war. This sculpture is the tool that they intend to use.

“After the idol was put into a safe place, deep inside the Museum, interest in it again waned for a time. Other things appeared to occupy the attention of the war-mongers. But, like my brothers and I, their agents have also been continuously set in place to see if any hint of the idol’s reappearance meant that it could be retrieved after all. And then, two days ago, their patience was rewarded, even as my brothers and I felt renewed despair, when the Earl of Wardlaw’s actions revealed that he had had the idol and that it was attainable yet again, ready for the taking of those who would use it.

“So you see, gentlemen, I do know about the idol. And that is why we should work together.”

Chapter XIV: Other Factors

Holmes nodded, apparently accepting the statement at face value. “I see that it does no good to continue denying our knowledge of the idol. And your understanding of what would happen should it light the tinder box is ours as well. The British Government has long been of the same mind, aware of what would happen if it became such a focus, but inexplicably they left things alone, trusting in the care of the Museum, believing that they could guard it there as well as anyone else, and that it would be available in the future, should they decide to use it in some crack-brain diplomatic scheme. Now this complacency has turned back to bite them.”

I gathered from this that Holmes was letting me know he had decided to go forward on the assumption that Daniel and the others were unaware of the existence of a substitute idol, and, as I had been warned, we should not give away anything about it at all.

Daniel nodded. “There are many of my people who have no more wish for war than you do. The meaningless deaths of thousands, perhaps millions, for such a misguided and evil purpose, is not a true reflection of our peaceful beliefs.”

“It’s hard to credit,” said Holmes, “that in this day and age, the superstition that gave this object such power in the old stories can still exist.”

I nodded. “And yet, I saw much of this type of thing in India and Afghanistan. Many of Ayub Khan’s followers attributed to him an almost mystical presence. They were motivated to fight beyond themselves – like men possessed by demons.”

“That is true,” said Daniel. “If the people believe they are justified by some ancient magic, they will lift themselves to be worthy of it in ways that are almost inconceivable. There is a deep need in many people to attach themselves to something magical. Their passion will feed itself. It truly will be as if a wild fire is sweeping across the lands. Countless innocents will die, both those in front of or caught between the armies, and within the armies themselves. They should be left to live their own lives, instead of being manipulated by the evil men in the shadows around the world who would set this thing into motion.”

“What of these men?” I asked. “You mentioned them before. Who are they?”

“They are a loosely connected band of the wealthy and powerful, both in England and across the world,” said Holmes. “They never cease laboring to increase their influence and fortunes through the upheaval and destruction that a conflict of this sort would bring.” His gaze seemed to focus away over a great distance for just an instant, while he continued to speak, his tone almost hollow. “They are the industrialists and politicians, rich beyond imagining and without compassion, who care nothing for common humanity. Rather, they only see their fellow man as beasts to run their machinery, or economic factors to exploit in any way possible. They are evil beyond imagining, and only interested in increasing their own power and wealth, at whatever cost. And there is one man, a great brain, an abstract thinker, who has repeatedly offered his assistance to their machinations, knowing that he can make great strides toward his own ultimate goals by threading his way through the chaos of war. Should this man ever gain access to the idol, using it to manipulate a conflict that cannot be controlled, we are doomed.”

I knew without asking that he was thinking of his great foe, Professor Moriarty, a man who had tried things exactly like this several times in the past. If the Professor were to reach an accord with these rich and powerful men who wanted to use The Eye of Heka, it could well be disastrous.

“It is a little known fact,” added Daniel, “that these same men were loosely connected with the Mahdi when he began his revolution in 1881. A nudge here and a nudge there precipitated the conflicts that followed, and they hoped that it would spread. However, the Mahdi’s own supporters, who foolishly believed that he would lead the wave to start the war that they desired, were quickly disappointed, for he was more interested in perverting his religion than starting the bloodshed that resulted. He also became embroiled with more local matters, including that which took place upon the arrival of your General Gordon.”

“The British were ready to abandon the Sudan when Gordon got there,” I said. “The Mahdi’s engagements leading to the siege and subsequent slaughter at Khartoum only served to bring forces down on his people that might not otherwise have been engaged or even interested.”

“As you know, however, the British government did not want Gordon to make a defense,” said Holmes. “His mission was to evacuate thousands of civilians in the Sudan, bringing them back to the north. Instead, he dug in on his own and proceeded to defend Khartoum, which led to his eventual death by the Mahdi’s forces.”

“Thank heavens the maniacal fool died six months after Gordon was murdered,” I said.

“But what he started remains in motion, with subtle encouragement by these same evil and manipulative men,” said Daniel. “The Mahdi’s tomb has become a rallying point for those who would continue the fight, showing again that objects can have power when followers believe in them.”

“There are other more current factors as well,” said Holmes. “Are you all aware of the meetings currently taking place in Constantinople?”

Daniel nodded, but I shook my head, still amazed at Holmes’s awareness of obscure facts. It was a long time indeed since those early months in Baker Street, when he had pretended to be intentionally ignorant of whole areas of knowledge, just to leave spare room, as he explained, in his “brain attic”.

Micah, who had been mute up to this point, sat up a little straighter, both hands curved around his empty coffee cup. “I know of it,” he rumbled. “Since the British took control of the Suez Canal, there has been concern from other countries about its continued use and associated safe passage.”

“Correct,” said Holmes. “France, Germany, Russia, Spain, and others, are all in current talks in the ‘Gateway to the East’ about keeping the Canal open for world trade. One cannot underestimate the Canal’s importance since the rise of steam-powered ships. Since they can travel against the constant west-to-east winds that defeat sailing ships there, it has become one of the most important locations in the world in relation to international commerce. I have it on good authority that the governments meeting in Constantinople will be signing a treaty later this year to guarantee free access to the Canal.”

“I notice,” said Micah, with a trace of bitterness, “that you didn’t mention any involvement of the countries physically contiguous to the canal in these talks, even though one would think that its interests would be thoroughly tied up with it.”

“As you are certainly aware,” Holmes responded, with an ironic tone in his voice, “local concerns are being handled by the British government.”

“So if a war were to occur…” began Daniel.

“Then the safety of the Canal, and commercial passage through it, could not be guaranteed, treaty or no treaty.”

“And if the European countries that you mentioned,” I added, “France, Russia, Spain, and so forth – “

“And certainly the Ottoman Empire as well,” added Daniel.

I nodded. “If all of those countries were blocked from using the Canal by a regional uprising, sweeping up along it and then crossing to the Arabian Peninsula on the other side, it could very well increase tensions to such a point that the European countries might also be pressed to go to war with one another to protect their own interests, even as they were facing attacks from the south.”

“Exactly,” said Holmes.

“And all because of the reappearance of this stone idol,” said Daniel.

“Not all because of it,” added Holmes. “Some of this is already in motion. But it certainly complicates matters.”

“What have you done to locate this Eye?” I asked the two brothers.

“I’m afraid, following its reappearance two days ago, our plan has been to rely on you, up to this point.” The scholar smiled tiredly. “We were rather caught unawares.” Daniel gestured toward his brother with his coffee cup, and while Micah refilled his and the others as well, he continued. “Our brother, Andrew, has a job near the Museum, working for a nearby dealer in Scottish fabrics. He was doing something near the front window the other day when, by merest chance, he happened to see one of the men that we regularly keep under observation, the Museum employee named Williams, depart in haste from his place of employment. You will understand that, with the idol residing in the Museum, Mr. Williams has been of great interest to us. He appeared to be quite unnerved. Only moments later, another man followed him, clearly trying to avoid being seen. Andrew, who has an understanding with the owner of the shop, left quickly, trailing both of them to a telegraph office.”

“Allow me to compliment his tracking skills,” said Holmes. “For I was the man following Williams, and I was completely unaware of Andrew’s presence.”

Micah looked shocked, resuming his seat and widening his remaining eye, while the skin stretched along the horrible scar covering the other. “Impossible. You look nothing like the man that Andrew described. You do not move as he said that man did. You are too tall.” He shook his head. “Impossible. We have been curious as to whom that man could have been, and have wasted much time looking for him.”

“Nevertheless,” said Holmes, “please continue your tale.”

Daniel took a sip. “After Mr. Williams sent his wire, with great urgency I might add, he departed, and the man – that is, you, Mr. Holmes, for I must accept what you say – stepped to the counter as well. At that point, Andrew chose to stay with Mr. Williams, to see what had upset him so.

“He soon obtained a cab, and Andrew followed suit. My brother was fortunate, in that on many occasions cabbies will refuse service to foreigners such as ourselves. But this driver was interested in the coins that Andrew showed to him, and followed his instructions to keep the other cab within sight, a task that was easy, due to the fact that the streets were quite crowded with midday traffic.

“They reached Liverpool Street Station, where Mr. Williams purchased a ticket to Chelmsford. Andrew did so as well, and soon they were traveling east. Andrew was quite careful to avoid the man’s glance, but he needn’t have bothered, as Mr. Williams was very absorbed in his own thoughts. Andrew said that he knew something was troubling him, as he had left the Museum without his overcoat, and seemed to be quite cold, huddling into the seat as he was.

“In Chelmsford, he bought a ticket for a northbound branch line, and so did Andrew. Again, Mr. Williams should have noticed him, on that nearly deserted train, but he had no awareness for anything except his own thoughts.

“Andrew’s luck failed him at the halt where they descended. Mr. Williams hired the station’s only wagon and set off, while Andrew was left behind. However, he had an idea that Mr. Williams was going to see the Earl, whose house, he knew, was nearby. About what the meeting was to be, however, he had no knowledge.

“Not knowing what else to do, or if he was even following Mr. Williams for any good reason, Andrew decided to conceal himself nearby to see what he might see. He observed your arrival sometime later, gentlemen, and he recognized you that time, Mr. Holmes, as you had by then returned to your normal appearance. We have been aware of you for quite a while, as you were the man who located the idol when it was recovered from John Goins, so many years ago.”

“One of your agents, I presume?” Holmes asked Daniel.

