Halloween Stories
 

I'm currently working on submissions for a Halloween short story collection for another forum, and will (if yiz can be bothered) share the stories here. But I would like to ask others to contribute, if anyone likes to. All you need do is write a story with a horror/scary theme, some link to Halloween. Doesn't have to be novel-length, anything up to 3,000 - 5,000 words acceptable, but in no way do you have to come up to that limit. A few hundred words is fine if that's what you want to do. If Mondo is still around, love to see what you could do for the spooky season. Frown, I know you can write, and Ori, if you're out there, we need you. I know there are other undiscovered authors here. SGR, you're a good writer, I know that. I'm sure there are others. Now's the time.

Anyone interested let me know. I've no idea how it's going to turn out, but it might be fun.

Now running. Contents page here

When's the deadline?

I'll have to do some thinking on it, but if I can come up with a concept/idea I like, I'll submit something.

Meh, I guess have yours posted by Oct 30/31. Let's put a posting period of say from Oct 10 to 31, in case like me there's a bunch to post. Be glad to see some of your fiction, SGR; I reckon you're an author looking for a story.

FYI themes, if anyone is stuck, just off the top of my head:

Monsters (vampires. witches, werewolves, zombies etc)
Pumpkin attack (?) (See the Simpsons)
Magic
Murder
Inanimate objects coming alive
Spooky locations (haunted houses, graveyards, IRS office...)
Evil children
Non-evil children
Deadly party games (ducking for poisoned apples etc)
Bonfires
Fireworks
Estranged lovers meeting at masked ball
Alien invasions
Odd neighbours
What's he building?
Time travel
Medical procedures gone horribly wrong
Ghosts
Scary shops

It's been years since I've written anything approaching fiction (unless you count the nonsense I post here of course). Besides not yet having an idea that excites me, I'm also a bit stumped about what narrative viewpoint/perspective I should use. I guess I'd figure it out as I get writing.

Some great themes there, although there's a distinct lack of Bigfoot in that list.

Bigfoot goes trick-or-treating? I like it! Go for it! Narrative can be whatever you like. So far I've written nine, and of those three are first-person, so it's completely up to you.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/1Qjzd...giphy.gif&ct=g

I'll figure out something

https://media1.giphy.com/media/1V17m8MgM0fEk/giphy.gif

Dancing Round the Bonfire: Spooky Stories and Tales of Terror for the Scary Season

Submissions remain open; I'm just going to start posting my own work now. Feel free to drop a story in and I'll add it to the contents page.

CONTENTS


Homeward, or, Where's Ripley When You Need Her?
Marked
Gentlemen's Club
Coming Back to Life
Boss of Bosses
Support Group
Not One of Us
Star-crossed

A Grave Injustice: A Sherlock Holmes Story

Homeward, or, Where's Ripley When You Need Her?

Beating hard against the wind, the ship's sails filled as the bark tacked to port. The storm screamed its fury at the vessel, the roiling sea doing its best to swamp the decks. Huge frothy white breakers came surging up over the sides, like the grasping, questing hands of some enormous sea beast beneath. The sky was hard and dark, the stars glittering like baleful staring eyes as the ship made its way nor-by-nor'west, the island dwindling to the size of a small rock in the distance. The remaining crew members shivered, and not only from the lashing rain which seemed to have decided that if the ship could not be drowned from below then it would be drowned from above. Carsten jerked a thumb back in the direction of the rapidly-receding atoll.

“Fucking dusky maidens, my arse!” he grumped to Deveraux, who was trying to splice the mainbrace, or some damn thing. “An island Paradise, that's what he promised us! And what did we get?”

The Frenchman ignored him. The question did not require an answer; they all knew what they had got. Those that had survived, that was. But he had his own problems, small and insignificant as they seemed now.
Deveraux had not the first idea how to be a seaman, much less splice a mainbrace, whatever that was. He had sneaked aboard the ship when it docked at Marseilles. After what they had all faced, he now wondered if he might have been better throwing himself on the tender mercies of Jacques Dupont. The man wasn't known as “The Guillotine” for nothing, of course, and he took a very dim view of those who could not pay, but at least it would have been quick.

It certainly had not been quick for those they had been forced to leave behind.
O'Donnell was, as usual, drunk in the hold, and of no use to anyone, but he was alive. A burden, yes, and one they could barely afford as they fled from that horror, but there was no way Captain Harrison was going to have left him back... he shuddered, a cold hand running down his spine ... there.

Nobody deserved that.

Of course, Harrison wasn't the captain, but the acting captain. The last he had seen of Captain Grayson, the man had been standing on the shore like some titan, holding them off as they approached like a black cloud. He had one of those new flintlocks, take down a maneater at fifty paces. But these maneaters were not to be stopped. The bullets seemed to have no effect on them as they pressed forward.

Mentally, he doffed his hat, though he wore none. Captains traditionally go down with their ships. Grayson had gone down, but not with his ship. The last glimpse Deveraux had had of him was forever now seared into his memory, the man surrounded by a black cloud of bodies, shots, and a scream that would haunt him to his dying days.

