CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

TO A PULP

“Let me see,” I said, pushing Tovey aside.

The cell was a mess, blood splattered up the walls, but Holmes was in a worse state. His face was almost unrecognisable, a swollen mass of contusions.

I fell on my knees beside him, my hands shaking. I had seen him injured before, but never like this.

I heard Tovey call for assistance. Footsteps thundered towards the cell in response. I checked for a pulse, finding it slow but steady. Holmes groaned at my touch and tried to turn his battered head towards me.

“Holmes, can you hear me? It’s Watson.”

His only answer was a gurgle of thick phlegm. His right eye was completely swollen over, his left open a crack, but it was clear he was unable to focus. He grabbed for my arm, his knuckles caked in gore. Holmes had obviously put up a fight. I clutched his hand, holding it tight. It felt so thin and weak, not like Holmes’s hand at all.

He moaned again, his split lips forming indecipherable words.

“Don’t try to speak, old man,” I told him. “We’ll sort you out, I promise.”

Yet, even as I checked the extent of his injuries, a gruff Scottish voice growled behind me, “Step away from the prisoner.”

I looked up to see a man in his fifties glaring down at me. A fine set of whiskers bristled across his face as he stared at me through wire-framed pince-nez.

“Didn’t you hear me, man? Let me see my patient!”

He shoved me rudely aside as I got to my feet. A hand touched my elbow. It was Tovey.

“Don’t worry, Dr Watson. Mr Woodbead is the police surgeon. Holmes is in good hands.”

“Very kind of you to say so,” said the surgeon from the floor beside Holmes. “Now, everyone out!”

“I can help,” I said, as Tovey tried to guide me towards the cluster of policemen gawping at the door. “I’m a doctor myself.”

“I’m very pleased for you,” Woodbead said. “But the last thing I need is a well-meaning sawbones beneath my feet.”

“Sir, I’ll have you know—”

“Get him out of here, Abraham, unless you want this man to die.”

“Please, Doctor,” Tovey pleaded, his grip now forceful on my arm. “Come with me.”

I attempted to struggle, but Tovey was having nothing of it. Clearing the policemen out of our way, he dragged me from the cell.

“But you don’t understand, I’m his doctor. I’m his friend.”

“Which is exactly why you need to let Mr Woodbead do his job. You’re too close.”

I wasn’t having that. I shouted into the cell, “Everything is going to be all right, Holmes. Do you hear me? Your brother Mycroft is on the way. He sent a telegram this morning.”

My words were drowned out by Inspector Hawthorne’s angry voice. “What the hell is going on here?”

The inspector was marching towards us.

“Tovey?”

“It’s Holmes. He’s been beaten.”

For the second time in ten minutes I was pushed out of the way as Hawthorne barged past.

“How has this happened?” he demanded, only to be given the same short shrift by Mr Woodbead.

“What is wrong with you people? Get out!”

Tovey pulled Hawthorne from the cell and Hawthorne whirled around, his fist raised.

“Gregory, calm down,” Tovey snapped.

“Calm down? What have you done to my prisoner?”

“This was how we found him!” I insisted.

“In his cell?”

“The door was locked,” Tovey told him.

“That’s impossible!”

“Is it? Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Hawthorne took a step towards Tovey. “What are you insinuating?”

I was incensed at what I had heard. “What? He’s done this before?”

“I haven’t done anything,” Hawthorne insisted, jabbing a finger towards me.

Tovey had no intention of giving up. “This isn’t your handiwork?”

“I never laid a hand on him,” said Hawthorne. “More’s the pity.”

“Then who did?”

“Holmes’s knuckles,” I realised. “They’re red raw.”

“So?” Hawthorne asked. “He’s an accomplished boxer,” I told the man. “Whoever did this to him would bear the marks.”

“Who was on watch last night?” Tovey asked the two policemen who were loitering nearby.

“Hanson, sir,” replied the taller of the two, a red-haired constable with a flat nose.

“And where is he now?” Hawthorne asked.

“Gone home I think. Not feeling well.”

“Well, there you have it,” I said, triumphantly.

“You know where he lives?” Tovey asked.

“I do,” the other policeman replied. “Has a place down Temple Back.”

“Then get round there, both of you,” Tovey ordered. “See what’s wrong with him.”

The constables did as they were told, hurrying out of the cell block. Hawthorne, meanwhile, had spotted something on the floor.

“What’s this?”

He bent down to retrieve from the floor a small length of metal.

“A file of some kind?” I guessed.

Hawthorne turned it over in his hand. “It’s a lock pick.” He looked at the floor again, finding another near the wall. “This too.”

“What are they doing out here?”

Hawthorne rubbed his fingers through a stain by the door. They came back red. “Blood out here too.”

He stood, shaking the picks in front of me. “Recognise these, Doctor?”

“Why would I?”

“Could they belong to your friend in there?”

“He has a set; I’ll not deny it.”

Tovey took the tools from him. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that Holmes tried to escape in the night, but came up against Hanson.”

He turned back to the door. There were traces of footprints across the threshold, trodden in blood.

“Hanson saw to it that the prisoner was in no state to get away, and dragged him back inside the cell.”

Hawthorne looked up and saw the incredulity on my face. “Don’t look so surprised, Doctor. Holmes isn’t the only one who can find clues.”

“I was more surprised that you seemed to see no problem in the fact that an innocent man has been beaten to a pulp and dumped in a cell.”

Hawthorne’s lips drew back in a snarl. “Hanson was only doing his job.”

“Or what he was told,” Tovey said.

“You’d better watch that mouth, Tovey,” Hawthorne snarled, squaring up to him. “It’ll get you in trouble.”

“Like Holmes, you mean?”

“I’m warning you…”

“If you two are quite finished,” said Woodbead from where he had appeared at the door, his hands smeared with Holmes’s blood.

“Come to rescue your boy, eh?” Hawthorne sneered.

“Only one man needs rescuing around here,” Woodbead replied. “Abraham, go to the surgery. Get me towels, water and morphine. You’ll find a bottle in the cupboard above the sink.”

“What is your diagnosis?” I asked, as Tovey hurried away.

“My diagnosis is that the prisoner is bloody lucky to be alive, no thanks to any of you.”

I was about to retaliate when he finally answered my question.

“Lacerations to the face, severe bruising and a jaw broken in at least two places.”

“His jaw?”

“Not badly by any means, but enough to cause problems. I’m going to wrap his head for now, to keep the teeth in alignment.”

“Wrap it? Surely it needs pinning. Only the other day I was reading about a new technique of rigid stabilisation—”

“Yes, thank you, Doctor. I know what I’m doing.”

“You’re taking him to the hospital, then? The Royal Infirmary?”

“He stays here,” growled Hawthorne.

“You can’t be serious.”

“He’s tried to escape once—”

“There’s no evidence—”

“And I’m not about to give him the opportunity to try again,” Hawthorne insisted, talking over me.

Woodbead raised a bloody hand. “Have no fear, Doctor, I will care for Mr Holmes personally. He’ll be quite safe.”

“And secure,” Hawthorne added.

Somehow, this failed to put my mind at rest.