The man narrowed his eyes tellingly and shook his head. “Not so. Even then, as we had followed the idol to England to try to retrieve it, so had certain members of a more fanatical group that would seek to make use of its supposed powers. John Goins, whom you briefly met then, is one of those men.”

“Do you know what happened to him after his time in prison?”

“He was released, only to drop from sight soon after. But he has been in this country ever since, coordinating the waiting game on the other side of the chess board from where my brothers and I sit, each patient for something to happen.”

“Which it finally did,” said Holmes, “when I unfortunately set these events in motion.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. “You, Mr. Holmes? How did you accomplish that?”

Holmes answered vaguely, “I had innocently mentioned the idol to Watson the night before. Realizing that I had a desire to see it again after all these years, he and I had dropped around the Museum to get a look at it.” He then chose to obfuscate the portion of the story concerning the existence of the copied idol. “We were told that the idol couldn’t be viewed,” he lied. “But Williams must have been frightened nonetheless, as he left abruptly to warn his master, the Earl, that I had been there asking questions, which is what alerted Andrew. When we also noticed that Williams was leaving in such a hurry, I immediately suspected that something was afoot, and thus enlightened, we followed him to Essex, only to arrive after he had been killed. The Earl had already fled with the idol.”

I was gratified when Daniel nodded, indicating that he had apparently accepted that truncated version of events without digging deeper into the parts that weren’t quite there. Micah said, “Andrew said that he saw you when you arrived at the station on the next train, but he did not see your return later from the house.”

“And that must be because, instead of waiting to see us come back to the station,” Holmes said, “Andrew was already following the Earl after he showed up there sometime later, having passed by us on a different road as we went out to his house.”

“How could you know that?” asked Micah with astonishment.

“It is true,” agreed Daniel. “We have all come to recognize the Earl, as well as the other different players, quite well over the years. Your arrival there that afternoon, Mr. Holmes, so soon after Mr. Williams’s journey, surprised Andrew, and it gave him to understand that perhaps this occurrence was even more serious than he had first thought, as beforehand he had nearly convinced himself that he had followed Mr. Williams for no reason at all.”

“So the Earl arrived at the station,” I said, “and Andrew, seeing him carrying a mysterious bundle, followed him.”

“Yes, the bundle. A cloth bag, not more than a foot long, that the Earl kept desperately clutched to himself. It was his only luggage, and seeing how anxiously the man behaved, Andrew then began to realize what was in it – the idol had been in Essex all along. He thought about making a try for it then, but on the crowded train, there was simply no way to take it and then escape.”

“But if Andrew followed the Earl all the way back,” I reasoned, “surely he must know where he went to ground, and more importantly, where the idol is now located.” Holmes nodded.

Micah lowered his head. “We are ashamed,” he said. “All of us. Andrew and the Earl traveled to London by the same route that he had covered with Mr. Williams, just hours earlier. At Liverpool Street Station, the Earl made for the cab rank, and Andrew followed. But several trains had arrived nearly simultaneously, discharging their passengers, and before he could obtain his own cab, most were taken. There was a great confusion as many people tried to depart at the same time. While looking around for an empty conveyance, he realized that he had lost the Earl. Abandoning his attempt to secure his own transport, he ran down the streets, frantically trying to locate the man, hoping that somehow he would instinctively know which cab was correct. But he saw nothing to tell him which of the many departing and passing vehicles held the Earl, or in what direction he was heading.”

Holmes shook his head. “Most unfortunate. And when did you learn what had happened to Mr. Williams?”

“Andrew knew that something serious was taking place,” replied Micah, “but not exactly what. Upon arriving in London, he wired to let us know where he was, and then I began to try to find out why Mr. Williams left the Museum so hurriedly, although I was not sure if that knowledge would be of immediate benefit.”

“We then decided,” interrupted Daniel, “to determine the reason for your involvement, Mr. Holmes, since you had been friends with the Earl long ago, when you first recovered the idol for him.”

“Not friends,” Holmes corrected. “An acquaintance, nothing more.”

“Andrew was told to forget about the Earl and instead to watch your home in Baker Street,” continued Micah. “Later I went as well. We found a spot to keep watch, and it was there that Daniel joined us sometime later. Andrew explained all that had happened, and then we set about discovering the rest of the story about the death of Williams.”

“And it was while hiding there,” I said, “that one of you saw Baron Meade leave the bomb at our door.”

“It was Andrew who saw this,” said Micah, “although he did not know that it was a bomb. We later knew that it was something dangerous, due to the behavior of the police who took it away.”

“And you are certain that your opposites in this affair also know of the statue’s liberation?” asked Holmes.

Daniel nodded. “We received word that our foes had been motivated into unusual motion on that same day. In some way, we know not how, they had also learned that the idol was obtainable once again. We began to hear enough whispers and reports from our friends, those who know John Goins’s men, that they also knew of Mr. Williams’s initial departure on the day of his death, and that it was somehow related to your visit to the Museum.”

“You learned all of that from your informants?”

“Our family’s wealth has been useful in support of our cause. This includes some well spent coins toward purchasing a word or two from those who can listen without being noticed.”

“And so your only plan right now for finding the sculpture,” continued Holmes, “has been to hope that I would uncover it for you.”

Daniel shrugged. “Your reputation is well known. We are few. Myself, my brothers, a limited number of other members of our family, along with some informants who are sometimes paid more by us than our foes, sometimes not.”

“Your organization is not as helpless as you would portray. For instance, Watson and I had no idea that we were being followed this morning to Sir Edward’s home in Mayfair. In fact, we chose the route so that anyone attempting to do so would be exposed.”

Daniel gave one of those shrugs that one sees so often in foreign counties, as if to express, “What can I say?” He shifted almost uncomfortably in his chair. “Others may follow as skillfully as you are reputed to do, Mr. Holmes. I do not know if you were aware that this Baron was also following you this morning, but I assure you that he was there. I myself shadowed you yesterday as you visited various government buildings in Whitehall, as well as making a stop in Pall Mall. I was also near Sir Edward’s house in Mayfair yesterday when I heard you agree to return this morning. That is how Andrew knew to find you there.”

“And Dr. Watson?” Holmes asked. “Was anyone watching him yesterday, when his companion was attacked on the street in the Strand?”

The brothers glanced at each other. Then, Micah said, “I was nearby. I was… taken unaware by the attack on Dr. Watson’s friend.”

“And you stood there,” I asked, attempting to control my sudden irritation, “after watching another man shot in cold blood, and made no effort to stop the attacker, or chase him down?”

“I had not been in Baker Street when the bomb package was left,” said Micah defensively. “I did not know who this man was, so I had no reason to suspect that anything terrible was about to happen. The man with whom you had arrived at the restaurant stepped out to hail a cab. Almost immediately, this other man stepped forward and shot him. Then you came out, and I chose discretion, waiting to see what might happen. After all, you and Mr. Holmes have many enemies, and this might have been related to some other set of events with which we are not concerned.”

“As, in fact, you are not,” said Holmes.

Daniel agreed. “I am sorry that my brother did not step forward and subdue this Baron, assuming that he could have, but to do so might have involved him in a business that did not concern us before we had decided how to approach you.”

I started to respond with resentment, but Holmes waved his hand.

“It is in the past now. What’s of more immediate importance is that none of us have any good ideas as to where the idol might now be located. Am I correct?”

The two brothers nodded. “We had hoped that your visit this morning to Sir Edward might give you the information you needed. Both he and the Earl have been quite close over the years.”

“But, Holmes,” I began. “Sir Edward said that they have – ”

Holmes smiled. “What my friend almost said, before trying to shut that barn door after the horse has escaped, is that Sir Edward indicated this morning that he has lost touch with the Earl over the years, and could provide no real helpful information.” Holmes’s smile vanished. “I didn’t believe him.”

Daniel nodded. “As you might expect, we have also kept a close eye on the Earl over the last decades, watching both his wealth and influence grow. This has only been matched by his debauched lifestyle. Throughout, he and Sir Edward have been in regular and constant association with one another, visiting each other’s homes quite often, although they do not socialize together in public. I had assumed that you knew of this, Mr. Holmes, when you arranged yesterday to visit with the man.”

“Not at all. I merely wanted to speak with him in order to get some background information on the original discovery of the idol, and also about a few of the statements by the Earl’s man, Dawson, following his arrest, in which he indicated that the Earl actually believes in its magic, and that this was the reason and cause of the Earl’s successes.”

“Yet another example of men foolishly investing these things with powers,” said Daniel.

“Perhaps not so foolish,” grumbled Micah. “You know, my brother, that I have long said you should be more open-minded. If a fool such as the Earl can make a success of himself, then there must be something to the idol’s influence after all. Now that we know he really has had it for all of these years, using its powers to increase his wealth, much can be explained that puzzled us before – ”

“Enough!” snapped Daniel. “I will not tolerate such talk. Magic stones! I will not credit this object as being anything more than a dangerous lens for focusing trouble.”

Micah nodded and lowered his head, but just for an instant, in that dark room beneath the level of the street that was lit only by lanterns, I thought I saw another glow, deep within his eye. The Earl was not the only man in London who believed in the power of Heka.

Chapter XV: An Accord

I almost looked to see if Holmes had noticed, but stopped myself. It would not do to give away that I had seen, just for a moment, the naked lust in Micah’s eye when he spoke of the supposed power contained within the missing talisman.

Holmes looked at Daniel. “I cannot speak in regard to your family’s service over the millennia in keeping watch over the hidden statue, but I’m certainly glad to know that you are here now.”

Daniel rose and took a step forward, offering his hand. My friend and I stood as well. We shook hands with both Daniel and Micah. Without the need to speak it, we seemed to have reached an accord to work together. And yet, had we, in making the covenant with Micah, somehow weakened our own forces?

“How many men do you have, then?” asked Holmes. “Besides the three of you.”

“Not enough,” sighed Daniel.

“Five,” added Micah. “We three brothers, and two others.”

“It has been difficult to know whom to trust,” Daniel said.