But the captain had bought their escape with his life, and the jolly boat was halfway to the ship before the creatures turned towards them. Thank the good Lord in Heaven, he thought, that they seemed afraid of the water and could not pursue them.

He thought of the men left behind. All dead now, of course.
Or at least, he fervently hoped so.

His thoughts returned to O'Donnell. The man had a good excuse to be off his face, though in fairness he seldom needed one. But this time he did. They all did. Matter of fact, Deveraux thought, it was a wonder they weren't all nine sheets to the wind after what they had gone through.

As soon as they reached port, he intended to remedy that situation. Alchohol would not block out the horrible things he had seen back there on that cursed island – nothing would: he would most likely live with those memories for the rest of his days. They would come screaming out of his dreams and reach for him in the night, and he, a man who did not scare easy and who had many enemies, though none of them alive, would cry like a newborn.
No, drink would not take away the events of the past three days. But it would help dull the horror.
Maybe.

He could never have believed such things existed.
Nobody could.

Down in the hold, O'Donnell could.

When they had shoved him down into the darkness to sober up, his head had felt like it was splitting.
That was no longer a metaphor.
The Irishman was no longer drunk, nor would he ever be.

But something was.

His cries, never audible above the shriek of the wind and the groaning of the ship's timbers anyway, went unheard, and now the only sound was a horrible crunching, slurping, sucking.

Red eyes gleamed malevolently in the darkness as the ship lurched towards home.
The snap of a human bone. Gnawing sounds.

Soon, they would all believe.

Marked

What the hell was she doing here, I wondered? I couldn't even remember letting her in to the house. This early-stage Alzheimer's is a bitch. Forget your own name.

I mentally shook myself and tried to look more closely at her, without seeming to.

There was something almost doll-like about her, now I thought about it: her skin was like porcelain, her cheeks just a little too perfectly-made up, the exact amount of rouge on the sweet apple curves, the lipstick carefully applied; she had never once gone outside the line of her lips, nor had she got the merest spot on her straight white teeth, which showed only as she daintily nibbled at the biscuit on the plate in front of her.

Dainty,
Doll-like.
Perfect make-up.

She was like some sort of ideal of a woman – a girl, really – someone's perfect fantasy, every line and curve perfect, every hair in place.

But then there was the smell.

I tried to identify it but could not, and I certainly did not want to remark upon it. Maybe she just liked to wear an unusual perfume, and who was I to challenge that? But the smell was odd, and it certainly did not smell like any perfume I've ever sniffed. Oh, I would know: in my youth I was quite the ladies' man. Don't remember dating anyone as young as her though. Couldn't be over, what, sixteen? I mean, I used to like 'em young, but not that young!

The problem of the aroma coming from my charming visitor took a back seat as anger began to simmer in me, and my thoughts drifted back to my usual hobby horse. Who the hell was this bastard anyway? Who had it in for me so badly that he was tracking down my former girlfriends and killing them? My own hand began to shake. I balled it into a fist, hoping she would not see.

Why did I care if she saw? What did it matter?
Who was she?
I couldn't remember.
But somehow I felt I should.

Lots I should remember. Couldn't tell you what I did yesterday.
Was that important?
Something told me it was.

My thoughts went back to the killer.

How the hell had he got into my house?

He had though; for ten years I had received a photograph – pictures I took of my lovers, pictures he had stolen – with a red X across the face. Every year, on the exact anniversary of the death of the only woman I had ever truly loved.

How the fuck did he know?

For years the mystery had occupied me, till I could think of nothing else. I felt I was missing something, something important. Something obvious. It was like those times – and we've all experienced them – when you search everywhere for the car keys and they turn out to be in your pocket all along.

But the solution to this dilemma would not be found in my pocket.
It haunted every waking moment, and stalked my dreams.

Sometimes I forgot, of course. This disease will do that to you. I suppose they were the merciful times. But they never lasted.

Nights, I could see the bastard. Oh, not his face, of course; that was always shrouded, or turned away from me, or blurred, or not in shot. But his hand. I could see his hand. Not a young man's hand; quite meaty, no distinguishing tattoos or scars. That kind of thing only happens on TV.

I would watch him take that damn red Sharpie, slowly and with what seemed to me like sexual excitement put the soft nib on the right-hand corner of one of the photos, draw it almost lovingly down to the opposite, bottom corner, then repeat the process on the other side till he had marked a thick red x across a face I had once loved.

And then, it just stopped. No more waking up on that day, that awful day, and dreading the clack of the letterbox. No more staggering downstairs, half-asleep, knowing what would be waiting for me on the mat. No more hands shaking as I opened the envelope, wondering which one of them it would be this year.

Again the question, the feeling of some crisis having been reached, some vital part of the jigsaw fitting into place.

I realised my visitor was looking at a picture on the sideboard, the one I'd kept from the funeral. The only one he hadn't got his rotten hands on. He couldn't deface this with his nasty red marker.

But there was something in her eyes. What was it? A flicker of... recognition? Impossible. Lana was in the ground before this kid was even a twinkle in her father's eye, never mind born.

Why did she look so familiar, this girl?