“On our side,” said Holmes, “we can count on the police and the Foreign Office, but having such a great wind in our sails is useless without a direction in which to steer. It seems as if the Earl has gone to ground, having been willing to abandon everything that he has in order to safeguard his treasure.”

“He would have been better off to sit still, rather than fleeing in fear,” said Daniel. “He had fooled us all for years into believing that the object was safely tucked away within the Museum.”

“We’ve been told that his behavior changed in the last few months,” I said. “Possibly he wasn’t thinking in a rational manner any longer, and couldn’t reason his way to seeing that the situation might have eventually worked out in his favor.”

“His need,” interjected Holmes, “to possess the talisman clearly outweighed anything else.”

“And drove him to murder in the process,” Daniel added.

“As you say.” Clearly we weren’t sharing every fact with our new allies.

Daniel waved an arm. “So what do we do now, gentlemen? Good men and bad are scouring this great city, looking for some indication of the Earl’s passage. He has abandoned his home and his resources, but he must be somewhere. Our enemies are also searching, even now, and if they find the idol first, you may rest assured it will be removed from this country as fast as it can be carried. They will not wait. Within a week, you will begin to receive reports of uprisings. These will swell and flow together, and soon the sheer volume of it all will overwhelm any resistance.”

“Surely,” I said, “it will not be as sudden and awful as all of that. As you have said, there are many who want peace, and would not be part of the twisted and violent plan that you have described. They will surely stand against it, or at least not join with them.”

“I believe you underestimate the forces at work, Doctor. It will be a tide that cannot be resisted. The return of the statue will be a tipping point, the final raindrop that breaks the dam, and their only path to safety will be to run in front of it. The initial successes of the group will give it confidence, and it will grow and grow as long-held angers are brought out and fed. Many will flock to the cause in countless numbers.” He looked at Holmes. “We must find the idol, Mr. Holmes, before that happens.”

“That we will do so was never in doubt,” said my friend, “and neither is the necessity of the endeavor.” But then, he seemed to remember the scope of the task. “We can but try,” he said more softly. He glanced toward the doorway. “It is now time to go our separate ways, but we’ll stay in touch. As soon as we hear any whisper as to where the Earl might have hidden himself, we’ll let you know. Will a message reach you here?”

“Indeed.”

Holmes nodded. “In the meantime, then, assign your resources in whatever way you feel is best.”

“We shall. And,” Daniel added, with a weary smile in my direction, “if we happen to observe this Baron setting another bomb against your front door, we will attempt to take him for you, as well.”

“That would be much appreciated. But,” I added, “be careful. He is dangerous, without doubt.”

Micah led us out of the room. I looked back before the door closed to see Daniel, standing as we had left him, but with his head bowed and his hands folded together, as if he were in prayer. The yellow light from one of the lanterns hanging behind him outlined his figure in a fiery halo, and he looked like a dark angel. Then Micah pulled the door shut, and we were again in darkness, except for the small light again carried by our guide.

He led us upstairs. Holding the outer door, Micah muttered, “We cannot return you as you were brought, as my brother has already taken the cab back to its owner, and then he is to be about other business.”

Holmes nodded absently, and we stepped outside. I started to speak, but before I could do so, Micah pulled the door shut without a further word.

“Holmes – ” I began, but he narrowed his eyes and shook his head with a small sideways motion, likely not even visible from a few feet away.

We walked down the small alley that made up Bere Street, and so through the narrow winding passages into Commercial Road. I checked my watch, and saw that we had been in conference with the two brothers for less than an hour. It seemed as if much more of the morning should be gone.

When we were some distance up the street, Holmes and I stepped out of the teeming throngs and into a quieter doorway where we could speak. By long habit, we faced so that each could see past the other, scanning the horizon for incoming threats, or perhaps simply to check if there was someone that seemed too interested in hearing what we had to say.

“Did you observe Micah?” I asked. “When Daniel chastised him for a belief in the magical powers of the idol?”

“I did. I cannot help but think that Micah hopes that finding the sculpture will be of some specific use to him or his family in the future. I’m not convinced that, should he be in charge, the idol would be returned to its obscure tomb.”

“So not only do we have to worry that it will fall into the wrong hands, but now we also have to worry about it falling into the right hands as well.”

“Perhaps it’s not as bad as all that. Sufficient unto the day,” said Holmes. “We certainly know what John Goins and his associates will do if they retrieve the idol, and that must be prevented. That is enough to worry about for now. When we have the cursed rock in hand, we can decide what to do about going forward. You will notice that, while we are working as confederates with Daniel and his band for the recovery of the idol, I did not make any guarantee that it would be returned in the end to the safekeeping of the House of Ham-El, and so on to be reburied in a tomb, only be taken again at some future point. No, the official plan is still to keep it here in England, where it can be guarded and hidden – certainly more effectively than it has been in the past.”

“To hide it again means that it must first be found. Do you have a more specific plan that you haven’t shared?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid that we keep doing what we have been doing. Watch out for Ian. Try to find his other friends, if any, to determine if they have seen him or if they’re helping him. At least now we have Daniel on our side.”

“He will not be happy when he discovers that we intend to keep the statue in England – should we be the ones to find it first.”

“I’m not so sure. He sounded as if he were content when he believed that it was in the Museum for over a decade. That’s not to say that he and the others wouldn’t have tried to take it back if it had become more accessible. However, his overriding concern rightly seems to be that it not fall into the wrong hands, and leaving it here, far from where it might cause the least amount of damage, is an acceptable solution.”

“What shall we do now?”

“First, I’ll try to pay more attention. We’ve been observed or followed too easily, in too many recent instances, without ever being aware of it. Additionally, it is inexcusable that I neglected to ask at the time whether anyone else got off the train with Williams when he arrived in Essex. If I had thought of that – if I had known sooner that a foreign-looking man of distinctive appearance had also arrived at such a location that probably only rarely sees visitors – I would have known sooner about this new thread in our skein.”

“But it might also have confused the issue. Had you known about an additional factor, it could have distracted you from the bare facts of Williams’s murder. You might have believed that Andrew, the mysterious man on the scene, had something to do with it, rather than quickly determining that Dawson killed him.”

I coughed at some drifting East End odor and pulled my coat tighter around my throat. “So I ask again, Holmes – what shall we do now?”

“We can only keep shaking the trees,” he said. “I’ll confer with the Yard so as to see what has been reported in the search for Ian, and also speak with my contacts in the Foreign Office. You must hold yourself in readiness.”

I nodded. “But first, I’m going to return to Charing Cross, to check on Dr. Withers.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. I could almost hear the thought jumping across his mind, wondering if I was also interested in seeing the doctor’s daughter, and my eyes narrowed, as my response to him crossed mine.

“Be careful, Watson,” he said, and before I could counter that any ideas about Miss Withers were incorrect, and that I had nothing in relation to her to be careful about, he added, “Baron Meade is still out there.”

I was caught short, surprised for a moment to have forgotten that threat. “Surely, after his last attempt, the man will flee. Why would he keep focusing on me? Killing me will do nothing to further his misguided agenda. There is simply no logic to it.”

“Don’t make the mistake of assigning logic, as understood by your perfectly normal and rational brain, to the Baron’s motivations and actions. He is in a rage, and has crossed the line of sanity. He will not stop his plans to do as much damage as possible, and you are now included in those whom he blames for his pain.”

“I will be careful,” I promised. With a nod, Holmes stepped away from the door, hailing not the first or even the second, but the third empty cab that rolled our way, heading west.

We shared it as we journeyed across the capital, traveling in silence. Passing along the Strand, I looked over at the pavement before Simpson’s, where less than a day before, Dr. Withers had been shot by that man who believed he was killing me. Now, people walked there, both ways, a milling throng, completely oblivious to what had so recently happened on that spot. I tried to see if the doctor’s blood still stained the pavement, but we passed too quickly.

I rapped on the roof of the cab across from the passage to William IV Street and Agar Street, which curved up and around the hospital. Agreeing to meet Holmes later that day in Baker Street, I climbed out. Crossing the street, I watched the cab blend in with all the others as Holmes made his way on to Whitehall and Scotland Yard. I wondered what exactly he would be able to accomplish. I had seen him do some amazing things, but I had the feeling that the Earl of Wardlaw would not be found until he was ready to be found. With a sigh, I walked up the slight rise and away from the Strand.

Chapter XVI: Unwanted Advice

Inside the hospital, I was told that the patient had been released that morning and had returned to his hotel. I confirmed that it was still the one where I had initially met him, only days earlier. He and his daughter had chosen to stay in a small private establishment off Portman Square after they had traveled up from Portsmouth. I resolved to make my way there, as it was on the way home to Baker Street.

I was headed toward the hotel when I realized that I hadn’t been as careful as Holmes, who had followed his own dictum about not catching the first cab available at the start of our last journey. It was a good rule at any time, and one that had been brought home to me on several occasions over the years, varying from some simply annoying encounters to others that were quite a bit more painful. It was these same types of circumstances, in addition to others with the questionable individuals that one inevitably ended up being associated with during Holmes’s investigations, that provided the reason to always carry my service revolver whenever I went out. I knew that I had been distracted over the last few weeks, but I simply couldn’t allow myself to drop my vigilance. There were enemies constantly afoot, and more than the most obvious of the lot, Baron Meade.

In spite of having chosen the first cab that presented itself, the ride passed without incident, and my carelessness didn’t cause me any difficulties this time. Arriving at the hotel, I sent up my card. In a moment, the boy returned to say that I would be seen upstairs, where the doctor and his daughter had a suite of two bedrooms with a shared sitting room.

I stopped outside the door, pausing before I knocked, suddenly realizing that, while I was there to check on the patient, I would also need to try to apologize to the man’s daughter for inadvertently putting her father at risk.

Taking a deep breath, I knocked decisively and was bade to enter. Stepping in, I found Doctor Withers, wrapped snugly in a dressing gown and rising from a settee. He took a step toward me, wincing as he did so.

“Doctor Watson,” he said. “Come in.”

I approached him, glancing at the bandage extending around his neck and down into his clothing. He held his body stiffly, and his left arm was done up in a sling. I wondered if I had appeared the same when recovering from my own war injuries nearly a decade earlier.

“I wanted to see how you’re getting on, and the hospital informed me that you had already been discharged.”

“I discharged myself,” he said. “I saw much worse than this in combat, and you did as well, I’ll wager. No reason to give in to it any more than I have to. And you know yourself that staying in a hospital dramatically increases the chances of infection.” He waved me to a chair. “Something to drink?”

I thought of our recent conference in that basement on the edge of Limehouse, drinking the dark thick coffee, and considered that the doctor was likely offering something far stronger and much more tempting. “Please,” I said.

As he turned toward the sideboard, I made as if to take care of the duties myself, but he waved me away. In a moment, he had poured one-handed a couple of glasses of whisky, each a substantial portion. Handing the first to me, he returned for his own, and then raised it in my direction. “For the pain.”

I smiled, returned the salute, and took a drink. For an instant as I sipped, I suddenly had a vision of my poor father and brother, who had both so loved the taste of this liquid, far too much than was good for them. Their pain was different than mine, and in my opinion not worthy of all the attempts they had made to drown or suppress it. I was of their blood, but I knew without question that, as I dealt with my own losses, it would never be with the contents of a bottle.

Setting down the glass, I took off my coat and laid it across a chair. We sat, and Doctor Withers adjusted his shoulders until he found a position of relative comfort. With a sigh, he said, “That’s better.”

“How bad is it?”

He shook his head. “You would think that it would be worse, really, but it’s no more than a dull throb. Except if I forget and move suddenly. Or when I tried to sleep last night.”

I took another small sip. “Jenny is resting,” continued my host. I looked up, and he was watching me with a slight smile on his face.

“I imagine she is exhausted,” I answered noncommittally.

“Not so much as you might think,” he said. “She has gotten used to times when normal schedules are ignored, and has been quite invaluable to me over the years at the Portsmouth practice. As I certainly expect her to be at this one as well.”

“She certainly showed no signs of panic yesterday when you… when you were wounded.”

“I have no real memory of what happened after the shot. I recall stepping out to secure a cab, when a man approached to my left. I was really more aware of his shadow than his presence. He yelled, ‘Dr. Watson!’, and since you were on my mind, I turned, thinking that you had already joined me and were only a step or two away. Then this man pulled the trigger, two or three times I think, but he was clearly agitated, or at least seemed so in the brief glance I had of him, before one of the shots hit. I went down, and he stepped closer. I believe he would have fired again, but then something stopped him.”

“I expect it was my arrival on the scene. He thought that he was shooting me, and was unnerved to see me suddenly appear from the direction of the restaurant.”

He gave a wry smile. “It has been remarked that we look somewhat similar.”

Without thinking, I started to ask by whom, but then I held my tongue. Instead, I said, “I’m deeply sorry that you were dragged into this problem, Doctor.”

He shook his head, and then winced. “That was one of the times I forget my wound and move too quickly.”

“Perhaps I could prescribe some medication for the discomfort?” I said foolishly, before remembering that I was speaking to a doctor with a decade’s more experience than myself.

“Thank you, no,” he said with a grin. “I’m fine. But tell me, who was this man that tried to kill us?”

“His name is Baron Meade. His son, a military man, was accidentally killed late last year during the Bloody Sunday riot, and he has since become fixated on taking revenge against the British government. The other night, Holmes and I foiled his plan, which involved a massive amount of explosives. He had intended to tote all of it to some location in London and then blow it up. During his capture, he and I tangled, and now he has a face upon which to fix his anger. Unfortunately, he escaped from the police that night. Yesterday’s attack with a gun was not his only attempt on my life.” Dr. Withers raised an eyebrow, and I continued. “Two days ago, he left an explosive device for me. Luckily, Holmes recognized it for what it was, and the bomb specialists with the Yard and the Special Branch were able to take care of it.”

He looked a bit amazed. “Does this sort of thing happen to you often?”

I shrugged and gave a small laugh. “More often than you might think.”

“What did your wife think about all of this?”

I was surprised at his question. I had already learned that it seemed as if most people danced around mentioning a recently deceased spouse, using instead such supposedly harmless euphemisms as “your loss”. I shouldn’t have been surprised that a widower and former military surgeon was unafraid to say what he thought in a more direct fashion, and to ask a question with tact but without fear. I would have done the same.

“She didn’t mind it,” I said. “At least, I believe that to be the case. She was ill for most of the time that we were married, and traveled often with her mother to healthier climes while I maintained the practice.” I chose my words. “It seemed as if she were… grateful that I had the… the distraction of helping Holmes with his cases.”

He nodded, and then cut his eyes toward my coat, lying on the chair nearby. “It has not escaped my attention that you always go about armed, at least during the few times that I’ve encountered you. This indicates the ongoing presence of danger. Was any of that ever directed toward your wife?”

I shook my head. “During my marriage, that part of my life and the times spent on Holmes’s investigations were quite separated. He only visited the house in Kensington on a few occasions. More often than not, he would summon me by telegram when needed, or I would become involved in a case only after dropping into my old rooms in Baker Street for a visit.”

“You must have visited quite often.”

“Moderately, I suppose. I did do quite well at building up the practice, as you’ve seen. I never neglected it. If I did have to be away, several other excellent doctors located nearby were more than willing to help, and of course I returned the favor. And as I said, my wife traveled a… a great deal, I’m afraid, so I had significant spare time on my hands.” I glanced at my hands, fingers curled around the whisky glass. I seemed to be doing considerable staring into whisky glasses of late.

Dr. Withers was silent for a moment. Then, “But you chose to sell the practice immediately following your wife’s death.”

“Yes.” I looked up then. He was watching me intently.

“I know it was painful, but did you not consider throwing yourself deeper into your work, rather than abandoning all that you had so recently built?”

“You do not understand,” I said softly. “I couldn’t face it.”

“Is returning to the distractions of Mr. Holmes’s cases that enticing, then?”

I felt a defensive flash of anger for just an instant, but I let it pass and thought for a moment, before replying, “How can I explain it to you? When I returned from Afghanistan, wounded out of the Army and living on half-pay, I was living in a private hotel off the Strand, much like this one. It was clearly beyond my means, and I was headed for certain ruin if I didn’t get a proper hold on my situation.” Raising the whisky to my lips, I took a fiery sip and swallowed, and then continued. “It is not a path that has been untrodden by men in my family before. Deprived of my health, I was without a career or purpose. It was being introduced to Holmes, and being able to see him work and then to join him in his investigations – ”

“His ‘adventures’ – ” Was there a hint of a sneer in his voice?

“Yes, adventures, if you will. It was joining in on those that helped to heal me, and to distract me from my pain, and my disappointment, and my situation, and also the fact that the Army no longer had any use or place for me. When Constance died a few weeks ago, I felt as lost as I had when I was invalided back to England. It seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to return to the situation that had restored me in the past. I do not have a daughter like you, or someone for whom to carry on. If I had remained at the practice, I would have no doubt continued to make a go of it, and a successful one at that, but what would it have been for? Doing the same thing every day, the same empty view from within my consulting room, before trodding upstairs at night to the equally empty living quarters. At the end of the day, what would I have accomplished?”

“Well, first of all you would have continued to aid many people who need a good doctor. That is certainly more useful than assisting those that seek out Mr. Holmes’s assistance.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that – ” I said, but he continued before I could finish.

“And who is to say that you might not ever marry again? Wouldn’t it have been better to keep the successful practice going, and have it in place when you do find a new wife, rather than have to begin all over again?”

My nostrils flared, as I thought that he was pressing a little too close. I was certainly not ready to consider a new wife, or to take advice from this man that I barely knew. I doubted, considering how I felt now and with all respect to his daughter, that I should ever marry again. But before I could respond, he went on. “I know what it was that Jenny was going to discuss with you yesterday when I went to locate a cab.”

I didn’t respond, but glanced toward the door where he’d said that she was resting. “Do not think that I’m somehow trying to talk you out of selling the practice,” he continued. “How could I? It’s done. I wanted it, I bought it, and I’m glad that I did it. We wanted to move to London, the two of us, and what you were selling was perfect for our needs.

“But,” he continued, “I believe that it can be even more of a success than it already is. Certainly it will continue to grow, and there will be room for another doctor. There already is, if the books you’ve shown me are any indication. I have an idea that I could even maintain a small private hospital there, right in the house, just a few beds for short-term cases. And you would be just the man to help me do that.

“I haven’t known you for very long, but I’m a very good judge of character. The patients already know you. You need something to do, and it shouldn’t be spending your time following after your friend on his petty criminal investigations.”

“I’m not sure you understand,” I interrupted, taking offense at this, “just how serious some of Holmes’s investigations are. I told you of Baron Meade’s plans, for instance – the very series of events which led to you being shot – and there is another even greater situation that we are investigating right now as well.”

Dr. Withers waved this aside with his good right hand. “You are a doctor, not a policeman. A good doctor. I saw that immediately, and it was only my selfishness at desiring and acquiring your existing practice, and the knowledge that if I didn’t buy it you would still sell to someone else, that kept me from trying to tell you these things a week ago when we first met. But just because you’ve sold it now doesn’t mean you can’t still be involved in it. You should beware these false distractions. You are a doctor, sir! You can’t stop being a doctor. You know it, I know it, and Jenny knows it too.”

My eyes again turned involuntarily toward her door, and then back to him. He had seen what I did, and he smiled. “She is too forward sometimes, I know, too presumptuous, for her own good – or for mine. Conventionalities rarely suit her. From the day she met first you, she decided that you are to be part of her future, and the fact that you momentarily oppose it, and that you tragically lost your wife just weeks ago, will not deter her. And truthfully, how can we disagree with her? Why should we? We’ve both been in the Army, seen things on the edge of civilization that are too much to comprehend. We’ve seen how cheap life is, and more importantly how short it can be. Is there really any good reason to follow some societal behavior dictating mourning customs and related niceties when what you need is right in front of you?”