I looked again, my eyes drawn towards the faded photograph. Silently, I cursed the cancer that had taken her. I realised suddenly how seldom I had looked at that picture, really looked. Maybe it was just too painful. I turned my eyes back to the girl sitting across from me.

And then I saw it.
The resemblance.
The same eyes, the same half-bitter smile, the way she held her cup with the little finger poised just so.
It was like looking at my wife.

But... but that was impossible. She couldn't look like... she couldn't be...

My brain seemed to squirm in my head, like a trapped animal. Something was trying to surface, something in the back of my mind, shrouded now by time and by the Alzheimer's, something I did not want to face.

What the hell was it?
And hard on the heels of that question, another.
What was that smell?
Glue? Was it glue? Disinfectant?
Furniture polish?

Yeah, right, I thought. A divorced guy of sixty-six using furniture polish. Next I'll be carrying a feather duster and wearing an apron!

That smell again.
So sharp, so acrid.
Air freshener?

No, I'm allergic to most brands and I don't use them. Sets me off sneezing for hours. Fucking things. And it was a cinch she hadn't come in wearing a Magic Tree around that slim, pretty neck.
Not air freshener then.

It was as if she had read my mind.

“Formaldehyde.” She spoke the word without a trace of inflection, a hint of emotion, almost as if it meant nothing to her, or she didn't know what it meant.

“Excuse me?”

“Formaldehyde,” she repeated, just the barest hint of sharpness in her tone. I realised her voice was familiar too, but I couldn't place it. “That smell you're wondering about. It's formaldehyde.”

I stared. What the hell...?

“They use it,” she told me, her eyes never once leaving mine, and I felt trapped by her penetrating gaze, “to preserve bodies. Dead bodies.”

I still couldn't speak. That dreaded, terrible thing I had pushed to the dustiest corners of my mind was stirring, stretching, like a cat waking up.
I could feel its sharp claws reaching for me.

“Do you know what it's like,” she asked, a world of hurt in her eyes, “to be embalmed?”

A howling, roaring noise was in my ears. It felt like my head was about to explode. The room was spinning.

Her voice was sad, full of pity, but also bitter recrimination.

“All so that you wouldn't have to remember what you had done.”

I made no reply. Off somewhere in the distance, seemingly miles away, I could hear a loud knocking. I wondered if it was my heart.
But I knew, deep down, it was not.
Somehow, I found my voice.

“She – she was in such pain... I... I couldn't ... I couldn't...”

I realised I was babbling. She wasn't looking at me, her eyes fixed on the picture, as if communing with it.

“You've believed that for so long you've convinced yourself it's true.” Her voice was hard, sharp.

“It is true.” Mine was sulky, pettish.

She indicated the photo.

“Look at it,” she said, all but a command. “Look at the back. You remember speaking those words?”

I did. I thought. They sounded like mine. Inscribed in flowing black ink across the white/yellow card, her eulogy, or part of it.

Lana was such a beautiful person, and so forgiving. I know she's even forgiven her killer.

Her killer.

“I – I didn't mean to...”

The words sounded hollow, even to me. An empty excuse. A lie?

“And then... when you came in and... and saw... and I tried... oh god I tried to push you out of the room... I forgot how close the stairs were... oh god! Oh god!”

I hung my head. The words continued to tumble out of me in a torrent.

“You were so.. I couldn't ... not like that... I asked them... I told them.. make her... make her like she was. Make her...” I breathed the last word. “Perfect.”

“Perfect.” She repeated the word. Still she refused to look at me. Her voice was calm, dead, cold.
“Your perfect little doll.”

And now, her head swivelled, as if on a pivot, and she stared directly at me. For the barest fraction of a moment, there was something soft in her eyes. Then it was gone.

“They suspected you, but they could never prove it. Smothering doesn't leave a mark, does it? You'd know, of course. You got so much practice at it afterwards. Ten years, a new attempt at a substitute for her every year. But none of them could ever replace her, could they?”

Slitted, yellow eyes blinked open, oriented on me.
A sharp hiss.

“So you had to kill them.”

And the cat sprang, and it was no longer a cat but a tiger, slavering mouth full of sharp fangs, huge talons reaching to rend and tear my soul, rip the truth from me.

“And then, as some sort of sick anniversary present I suppose,” she went on, still not looking at me, “you sent those pictures to her, as if that proved you still loved her.”

As the Alzheimer's receded for a moment, everything was clear. Horribly clear.

I was standing in the hall, looking at one of the envelopes which had just popped through the door and plopped almost soundlessly onto the mat.
Reading the address.

Lana Maxford, 12 Oakely Gardens, London SW12.
Lana.
Not Brian.

“You've been sick for a long time,” she told me. “ Even before the Alzheimer's.” She paused, looking out the window. “Do you remember yesterday?” she asked. “How you went to the police to confess? They're out there now,” she told me, as I realised what the sound I had been hearing was. “They're digging up the garden. They're going to find her, and all those other women.”

She reached out and touched me. An electric jolt coursed through my body, as if I had grasped live wire. I found myself flung across the room, hit the wall hard.