I saw that he had been leaning forward slightly while making this speech, and now that it was concluded, he allowed himself to settle back with a tightening of his pained lips.

I cleared my throat, and then replied, in as even a tone as I could manage, “Sir, I see that I must speak plainly. I do not wish or intend to remarry.” A pause, and then with what I hoped was finality on the subject, “Not to your daughter, or anyone else.”

He snorted and shook his head. Then, after taking a sip of the whisky, he sat silently for a bit before finally clearing his throat, saying, “Nonsense. It’s just a matter of time. Why do you insist on waiting?”

“Nevertheless,” I said simply, feeling a bit like Holmes. Then I was quiet.

He regarded me then, waiting for me to elaborate, and perhaps to fill the awkwardly growing silence. But I had seen that trick used too many times, and nearly always successfully, as Holmes allowed someone to crack, to begin burbling nervously while revealing much more than had ever been intended. I successfully fought against the urge to start explaining myself again, or rephrasing my thoughts in a way that might suddenly be clear where they had not been before, and finally, the tension of the moment built so that Dr. Withers himself gave in and spoke with a weary smile.

Setting down his drink and then turning over his right hand, he said, “Ah, well, don’t expect me to give up that easily. You’ll agree that I’m right in the end. And Jenny is much more stubborn than I am. You really do not have a choice.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, although I hadn’t meant to. “Why me? You both only recently met me.”

“As I explained, I can see that you need this, and you are also the best man for the job. Joining the family, so to speak, sooner rather than later, would only make things easier. And then there’s Jenny. She knew what she wanted as soon as she saw you.”

I had to wonder about all that that implied, seeing as how much I resembled a younger version of her own father in so many ways. All the more reason for me to extricate myself from this situation as soon as I politely could.

There was still a substantial portion of the whisky in my glass, but I found that I was more than ready to leave. I turned it up and finished it quickly, perhaps too quickly, as I had to cough my way clear once or twice while my eyes watered. Then, standing up, I said, “Thank you for that. And thank you for the offer as well. I’m sorry that I cannot accept, but when I decided to sell the practice, I did so for a very good reason. Perhaps someday I will think that doing so was a mistake, but I don’t believe so, and for right now, it was exactly the course that I needed to follow.”

He struggled to his feet as well. Stepping over, he held out his hand. We shook. “We’re not done talking about this,” he said, “no matter what you may think.” Releasing my hand, he walked to the door while I retrieved my coat. “Jenny will be sorry that she missed you.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” I said. “She seemed rather abrupt yesterday, after my affairs inadvertently involved you, resulting in an attack that could have been fatal.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know her. Not yet.”

As I finished closing my coat, he unexpectedly said, “Might I ask you for a favor?”

Surprised, I said, “Certainly.”

He began to fish awkwardly in his coat pocket. “As the practice was transferred to me yesterday, I had already made arrangements to have some of our possessions delivered to it in Kensington, using the spare key you had provided to me last week. The movers were supposed to drop off the various items yesterday afternoon. That is where Jenny and I would have gone after Simpson’s, and before I was… shot. Since then, we have obviously been unable to go there and make sure that everything was delivered shipshape as promised, and the house properly relocked. Would you have time to check it for me? If not, I’ll understand.”

I tried to see if there was some ulterior motive in his asking me to visit my former home. Possibly he was hoping to make the idea of returning easier.

Then I thought of the ongoing search for the Earl of Wardlaw and The Eye of Heka, and how I had said that I would meet Holmes later in Baker Street. But after the conversation of the last few minutes, I only wished to be alone, not wishing to return just yet to that situation of danger and threats of death.

“Of course,” I said. “I shall go there immediately, before returning to Baker Street.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m certain that all is well, but it would be good to have someone who knows what’s what put a pair of eyes on the place to make sure.”

He found what he was seeking in his pocket and removed his hand awkwardly, a grimace of pain crossing his face as he did so. He pulled out a key, the same one that I had given to him yesterday. I had never expected to hold it again.

I took it and nodded and, without further conversation, departed.

I made sure, upon reaching the street, to seek out the third empty cab. I thought about Baker Street, so close to the north that I could easily have walked, but I was simply not ready to return home yet. Home, I thought. How curious that I can already think of it again in that way.

The journey passed without incident, nearly repeating the route of a couple of days earlier when I had gone to Kensington to meet both doctor and daughter on the day before the sale. Hyde Park to the south looked bleak in the brassy January light, now past the midpoint of the short day. It occurred to me that I hadn’t found myself any lunch, but I had just consumed a rather large whisky. Surprisingly, I was neither hungry nor inebriated.

The cabbie deposited me in front of the house, and I should have told him to wait. Instead, I paid him and stood watching as he drove away. I was about to go inside when I heard a small voice call my name.

“Dr. Watson! Dr. Watson!”

I looked, surprised to see that I was being approached by a boy at a dead run from his home two doors away and across the street. He pulled himself to a lurching stop in front of me, out of breath from covering the short distance at such high speed.

“You shouldn’t be out without your coat, Lyndon,” I admonished. “You know that, after your illness at Christmas, you must keep yourself warm.”

He nodded, but said, “Is it true? That you are moving away? I’ve seen strangers there. One man just asked me yesterday where you were. I told him that you’re going to live somewhere else. That’s what my mother said, and I thought that she was right. But she must be wrong, because here you are.”

I nodded my head sadly. The little fellow had shown a great interest in someday being a doctor, and I had let him spend some time in my surgery, with the approval of his parents, teaching a few basic facts about anatomy and chemistry. “I’m afraid it’s true,” I said. “There will be a new doctor here soon. He has a daughter, although she’s grown. They are very nice people, and you’ll like them quite a lot.”

He scowled in disagreement. Then, he seemed to remember something, and his eyes widened. “Is it… is it because Mrs. Watson… died?” He whispered the last word, as if that would lessen its impact.

I swallowed. “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’m moving to Baker Street, to stay where I lived before my… before Mrs. Watson and I were married.”

“Baker Street,” he said, eyes widening. “With Mr. Holmes?”

“That’s right.”

That fact seemed to be too momentous to initially afford a comment. Then, he said, “I saw him once. One time when he came to visit you. I was watching out of the window, and saw him drive up in a cab. He looked just like they say. And then the two of you left together in a hurry.”

I nodded, recalling the occasions that my friend had come to summon me, eyes shining, and with a cry of, “The game is afoot!” Some of those times when I had gone had been easy, as my wife was away from home. But once in a while she had still been there when I had departed, and those were the moments that I would never have again.

Before I let those thoughts overtake me, I looked past my young friend and saw his mother, Mrs. Parker, leaning from her front door, her arms folded against the cold air, and looking our way. “Your mother is waiting,” I said. “You’d best be getting home. I’m sure we’ll see each other again very soon.”

“Probably not,” he said, with surprising bitterness for one of only ten. “That’s what people always say when they go away.”

“I mean it,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful to me, and you have a future as a doctor, if that’s the path that you decide to pursue. I want to help with that, if I can.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then… well, then, thank you, Dr. Watson. And… and I’ll see you soon too, then!”

He nodded his head once, turned, and ran back toward his own house. I raised an arm to wave at his mother. She returned the gesture, with a little reserve it seemed, and then gathered the boy against her before going inside.

I turned again to face the empty house. My feet seemed to root themselves onto the pavement, but I swallowed and decisively went up the steps. Then, taking the key that had once been mine from my pocket, I approached the front door and let myself in.

The door had been locked, just as it was supposed to be. It was cold and dark inside, no different than two days before, although there seemed to me that there was already an odd smell of abandonment. Piled up and down the hall were all of the boxes, recently delivered, that belonged to the new doctor and his daughter. I had verified what I was supposed to. There was no reason to stay. I should go. But instead, I continued to stand there.

It was hard to believe, looking at it in this way, that it had ever been what it had meant to me before Constance’s death. Everywhere I looked, I could picture some scene from our lives – Constance coming down the stairs to greet me when I returned from my rounds, Constance leaning out of one of the farther doorways to tell me something inconsequential but precious – but now the memories were already darkening like the rooms around me, and I questioned whether I was remembering them accurately, or revising my recollections into comfortable chapters and vignettes that could be opened and examined like photographic albums with less and less pain through the passage of time.

I wandered through the downstairs, closing doors that I would not open again, the kitchen and the side rooms, and then the cellar, the dark steps yawning before me. And then I reached the base of the stairs in the front hall. I had been unable to make myself go up the other day, but now I felt that I had to. If I didn’t, I would always regret it.

At the top, my feet took me, without conscious volition, into the master bedroom where Constance had passed. The furniture was still there, exactly as I’d left it. I had no need of it now, and had sold it all with the house. I stumbled to the overstuffed armchair near a front window and sank into it, facing the bed. I had forced myself go upstairs, but I couldn’t approach any closer to the place where she had died.

I sat in the dim light, looking blindly before me, staring so intently that my vision wavered at times, giving the illusion that the bedsheets were moving slightly of their own accord. I had seen this type of phenomena before. I recalled when I was young, and one of my grand-uncles had expired from extreme old age. Sitting with my mother, we passed what seemed to be hours, simply contemplating the man’s life and death, while across from us, just feet away, his body lay in its burial clothes.

I knew, even at so young an age, that it was my imagination. But I swore at times that I could see his chest rise and fall, or his eyes shift as if dreaming under the closed lids, or perhaps the twitch of a lip or nostril. I knew it was only my imagination, but still it had seemed so real. And that was now what appeared to happen in that room of death. I seemed to see a movement of the sheets, and I so wanted it to be true. For if something like that could happen, then it might mean that the rules meant nothing – that she was not really gone from me at all. There would be no absolute that said she must be dead. It was all a terrible mistake, or I had been dreaming, and I had a chance to be with her again, and to make different choices this time, not wasting any of what we’d had. I might stand up and walk out of that room to find her, and it would be as if it had never happened at all.