“Daddy...”


When I opened my eyes she was gone.
As I lay on my back, I was dimly aware that something had fallen out of my pocket.
I reached for it, closed my fingers around it, drew it to me.
The door exploded inwards, armed officers were dragging me to my feet.
The red Sharpie dropped from my hand, clattering on the hardwood floor.

A blue-gloved hand snapped it up. I heard the whisper of an evidence bag being popped open.

“Brian Maxford,” a voice was saying, “you are under arrest for the murder of Lara and Amy Maxford, and ten other women. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence. Do you understand?”

I nodded dumbly. I understood all right.

Finally, I understood.

Gentlemen's Club

It had been with exceeding difficulty that he had resisted looking at his pocketwatch, but Barrett knew this would have drawn unwelcome attention to him, and that was the last thing he wanted. There was Sir Nicholas, his tall shiny top hat nodding as he listened to that fool Johnson, talking about quarter returns and expected growth. Sir Nicholas never took off his hat. Nobody knew why. Even when the London summer baked the stones outside and made the windows like magnifying lenses and all of them insects, he sat there, unbothered, his tie unloosened (so nobody else would dare loosen theirs), his collar buttoned up to the neck, his hat always on his head, and never so much as a bead of sweat on his smooth, bland face.

How could he stick the heat? Even during last year's terrible drought, when the very flowers in the gardens had been dying, when even the churches allowed their doors to stand open during services that the congregation might not faint, not a window would he allow opened. Then, as now, no evidence showed of the awful, draining heat, the steam coming up in thick clouds from the dry cracked streets, and Sir Nicholas gave not the slightest indication he was bothered.

The meeting was at an end. Barrett moved with the others towards the door, all but bowing their way out of the boardroom, as if leaving the presence of a king. He was just beginning to dare to think that he had made it when he heard the dreaded words that turned his spine to ice and his legs to jelly.

“One moment, if you please, Barrett.”

Shoulders slumped, he turned to face the chairman. Sir Nicholas Faust was, to be blunt, a huge man. The suit he wore seemed to be straining at the seams, ready to burst, as if there was not a tailor in all of London who could make a suit capable of containing his immense bulk. A prizefighter would have seemed small and frail beside the giant chairman of First Mutual Bank, and Cuthbert Barrett, inventory officer, felt positively minute in his presence.
It wasn't just his size though, he realised. Sir Nicholas made everyone feel small; the way he spoke to them, the way he looked at them, the way he treated them. As if they were a lower form of life.

“Yes, Sir?”

The words had to fight their way out of his mouth, as if they would have much rather stayed where they were. Sir Nicholas tapped the table meaningfully.
“Take a seat, Barrett.” It was not an invitation. Somehow, Barrett's wobbly legs got him to the table where he more fell into than sat on a chair. He felt sure the chairman could hear the thumping of his heart, loud enough in his own ears to drown out the pealing of the bell from the church down the road as it sonorously declared the hour of four.

Sir Nicholas looked at him, with that flat, cold, alien gaze that could reduce the strongest of men to a shivering wreck. Barrett felt like a fish wriggling on a line. The face of Sir Nicholas Faust seemed to fill up all available space.
“It won't do, Barrett.”

Barrett shook his head in agreement. Sir Nicholas leaned back in his chair.
“How did you expect,” he asked, after what seemed hours, but was merely a moment, “to get away with it?”

Of course it all came flooding out then, in a babble of words – apologies, excuses, the bills, the loans, his newborn baby, the price of this, the price of that, working for such low wages. The dam had broken, after months of being held back, and now Cuthbert Barrett's entire, miserable, pitiable life washed over Sir Nicholas like a torrent of mediocrity, despair and pity. The chairman listened with a face of stone.

“These are mere excuses, Barrett.”

There was no arguing. None was expected. He nodded.
“Yes Sir.”

Sir Nicholas stood, his powerful figure looming over Barrett like Tower Bridge over a steam tug.

“Of course, you realise you have left me no recourse.”

Desperation clutched at Barrett, and though he knew it was of no use, he threw himself literally on the ground at the feet of his master. Surely His Majesty would show mercy?

Was he really that desperate, to entertain such thoughts?

“Please, Sir Nicholas! I cannot afford to lose my position!” There were tears – actual tears – standing in his eyes as he pleaded, like a man who stands on the gallows and looks for a miracle to save him. “Dismissed without a reference, I will never find work again. It will be,” he dropped his voice in terror, “the workhouse for my family and I.”

To his utter amazement, and then hot, burning terror, Sir Nicholas was removing his top hat.

Too late, the unfortunate clerk realised why Sir Nicholas never took it off.
And now it was no illusion. The chairman really did fill all space, blocking out the light as he leaned down.

“I do not believe,” he assured the clerk as an awful grin split his face, “that we will have any need to trouble the workhouse.”
****************
The brougham jolted along the dimly-lit streets, the cobbles shiny with rain. Sir Nicholas tapped at the roof with his cane, and the carriage came to a halt. A moment later a small, rat-faced man emerged out of the shadows of a nearby alley, looked right and left. A policeman on his beat was slowly strolling down the road, his cape slick with rain and a most unpleasant look on his face. The rat-faced man waited till the constable had passed, then darted quickly up to the brougham. The window wound down, Sir Nicholas glared out.