I stared and stared at the bedclothes, until my eyes began to burn. And then the tears coalesced on my eyelids and ran down my cheeks, and more followed, and soon I felt something tearing loose inside me. It pulled me forward, my chest hugging toward my knees, and I cried out. My grief had finally surfaced, and I now wept beyond control for my beautiful lost wife and the life that we had planned together, both now gone forever.

Chapter XVII: Threads Become Knots

I walked home to Baker Street, not caring whether I was someone’s prey.

I made my way into Hyde Park, passing south of Kensington Palace, on a more-or-less straight line east until I encountered the Serpentine, near the Long Water. I recalled an incident, just weeks before my marriage, when Holmes had been tasked to find the missing Hatty Doran, presumed at the time to be the new bride of Lord St. Simon. The girl’s silk wedding-dress, matching satin shoes, and bride’s wreath and veil had been found floating in that body of water, and friend Lestrade had arrived at our doorstep, announcing that he had been having the Serpentine dragged for her body.

Holmes had laughed merrily and commented on the foolishness of the inspector’s efforts, as he already had a good idea about what had really happened. “Have you dragged the basin of Trafalgar Square fountain?” he asked the irritated inspector.

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in the one as in the other.”

But here, standing at the Serpentine on that bleak winter afternoon, I stopped and stared at the water, and could understand why Lestrade might have believed that someone’s body could have ended up there.

The wind was kicking up a chop across the surface, and it was finding its way underneath my coat. My face felt numb, and I knew that if I had any sense, I’d locate a cab and retreat to my old chair in front of the fire in Baker Street posthaste. But I felt like walking.

Turning southeast, I traversed the lower edge of the lake. I maintained this path, following when the shore turned back and curved in the other direction. Now walking along the northern bank, I stopped again and faced into the wind. From that vantage, I could see several people pressing on in huddled fashion at different locations in the park, all hurrying head-down about their business. None of them seemed to be out for pleasure – it was far too cold for that. I found that I was mildly curious about what their own stories were, and where they were coming from and going to. With a bit of surprise, I even noticed that the sun, to the southwest, was trying feebly to warm my face. In some strange way, after my earlier emotional release, would I be coming back to myself?

I turned and resumed my way to the east, crossing Park Lane and entering Mayfair. I threaded my way through the mostly empty streets, with the strong breeze sometimes rushing at my back, and other times protected from it as I changed directions. I saw that I was but a block from Sir Edward Malloy’s house, where Holmes and I had visited, just that morning. Could it have only been a few hours earlier? It seemed so long ago. Our mysterious trip to Limehouse, meeting Daniel and his brothers, my conversation with Dr. Withers, and then my cathartic trip to Kensington. It was no wonder that I was weary.

I thought about altering my path to pass by Sir Edward’s house, but realized that it would accomplish nothing. I might spot one of Daniel’s watchers, perhaps even his brother Andrew, but that would serve no purpose, and seeing me there might confuse them. Instead, I resolved to continue on to Baker Street.

Turning north near Grosvenor Square, I quickened my step. I had been having less trouble with my old Afghan wound in recent months, and it felt good to be stretching out my pace. Perhaps, I naively hoped, the seven-and-a-half years since I had been injured was long enough for me to be mostly healed. The doctor in me, however, knew better.

I finally reached 221 Baker Street, checking the time as I entered. It was somewhat later than I had thought. Hanging my coat and hat in the hall, I saw that Holmes had returned, and also that we had a visitor.

I climbed the steps and, upon reaching the landing outside the sitting room, heard Holmes call, “Come in, Watson. Your counsel is required.”

Entering, I found Inspector Lanner, sitting in the basket chair with his feet stretched toward the fire, and a glass of something amber in his hands. The heat in the room hit my cold face like a slap, and my eyes watered for just a moment. I blinked, sniffed, and made my way to my own chair. “Inspector,” I said. He nodded.

“Lanner brings news of Baron Meade.”

“Nothing for certain, I’m afraid,” said the inspector, pulling his feet back and sitting up straighter. “As you know, we lost him yesterday, after his murderous attack on your friend in front of Simpson’s. Nothing has been seen of him since then, but it is our considered opinion that he has fled London.”

“And he has convinced you of this how?” asked Holmes.

“Well, the cumulative lack of any sign of him. After all, why would he stay? His plans have been foiled.”

I coughed. “Do you mean that, because you have been unable to locate one man in a city of millions, after only looking for a day, you have given up and decided that he is not here to be found at all?”

Holmes’s eyes flashed at my irritated question. I knew that he agreed with me.

Lanner shifted forward in the chair. “The Baron is not your average criminal,” he said doggedly, and with a trace of exasperation. He began to raise fingers to enumerate his points. “He is a rich man, who doesn’t have a clue how to hide in the rat’s nest that is London. He can’t fit in, you see. He has no friends in those places to help him. His own kind won’t shield him, not now. And he isn’t part of any radical group that will take him in. Rather, he was acting alone – the common materials for the explosives he assembled could have been obtained by anyone, after all – and he didn’t need any help for that, other than that of the laborers he hired to move it, and they didn’t know what it was about. There was no fancy clock-work mechanism that only some radical would know how to assemble. And after we arrested him the other night, and then he escaped, the Foreign Office stepped in and cut off all of his funds. Gentlemen, he has nowhere to hide, and no resources. He must surely have fled.”

“But your argument about why he could not stay in London,” said Holmes, “would also explain why he would have nowhere to go if he left London. As you say, he has no resources, no radical associates, and no ready funds to go anywhere else. I take it that you’ve men at both his London residence and his country house?”

Lanner nodded. “We sent them there after the Baron’s arrest, to see if there were any additional explosives, or related evidence. Since his escape, our men have remained on duty there. He hasn’t put in an appearance.”

Holmes shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lanner, but your logic isn’t convincing to me. Nor is it to the doctor, I believe. I feel that the man is still here in London, biding his time. He didn’t leave after he first escaped, as shown by his appearance in the Strand yesterday. He is too angry, too vindictive, and too clever not to have found some hidey-hole before trying something again.”

“If that’s true, then what do you suggest, Mr. Holmes? We don’t know where to search, and we can’t just sit and wait for him to reappear.”

“But that’s exactly what you will be doing if you make the assumption that he has gone. You say that he can’t be here, and he can’t be anywhere else either. But he didn’t just vanish.”

“It seems likely he left the country,” insisted Lanner, almost in a truculent mumble.

“You have men watching the ports, do you not?”

“Yes.”

“Even so, it’s barely possible that he got away by one of those routes, but I believe that he won’t go until his work is done. And now, in addition to punishing the country that he feels is responsible for the death of his son last year, he has also irrationally decided to focus his attentions on Watson.”

“Exactly,” said Lanner. “But we can’t just wait and use the doctor as bait in a tiger trap.” He looked at me. “Can we?”

I started to answer, and in the mood I was in it would have been in the affirmative, but Holmes cut me off, saying firmly, “No,” even as his eyes met mine, understanding what my thoughts had been.

“Then again I ask, Mr. Holmes, what do you suggest? The materials that the man used for his explosives aren’t difficult to obtain. Perhaps you’re right, and he does have a place to hide. If so, he could already be filling it up with the same types of chemicals and metal parts that we found the other night off the Brixton Road. There’s no reason that he couldn’t blow up Parliament at any time he gets ready, and then come after the doctor. It doesn’t have to be the doctor first, you know.”

“I’m aware of that,” said Holmes, “and I must confess that I’m uncertain what to do. I’ve put out the word that I wish to know about any new substantial purchases of the same materials that he used earlier.” He tapped his finger on the table beside him, with a small stack of notes and telegrams lying on top of the Beeton’s. “I have my sources looking for him, and also for someone else who is associated with an entirely unconnected but equally serious episode. I’m afraid now that all we can do is wait and – ”

He was cut off by a frantic ringing of the front door bell, followed immediately by an urgent pounding. We all stood up, looking at each other. Holmes had already started toward the landing when we heard Mrs. Hudson cry out in shock, calling in an unusually shrill tone, “Dr. Watson! Dr. Watson!”

I moved then too, pushing my way past Lanner and wondering what could make her ask for me specifically and with such exigency in her voice. My only idea was that the Baron had just made his latest play against me, and that our dear sweet landlady had now paid the price, even as Dr. Withers had the day before.

Throwing open the sitting room door, I fairly leapt down the stairs. Throwing out a hand at the newel post to anchor me as I rounded at the landing, I could see a couple of figures huddled in the shadows surrounding the front door, both appearing to sag slowly to the ground even as I approached. One was Mrs. Hudson, and I feared what sort of wound could make her behave so.

But then she spoke, with a distressed tone in her voice. “Help me, Doctor!” she cried. “He’s in a terrible state! I can’t hold him!”

By the light coming in the still-open door, I could see that she had her arms around an unconscious man who seemed to have collapsed, taking her with him. She must have opened the door to discover him, and he fell forward to the ground while she tried to brace him. Stepping awkwardly around the both of them, and incredibly relieved to hear that Mrs. Hudson didn’t appear to be in any danger herself, I lifted the man by his clothing away from her and shifted his weight so that I could lower him flat upon the floor. Later, I would marvel at how the adrenaline, produced in that moment, had allowed me to out-race my friend as I flew down the stairs, and then to move the big man as if he were a mere piece of luggage.

I stood up and then bent again to help Mrs. Hudson to her feet. I ascertained that she was uninjured and simply surprised at the unexpected events when she had opened the door. “He took a step forward,” she explained breathlessly, “and started to fall. Please help the poor man, Doctor. Oh, is he dead?”

I had resumed my examination of the unconscious man, rolling him onto his back in order to better evaluate his injuries, even as Holmes came to a stop beside me. I noticed that the mysterious victim seemed to be well-dressed in expensive clothes, but there was an odor about him that is associated with garments that have been worn for too long, often to be found in the poor and homeless who only have one set of attire to wear. I was looking at the man’s wrists, which appeared to have been recently tied and rubbed to the point that the skin was scraped raw, when Holmes hissed, “His face, Watson! Let me see his face!”