“The box on the back. Be quick about it, man.”

The rat-faced man nodded, a greedy look in his eyes. He slid to the back of the brougham, located the box, untied it and hefted it on his wiry back. Sir Nicholas watched him go, then tapped the roof again and the carriage moved off.

Having reached his hovel, the rat-faced man opened the box, peering inside, his eyes wide. What a haul, he told himself.

For a moment, a small doubt pricked what was left of his gin-addled brain. Was it possible these were... human bones?

Then greed took over again, and the gin shop beckoned.

What did it matter if they were? Gentlemen have odd collecting habits, and if Mister 'igh-an'-Mighty didn't want them no more, Tommy down the rag and bone would. He'd pay a pretty penny for bones this good.
**********************
After a long day, it was good to relax at the Club. It was the only place he could drop the pretence, be himself. Sir Nicholas shook the rain from his coat, handed it to Jones, who took it away to hang it in the cloak room. Sir Nicholas's hat he carried in his other hand.

Sir Nicholas entered the clubroom, and immediately his horns became entangled in the low-hanging chandelier.

“Dash it all!” he snapped. “Have they not moved that blessed thing yet? This is the third time this month!”

Angrily, he shook his powerful head, bringing the chandelier crashing down to the ground where it exploded in a thousand shining fragments. A servant ran forward with brush and pan, and Remington watched him with an air of cold disdain such as only butlers can muster.

“I'm rather afraid, Sir Nicholas,” he said in that deferential tone their class have that can yet somehow be insulting, “that it is somewhat problematic getting tradesmen to come here. Word has got around,” he looked directly at the chairman, “that none who enter ever leave again.”

Sir Nicholas for once looked slightly abashed.

“It was only four,” he said, somewhat defensively. Remington gave a sniff, which could have been interpreted, were they of the same social class, as a snort of derision.

Knowing the butler, it probably was.

“Eight, at last count, Sir Nicholas,” he corrected the chairman. “Nine, if you include that apprentice.”

Sir Nicholas shrugged his massive shoulders. And found himself entangled in another chandelier.

“Oh now really!” he exploded, as, indeed, did the chandelier as he shook it free. “This is intolerable! One cannot even move in one's own club without being caught in – in – what is this thing, anyway?” He hunkered down to try to make sense of the fragments, but it was like looking at jigsaw pieces without benefit of a picture of the completed puzzle.

“It's called a chandelier, Sir.” Remington's voice betrayed a hint of sharpness, and Sir Nicholas caught it.

“I know what it's called, Remington,” he rumbled dangerously, in a voice that would have had his board members diving out the windows, notwithstanding that the board room was on the sixth floor. “I meant, what is the confounded thing for?”

Remington shrugged. “You would have to ask His Lordship.” He sniffed again. “I only work here.” And he walked off, somehow managing to radiate both impertinence and impeccable politeness.

Baron Gould looked up from the evening paper.

“I believe it is for what they call – oh, what is the word these humans use? Ambivalence? No that's not it.” His long, curved horns vibrated on his head as he frowned, and his tail could be just seen lashing behind the arm of the leather armchair he sat in. He snapped taloned fingers. “Ambience!” he declared. “Ambience. Yes, that's it. Gives the place a sense of ambience.”
Sir Nicholas, taking the chair opposite him and accepting the Financial Times from the servant, sat back and lit his pipe. As he puffed out a cloud of thick green smoke, he shook his head.

“And what, pray,” he asked, “is this ambience, of which you speak, Baron?”
Gould shrugged, his wings rustling on his back. He wriggled, like a man with an itch just out of reach.

“I'll be damned if I know, old boy!” He returned to his newspaper, and, not for the first time, Sir Nicholas cursed the trendy Lord Monroe. Why this obsession with humans, he wondered? This was the one place they could all be themselves, take off the mask, so to speak. The one place they did not have to pretend. Shielded from prying human eyes, nobody got in here who did not belong, because nobody who did not belong knew of the existence of the place.
Other than those tradesmen.

Which was why it had been necessary, he reminded himself, to dispose of them.

It had nothing to do, he had stressed to the other members, during the hearing, with how delicious they were.

But times were, he knew, changing. The world was on the cusp of a new century again, and that always meant trouble. every new era, his kind had more trouble fitting in, hiding away in society. People were getting suspicious. Which was why this new fellow he was meeting, for whom he had vouched, though he was not a member, might be the answer to his problems.

“Only the best organs, you are quite certain?”

His contact nodded. He had had to pull quite some strings to allow a human enter – or more to the point, to allow him leave again alive – but this chap intrigued him.

“Quality stuff, Your Worship,” the man assured him. “Soaked in gin, they is. You'll love the taste, I can promise yer.” Sir Nicholas studied him. He was tall, gaunt, grey in the face, yet there was something in the eyes that drew him to the man. His eyes. It was his eyes. They reminded him of his own.
The eyes of a demon.

“I cannot afford to be involved in a scandal, you do understand? Our association must remain entirely secret.”

“You're payin' me enough that I'd not squeal were I 'ung up by me goolies,” the other assured him. Sir Nicholas winced at the gutter slang, but needs must.

“Anyways,” went on the human, “They's all just whores, y'see? Ain't nobody cares for no whores. You just leave it to old Jack. I'll keep you supplied, I will.”

When the man had departed, Sir Nicholas Faust sat back and puffed on his pipe. A contented grin spread across his features. Something told him that human was going to be very useful to him.

Yes. Very useful indeed.

Coming Back to Life

The noise surprises me. I suppose I could say it shocks me, and that might in fact be closer to the truth – certainly more accurate – but then, technically I'm already shocked enough that the loud clang really isn't able to do more than surprise me. Why does it surprise me? Because I hadn't quite expected something so small and, really, relatively light to make such a loud sound. Maybe it didn't. Maybe the effect of its hitting the floor was merely amplified by my own sense of terror, dismay and revulsion, but it certainly rang in my head like the pealing of a bell. A death knell. I almost grin at the irony, but in my situation grinning is not only inadvisable but pretty much impossible, unless I want to go, or seem, completely mad.

I'm not quite sure when, or even why I dropped it, though I think that maybe I didn't: maybe it was all the blood that has made it slip out of my hand, or it could have been, too, that after the deed my fingers, losing their nerve, let it go automatically. It could also have been that horror and revulsion I was talking about a moment ago. Well, you'd be horrified and revolted too if you'd seen what I have.

If you'd done what I've done.

I find my eyes drifting downwards, almost reluctantly, as if pulled there by an undeniable call that has to be resisted, but cannot be. I think I see the knife first. It's lying on the ground, half-shrouded in darkness but still clearly stained bright red, making an odd kind of an exclamation mark with the droplets of blood that lead off from it, and make it, just for a moment, seem like the ultimate and absolute end of a sentence whose author will never write another word. Following its track my fiercely resisting eyes, iron filings dragged along by invisible magnets, uncover no final message, no clue left behind as to who had done this, no plea or last farewell or even a curse.

No more words. No exclamation mark, either – it was simply an optical illusion, like the sock that falls from the dryer into the shape of something else, the cloud that assumes a likeness to something recognisable, the image which eventually emerges out of a magic eye picture, as Jesus sometimes emerges from everything from a piece of toast to a pool of oil, visible clearly to some, to others nothing but a confused mess which shapes nothing.

No, the knife does not exclaim, nor does it question. The knife has had no say in this, though it has had the final say, you could say. Sorry for the somewhat rambling narrative here, but I'm sure you can understand I'm pretty much on edge. On edge! More irony! Iron! Well, steel. Iron. Steel. A sharp, dully glowing blade, lifted in the half-gloom to...

I push the image away. I'm not ready to deal with that just yet. Not now. Now I have another image to face, but before I do – and yes, I quite understand that all I'm doing here is delaying an unpleasant but inevitable task, but you would too if you were in my place – let me just complete that apology, which got a little off track when I started making silly puns. I suppose it's my way of dealing with this situation, though I'm sure any shrink worth their salt would tell me that the last thing I'm doing with this situation is dealing with it. Avoidance, they would say. Probably. Keep everything at arm's length, keep looking the other way, talking about other things, focusing on anything but the matter in hand (in hand! Sorry; there I go again) because the reality is too horrible, too scary, too real to face.

They'd be right. I'm sure of it. That's why they get to sit in plush offices in places like Manhattan and Chicago and Boston and look down on the rest of us, why they make more money than you or I could ever... Sorry, once again, I'm rambling. Time to take hold – no! No more puns! - and get this apology out there.

The rambling narrative I referred to earlier is due to this: I'm making this up as I go along. No, that's not as bad as it sounds. It also probably isn't phrased correctly. What I mean to say is that all of this is new to me, and to try to make some sense of it (if such a thing can ever happen) I've taken to writing down everything that happens, as it happens, and, well, it can get a little hard to remember details. My mind seems to be fragmenting, and sometimes I remember things before they've happened, if that doesn't sound like a crazy person talking. And if it does, hell, maybe it is. Maybe I am. Crazy, that is. You'd know. You're the shrink, aren't you? You're not? Oh.

You'll have to excuse me now for a moment. This is the part I always hate. I've come to hate it even more than... well, I'll get to that, and when I do, you might wonder how I don't hate that more than I hate this, but this is my nightmare and I'm trying to maintain whatever slim control I can over it, which isn't much I can tell you. But there I go again, rambling and going off track, running away on tangents while the thing I have to face is a mere flick of my eyes away. Off to the right. Just there. Just out of sight. In the dark.
Perhaps it's best that it is in the dark, but that won't save me. I know it's there, and if I didn't, like some frontier explorer looking for the source of a river I could follow the dark tide that has made tiny little lakes and then flowed onto the blade of the knife, follow it back to its origin, its wellspring. I won't be feted. No ticker-tape parades for me. Nobody wants to know about this particular discovery. I don't want to know about this particular discovery. But I can't ignore it.