Lowering the man’s arms, I reached up and gently turned the casualty’s head, taking it by the chin and rolling it until it faced up into the light. He was unshaven, and his lips were cracked. He appeared to have bitten them in several places, as dried blood was crusted in arcs across them in patterns clearly resembling teeth marks. He looked to be in his forties, with graying temples and a day or two’s worth of whiskers, but my medical experience told me that he was actually several years younger than that, and had only achieved this appearance through a long participation in a dissipated lifestyle.

I heard Holmes take in a quick breath. I would hesitate to call it a gasp, as that was a reaction that my friend rarely manifested. However, considering the completely uncharacteristic shock in his next utterance, perhaps a gasp is the only way to describe it.

“My God,” he breathed. “Ian!”

I turned my head toward him quite sharply. “Ian? Do you mean that this is the Earl of Wardlaw?”

“The same indeed,” Holmes breathed softly. I remembered Lanner for the first time, now stepping closer behind us. “Doctor?” he asked. “Mr. Holmes? Who is this man?”

“What has happened here?” hissed my friend, softly, so that only I could hear. “How did he arrive on our doorstep? Did he come on his own, or was he brought? And most importantly, where is the idol?”

Holmes had said all of this in a rough whisper. I became aware that Inspector Lanner had stepped even closer, now standing slightly behind us and beside Mrs. Hudson. “Who is this?” he demanded. “Do you know this man?”

“Holmes?” croaked the man on the floor in a cracked and dry voice. He opened his eyes and looked up, trying to focus on my friend, who was illuminated above him by the daylight still spilling in from the street. “Holmes?”

“Yes, Ian. I’m here.”

“He took it, Holmes! He has it, and he wanted me to tell you that he has it!”

“Who, Ian? Who took it? Do you mean the idol?”

“Yes. The Eye. He has it!”

“Who, Ian? To whom are you referring? Is it John Goins?”

“I don’t know him,” said the Earl. “I don’t know his name. He… he has it now, and he wanted you to know. He brought me here to tell you.” Then he lapsed into unconsciousness.

“Who is this man?” asked Lanner again. From his almost petulant tone, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he followed the question by stamping his foot on the entryway carpet.

“He is connected to another case,” said Holmes with almost a sigh. “He is the Earl of Wardlaw.”

“The Earl – ? Wait – Is this the man that is being sought in connection with a murder out in Essex?”

“He is,” said Holmes.

“And he has been cruelly used,” I interrupted. “Let us get him upstairs, where I can better evaluate his injuries.” I stepped back. “Lanner, do you get his legs while Holmes and I support his upper body. Mrs. Hudson? Hot water, if you please. If,” I added, “you are all right.” She smiled and nodded, and then retreated to her own part of the house.

Holmes took a moment to look outside. “Nothing,” he muttered. Then, between Holmes, Lanner, and myself, we managed to get the Earl up to the sitting room without causing him too much distress. He remained unconscious the entire time, and in moments he was reclining on our settee while I made my examination. Even as I began, Mrs. Hudson entered with the water. I thanked her for the quick assistance, and apologized for what had happened when she opened the door.

She shook her head. “We were long overdue this week for something of the sort,” she said in her understated Scots accent. I smiled, shook my head when she asked if she could help any further, and then turned back to the patient as she departed.

Holmes moved to stand closer beside me, leaning in and noting the lacerations on the patient’s wrist. “Rope marks,” I said, and he nodded.

“Only recently removed – they’re still oozing fluids from the abrasions. And they weren’t tied on for very long either, just within the last couple of hours. He certainly hasn’t been bound and held captive for the entire time that he’s been missing.”

“No bruising,” I agreed. “The only other apparent wound, other than the damage he has done to himself by biting his lips – and that explains the blood upon his shirt – is on the back of his head. He has a sizeable lump there, probably rendered not long before his arrival at our door, but it should cause him no long-term damage.”

“Implying that he was brought here, having been made harmless for easier transport. The knees of his pants are scuffed and dirty, and the overall poor condition of his clothing is very indicative – but I hesitate to connect that with this incident, as they could have been damaged at another time during the last few days, while he was on the run with the idol.”

“Idol?” interrupted Lanner, who had been standing behind us, shifting from right to left as he attempted to get a better look at my treatment of the Earl. “What is all this talk? Is there something that I can assist with?”

Holmes shook his head. “It is another problem, concurrent with that of the Baron, but equally – if not more so – serious.”

“Hard to believe that something like blowing up Parliament could be equaled,” muttered Lanner.

“Nonetheless, the situation regarding the idol that we have mentioned could have consequences far beyond the shores of this country.”

“The idol,” a weak voice interjected. “He has the idol!”

We turned back toward the Earl. Holmes took a step forward and leaned down into the injured man’s field of vision. “Tell us, Ian. We cannot find it until you tell us where to look. Who has taken it?”

The injured man coughed, and I moved to raise him up. Gesturing to Lanner, I indicated that the man needed something to drink. The inspector quickly obtained a respectable brandy from the sideboard.

The Earl swallowed too quickly, coughed again, and then took another larger sip. He motioned for help, and we finished rotating him to a sitting position. Resting his feet on the floor, he leaned forward, arms across his knees, one hand loosely holding the last sip of his restorative. Then he cleared his throat and looked up, first at Holmes, then right and left to me and Lanner, who lingered several feet away.

“I don’t know his name, Holmes,” he said. He coughed roughly. “He managed to get into the house this morning, after you had been there, and wanted to know the purpose of your visit.”

“The house? Ian, what house? The only house we have been to this morning – ” He stopped himself abruptly. Glancing my way, he said, “Sir Edward’s residence in Mayfair.” Back to the Earl, he added, “Ian, have you been hiding at Sir Edward’s house?”

The Earl nodded. “After Williams came out to Essex, to tell me you had spotted the false idol in the Museum, I didn’t know what to do. It had helped me for so long, and now you would come and take it back. I couldn’t lose it. Not now! It’s mine! I had paid Williams to keep an eye out in case anyone ever found out, and it had always been understood that he would notify me if someone spotted the substitution, and then come out immediately for further instructions.”

“And then what happened? We know that Dawson killed Williams. Why did he do that?”

“I don’t know, Holmes!” cried the Earl. “I knew that I had to get away from there, and take it to a place of safety. You would be coming for it, to return it to the Museum, even though it is mine. Mine, I tell you! I found it, and I’m the one who knows how to make use of its powers! It has aided me all these years, and I won’t give it up!” He had tensed, half rising from the chair even as his voice became increasingly shrill. But then he sagged back, as if a supporting wire inside him had snapped.

“But Dawson, Ian?” continued Holmes. “Why did he kill Williams?”

“I heard what you said,” replied the Earl vaguely. “This morning when you were with Edward. I was listening from the next room – when you said that Dawson accused me of the murder. I didn’t know that Williams had been killed until after it had already happened.”

“Surely Dawson had a reason. Why?”

“I’m uncertain. I was retrieving The Eye from where I kept it in the front of the vault, and I was aware of Dawson and Williams moving around behind me. Then I heard a gasp, followed by the sound of someone collapsing to the floor. I looked around, and Dawson was standing over Williams’s body, a thin knife in his hand. There was no blood that I could see, but obviously the man was dead.”

“And did you question Dawson? Could he provide no explanation?”

“He simply said that he was protecting me. I don’t know why he did it, or what Williams was about to do that made him deserve death. Perhaps he was reaching to take the idol away from me while my back was turned. I only know that Williams and Dawson were talking together while I retrieved it. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Possibly Williams said something that provoked Dawson. Maybe he protected me. Then he told me that I had to leave.”

“To go to Sir Edward’s house.” The Earl nodded. “Did you go straight there?”

“Yes. Edward was angry with me, and worse when I told him about what Dawson had done. But he understood, and he hid me and the idol in an empty bedroom. He keeps very few servants, so only Crye, his butler, knew that I was there.”

“But someone found you,” said Holmes. “Today, after we left. The man you say now has the sculpture.”

“Yes. Edward and I were in his study, discussing your visit. The Eye was sitting on the desk between us. Edward has known about it from the beginning, you see, and knew that I had found a way to keep it. In fact, it was he who came up with the idea of making a substitution. I… I’ve never been good at this sort of thing. Of thinking of plans, and keeping secrets, or even managing my own business after my father died. It’s only been more difficult as time has gone on. But Edward has helped me over the years. He taught me how to make use of the idol’s powers. And it didn’t hurt him, either. We have both benefited from it.”

“But the other man, Ian. Who is it that you said now has the idol?”

“I don’t know his name, Holmes!” he cried. “As I said, he got into the house after you left, and found us in the study while we were talking. I remember seeing him come in behind me, through the door, and then he hit me over the head. I blacked out, and came to discover that my hands were bound, and that I was lying on the floor. The man didn’t notice that I was awake at first. His back was to me, and he was questioning Edward, about why you and your friend had been there, and what you wanted. I couldn’t see what he did, but Edward cried out. Several times. It was… it was terrible. And so very loud. I don’t understand why no one came to see what was the matter. Finally, Edward admitted that your visit was because you were searching for me and… and The Eye.

“I must have gasped to hear Edward reveal the truth, because the man noticed me then. Oh, if only Edward had remained strong!” With a groan, he closed his eyes.

Holmes took him by the shoulder and gave it a shake. “Ian, can you describe him?”

The Earl shook his head. “No. It was all a blur.”

Holmes groaned. “What happened then, Ian? Tell us!”

The Earl opened his puffy eyes, noticing first the empty glass in his hands. He held it up, and Lanner wordlessly refilled it, this time with considerably more than the amount that had been previously offered. Taking a healthy swallow, the Earl continued. “The man pulled me up into a chair. My head hurt terribly, and I thought that I might be ill. The chair was turned so that I couldn’t see Edward. The… the man wanted to know more about the idol from me as well, but I wouldn’t tell him. I wouldn’t! I would rather have died!

“So he returned to Edward. I couldn’t make out what he was saying then, it was very soft and coaxing-like, but Edward was screaming. Then I relapsed into unconsciousness. I only came to in a carriage, just as I was pulled out to the street and pushed toward a building. ‘Tell Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson,’ the man said in my ear, pulling me up to the door, pounding on it and ringing the bell. ‘Tell them I have the idol.’ Then he turned and left me, climbing back onto the carriage and whipping it up, even as the door opened. I remember falling forward, but nothing else until I was here in this room.”

Standing up, Holmes took a couple of quick turns around the spaces between the furniture, eyes intensely envisioning some scene playing out before him. Then, “Obviously, we must make our way as quickly as possible to Sir Edward’s home. Lanner!” The inspector raised his eyebrows. “Summon a constable and a cab, in that order!”

Lanner, thankfully acting and needing no explanations, turned and ran down the stairs. In a moment, I heard his police whistle frantically blowing, followed nearly immediately by the other used to signal a four-wheeler.

“Watson, get Ian ready to travel.”

“Holmes, in his condition, I’m not at all certain that he – ”

“We have no time for this, Watson. Don’t you see? I fear that we are already too late, but perhaps we might pick up a clue before the trail grows too cold. Surely you understand what has happened?”

I thought that I might, but before I could establish further facts, Mrs. Hudson chose that moment to reenter the room. Holmes brushed past her and out to the stairs, while I helped the Earl to his feet. With our landlady’s assistance, we made our way down, step by step, to the entry hall, where I put one of my old coats around the Earl’s shoulders. I then followed by putting on one of my own. Thanking Mrs. Hudson, and reminding her to continue to take every precaution, I assisted the injured man to the freezing street.

Holmes was carefully instructing the constable to get word as fast as he could, by way of the closest station, to either Inspectors Gregson or Lestrade. They were to meet us at Sir Edward’s house as soon as possible. He made the constable repeat the address, nodded a dismissal, and then turned to the cab, where Lanner and I had loaded the Earl.

“Aldford Street in Mayfair, and drive like the devil!” Holmes cried. The cabbie started to protest, but Lanner showed him his police identification, and the man relented.

The Earl had lapsed into a groggy state, and was unable or unwilling to answer any more of Holmes’s questions. I started to question Holmes further, but didn’t want to distract him. We were fortunate that the cabbie chose a route uncluttered with traffic, and we quickly traveled south toward our destination. Finally pulling to a stop in front of Sir Edward’s address, we exited from the cab and stepped up to the door. Holmes nodded grimly, showing where the front door was pushed to, but not closed all the way. “This isn’t good, Watson,” Holmes muttered.

Lanner and I helped the Earl under the lintel and so inside, while Holmes cautiously pushed ahead. I slipped out from under the Earl’s arm, leaving Lanner to support him. Then I pulled my revolver from my coat pocket and moved forward to join my friend.

Just inside the next room we found the body. It was Andrew, the man with the weary and gentle-seeming smile who had driven us to meet his brothers, hours earlier that very day in Limehouse. The front of his head was caved in, and he was lying in his own blood, pooled and congealing beneath him. He was clearly dead, but I knelt anyway, finding no pulse beneath his already cooling skin.

“No weapon,” I said, glancing around.

“I know what killed him,” said Holmes. He gestured toward the smooth shape of the massive concavity in the man’s skull. “I fancy you can work it out as well.”

Holmes then nodded his head toward the floor, where a track of bloody footprints led from Andrew’s body to the rear of the house. With a hiss, Holmes nodded for me to follow. I heard Lanner discovering the body for himself, but didn’t stop to offer any explanations.

We moved deeper into the house, following the tracks, and on into the room where we had met Sir Edward hours earlier that very day. Unexpectedly, we found another man there, lying flat on his back in the center of the carpet, a stunned expression his face and a bloody lump on his forehead. It was Crye, the butler.

He was unconscious, but breathing regularly. His body was wrapped like a mummy in a cloth that had clearly been pulled from a nearby table, upsetting the various items that had stood upon it. An overturned flower vase had spilled its water, which had pooled on the table and was slowly dripping onto the highly polished wooden floor. The cloth from the table was tucked around the butler’s body, immobilizing and swaddling his arms and legs in such a way that he would have been unable to free himself without great difficulty.

I bent to examine Crye, but Holmes impatiently gestured that I continue with him deeper into the house. I stood, feeling that the butler would be all right for a few more minutes, and we moved on, quietly entering another series of rooms, always leading toward the rear of the house. Holmes pointed toward the floor. Continuing in the direction we were exploring was the series of rough bloody footprints. “Prepare yourself, Watson,” Holmes whispered.

We reached a half-closed door, which Holmes pushed open. It was only then that I noticed that he, too was armed with a gun.

The fire had been built up in the room, and the trapped heat from the mostly closed door washed out over us like a wave. Cold as I was from the flying trip we had just made, I couldn’t suppress a shiver. I like to hope that it was from the sudden change in temperature, and not from what we saw in the room.

For it was Sir Edward, propped in his chair, behind his desk. He was still breathing raggedly, but insensible, and in a terrible condition. His arms were tied, bound by a rope in a peculiar criss-cross pattern, in order to pull the limbs together – even the upper portion. A quick look showed that they were not actually ropes at all, but bell ropes, at least two of them from their differing patterns, twined across and through his arms. As the cords had been tightened, rather like lacing a pair of shoes, the man’s upper arms had been pulled closer and closer together, to the point where they had each obviously dislocated from the shoulders. They were now aligned nearly parallel to one another, and the pain must have been agonizing before he blacked out.

There had also been quite a few blows to the head, as shown by bruises and contusions. Some of them had opened, letting rivulets of blood run down his face like tears before curving under the jawbone and collecting upon his collar.

I heard a step behind me and spun, my service revolver at the ready, only to find Lanner and the Earl in the doorway. Lanner’s eyes widened, and the Earl raised his head long enough to understand the scene in front of him. With a groan, he collapsed to the floor. The inspector let him fall.

Holmes was taking in everything at once, as was his way, and while I normally knew better than to step further into the room, possibly altering or destroying evidence, I pushed past him – there was a man who desperately needed medical attention.

“Help me cut these ropes,” I said. I realized that I might be disturbing Holmes’s investigation, but treating this wounded man came first.

When the bonds had been cut, the tension holding Sir Edward’s arms, pulled so cruelly out of their sockets, was released. With a moan at the fresh pain, he came to himself for a second, and then lapsed back into a renewed state of unconsciousness. Perhaps it was a mercy. I knew without any further examination that his shoulders and arms were ruined, and that he would never again function normally or without great pain.

I could sense Holmes moving with purpose behind me, seeing and observing all that there was. I glanced back, and discovered that his eyes had lit on a single sheet of paper, resting obviously in the center of the otherwise empty desk. The idol, described by the Earl earlier as having been sitting on this same desk when his discussion with Sir Edward was occurring, was no longer present.

I heard a sound from the front of the house. Gregson’s voice, calling, “Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes!”

Lanner started to speak, and then did not. It appeared that he could not find his voice. “Back here, Gregson!” I called, while Holmes’s eyes urgently scanned the sheet in his hand. A terrible look crossed his face.

“What is it, Holmes?” I asked.

He shook his head, his free hand rising to pinch his lower lip. He was deep in thought, and visualizing something in his mind that was far from this terrible room. Just then, both Gregson and Lestrade entered, stepping over the unconscious Earl and stopping behind Lanner. A pair of constables were visible past them. They all quickly surveyed the room.

“Mr. Holmes?” said Gregson.

Holmes looked up. “The idol was here,” he said angrily to me. “The Earl brought it here when he left Essex.”

“Then where is it?” asked Lestrade, glancing around with an understandable desperation in his voice.

“Gone.” Holmes looked from one to the other of us, and gestured with the letter. “It’s good that you’re here, too, Lanner. It appears that our situation has just grown infinitely more complicated.”

“Holmes,” I said. “What do you mean?”

He turned his eyes toward the sheet. “It is addressed to me. It says:

My dear Mr. Holmes,

I foolishly believed that your only business right now would be trying to stop me before I can bring about the justice that this country so certainly and richly deserves. Therefore, I followed you here this morning, uncertain as to what anyone in this house could have to do with me. I was quite curious, you see, when I saw, from my vantage across the street, your cabbie being taken prisoner and replaced by a foreigner. But I decided to stay and find out what connection this place had to my business.

Imagine my surprise when I entered after you both departed and learned that the happenings here had nothing to do with me at all. As I crept through the house, I was accosted by the butler, whom I silenced. I explored the house further and locked the few other servants in the cellar, where you will find them unharmed. Then I found this study, where the two men were talking. One, with whom I was slightly acquainted, was Sir Edward. He was explaining to the other that everything would be all right, and that they would continue to be able to use the power of the idol just as they had before.

Now, that mention of an idol, along with the presence of the stranger earlier, made me curious. I entered the room, incapacitated the two men, and proceeded to find out just what I needed to know about this ugly rock. Sir Edward shared with me all that rot about magical powers, which he does not seem to believe, although he stated that many others do. But more importantly, he mentioned that the other believers are the enemies of England. When I questioned him further about this, and seemed to be too interested, he understood my purpose, and he begged me not to let the idol fall into their hands, as it could unleash a war that could destroy us. He had no idea that he was telling that to the very man who was seeking exactly that outcome.

I was on my way out, when whom should I encounter but the stranger from this morning, sneaking in for some reason. Strangely, I almost feel sad for this man whom I was forced to kill, when I can’t feel any sadness at all for the people of this country who will rightly suffer as I have. And they will, I assure you. But I cannot simply take the idol and give it to those who will use it to ruin England. First, I must let you, and especially your friend Dr. Watson, know exactly what is going to happen and why, even if it makes things a bit more difficult for me. This country must understand exactly what is about to occur, and the reason. This country destroyed my son. Therefore, this country must be destroyed.

Holmes paused, and then looked at both of us. Softly, he stated the obvious. “The letter is signed ‘Baron Meade’.”