As my eyes move right, my head turning with them, I find the rest of my body collaborating with them to draw me closer, and my knees begin to bend, my head lowering as indeed my body lowers, coming closer to the ground, my bottom descending until it's almost sitting on top of the backs of my heels. My hands, long and now limp since I dropped the knife a few seconds – a few days, months, years ago, reach out of their own accord into the darkness, groping through it like someone parting a screen, and my fingers, trembling slightly now, touch flesh. It's still warm, and it's sticky and wet too, and as I pull my fingers back, not in shock or horror this time, and certainly not in revulsion, I lift them to my eyes, touch them off my lips, taste the blood as my eyes register its presence.

It's by no means a surprise. This is not the first time I've done this. I think I've lost count in fact of how many times I've squatted in this very position and examined my kill, and it always makes me feel the same way. You're going to think I feel one of two types of emotion, I know you are, but you're wrong. You'll say she feels horror, shock, revulsion (yes, I've used those words, so why bother thinking of your own? They work, after all) at what she's done, but no, I don't. Not at all. So then, you'll say triumphantly, it's delight, satisfaction, a kind of manic pride in my work. Wrong again. I suppose it would be fair to say I do feel some sorrow, and maybe there might be a case for being satisfied, too, but they would definitely not be the overriding emotion. I don't quite know what that emotion is, or if it can even be described, but it leaves me with a very clear thought, one I can't ignore, or deny, one which I know is the truth, the reason I do this, the reason I've done it before and the reason I'll do it again.

This was necessary.

I don't hate her. I don't have anything against her. Hell, I don't even know her! Though that's not actually true. I feel I do know her, though I'm one hundred percent certain I have never seen her before. I don't know her name. I don't know any of their names. I don't know their backstories, I don't know where they come from or why they're here, and I certainly don't know why I have to kill them.

But I do.
Have to kill them, I mean.

Will I pay for it, you ask, in that oddly macabre interested tone people who read murder and mystery and horror novels use, knowing that the events cannot possibly affect them, that the people brought to life by the author's skill are in fact not real at all, and while some connection may, at some point, be forged between reader and writer, in few cases is the former going to sit and cry about the death of the creation of the latter. People cried when Dickens killed Little Nell. Dickens himself cried. I've cried over characters, but it doesn't last. It's not like losing a real person who impacted your life, who you grew up with, who you thought, when younger, would always be there and who, as you got older, you realised would not, and began trying to prepare for the day when they would not. No. It's nothing like that.

So you can be interested in the fate of a character, in a book or a film or on television, and either root for or against them, cursing the writer when the opposite to what you had expected or hoped happens, but then you forget it and tell yourself hell it was only a story. Who in the end really cares? We were shocked by the unexpected death of Robb Stark in Game of Thrones, and it hurt for a while, but then we got on with it. Poor Fantine's treatment at the hands of her creator was execrable, but once we'd finished Les Miserables she was put out of our minds, and when we realise Bruce Willis is dead at the end of The Sixth Sense, we're shocked (the first time) but hell, we know Bruce will be back in Die Hard 9 or whatever. The same thought comforts us through the most traumatic events in fiction, be they in print, on screen or even onstage.

It's just a story.
It's not real.

I wish I could say this wasn't real. Maybe it isn't. It would certainly explain – sort of – a lot of the things that have been happening. But I can't think that way. I have to assume it is real, and so to answer your question, will I pay? I don't know. As the man in the Carlsberg ads says, probably. But one thing I do know for certain, and I know it with a diamond-hard and laser-sharp clarity, surer as I have ever known anything in my life. If I don't do these things, I will pay.

I will pay with my life.

Kill or be killed? I suppose that's one way of putting it, though it wouldn't be fair to say, nor would I ever claim, that I kill in self-defence. Far from it. All my victims so far have been completely unarmed, defenceless, perhaps even innocent. It hasn't stopped me. I know I have to do this. Somewhere in my mind is the immovable, undeniable feeling that this is what I was put on this earth to do, that this is – no, not my vocation. Stop putting words in my mouth and trying to psychoanalyse me. I thought you said you weren't a shrink? Yeah, well then keep it zipped buddy. I'm no serial killer, no mad crazed (yes I'm aware they're the same thing; leave me alone) homicidal maniac. I'm not a sociopath. Of course I realise that if I were a sociopath that is exactly what I would say, just as many alcoholics will refuse to admit they have a problem or a junkie will confidently claim they can quit any time. But I don't feel an urge to kill. I don't enjoy it. I don't select and stalk my victims, I don't even have the kind of strong stomach you need for this. I hate blood; it makes me sick, as it made me sick just now. Sorry about that. But have you ever heard of a serial killer who can't stand the sight of blood?
Score one for me.

But if I'm not a natural born killer, then why am I doing this? Good question. I wish I had an answer. I told you a moment ago that I feel driven, feel a compulsion pushing me on, urging me, telling me I must do this. And yes again I know, thank you very much, this is from page one of Serial Killers Unmasked, or whatever treatise on murderers and what motivates them you wish to quote, and who knows? Maybe you're right. Maybe I can be classified as a serial killer. After all, the main – almost only – criterion for one of them is that they have to have killed a bunch of people, right? And I've certainly done that. How many? I've really lost count. Dozens? Oh no, not dozens.

Hundreds maybe.
Could even be thousands.

I haven't been counting. Maybe that is another score for me in the game of I'm Not A Serial Killer, Get Me Out Of Here! Although if it is, the last part of that title is less than useless to me, as it seems there is no way out of here. Am I trying to kill my way out of here? Have I been taken prisoner, trapped, placed in some fiendish maze like a laboratory rat, and unleashed to see what I'll do to get out, how far I'll go? You know, over the – however long I've been here; time really doesn't seem to have any meaning in this place, I've considered it. Well, you have to, don't you? In those quiet moments between the time you spend stalking, hunting, killing and being violently sick, to get ready to go on and do it all again, you have to think.

Because otherwise you'd just go mad.

I've sat down and tried to work it out, often as I'm cleaning blood or brains or shit or some other unnamed substance off the knife, or axe, or chainsaw (that took a long time to clean) and trying to hold down my lunch, which I never seem to partake of – yeah, I must eat I suppose, for who can exist without food, but I can't for the life of me ever remember any meals, snacks, even drinking water, and yet I never tire. I go through the alternatives, the theories I've come up with to try to explain what's happening to me, where I am, and how I can get out of here. None are encouraging.

There's the one I mentioned just now, hopefully you were paying attention. Yeah, the rat maze one. Am I part of some dark and off-the-books government experiment to see what sort of atrocities a person will go to in order to secure their freedom? If I kill enough people, will I eventually be rewarded by being shown a hatch that leads out of here, back to the real world, back to a life I don't remember but must have had? Is someone watching me, even now, taking notes, charting reactions, drawing correlations and preparing reports? Could that shadowy watcher even be you? If it is you, you're hardly going to tell me though, are you? Can't spoil the experiment. Have to start all over again, and where to find so many more victims for me to kill? I could kill you, right now, except of course I'm pretty certain you don't exist. Maybe I don't exist. But that's for the next theory. Whatever my status is though, I hold to my belief that you are not real, and so I can't hurt you. You're just in my head, a way of dealing with the loneliness and isolation. Lucky for you. Because if you were real, I would kill you.
Believe it.

I'm not threatening you, understand. It would just be necessary. Something tells me this. It's just one of those things you know, like when the sky darkens and you know it's going to rain, or that tight feeling you get in your stomach when it's a mad dash to the bathroom before you have an accident. You don't question it, you don't doubt it. There is no ambiguity; it will definitely happen and it can't be stopped. That's how I feel. Anyone I see now, anyone I meet, has to die. It's just how it is.

But where was I? Forgive me, my head has started really hurting and I forget things, get sidetracked. What was I talking about? Oh yes: the possibilities, the theories that might explain where I am, what's happening to me. Well, I've told you one already, the one about some black-ops covert unlicenced experiment run by the government. Yeah, fetch the tinfoil hats, I know. But on one level it fits. Another option of course, quite possibly the most likely, is that I am dreaming. Again, it would explain so much that can't be explained, but that theory has a few small problems. Firstly, I remember little about myself but I'm fairly certain that I don't dream in such rich – and often repellent – detail as I seem to be. I'm not, so far as I know, one of those people who watches movies and documentaries and reads books about murders and killers, and yet I seem to have a natural talent for this, or maybe have developed one. I can handle weapons I've never used before. Of course, in essence anyone can handle a knife, but to use it – ah, now that's a whole different thing.

You have of course (assuming you exist, which as I said I don't think is true, but let's assume for the sake of my rapidly-failing sanity that you do) used a knife, to cut bread, meat, vegetables, cords on packages and so on. But that's just using it. You've never (I imagine) plunged a knife up the the handle in someone's head, or rammed it into their eye, or drawn it across their throat. Believe me, slitting someone's throat might seem a relatively quick way of killing someone, but when you feel that vein pulsing under your thumb, the harsh intake of breath as your victim realises their life is coming to an end, and then the pop as the air rushes out when you slide the blade across under their chin, it doesn't feel like cutting string or cheese or even meat. For one thing, meat and cheese and string don't move, not like a human head moves, not like the arms that fly up to try to protect their precious throat, try to grab the knife, try to push you away.

And then of course, there's the blood.

Cut someone's throat and you're going to get blood. Lots of blood. It leaks, it flows, sometimes it pumps if you cut an artery, and I'm no expert so I've done that a few times. It'll get on the knife, it'll get on your hands, and if you're unlucky it will get on your clothes, shooting out in a greasy scarlet fountain that splashes across your arms and chest, maybe even your face if you're too close. Serial killers may very well enjoy this, I don't know; they may get off on it, they may even need it, or feel they do. But it's abhorrent to me. The idea of taking another human life is anathema to my own nature, but to take it in such a close and personal way is ten times worse. Someone once said (I don't remember who, could be a fictional character in a book I've long forgotten I read or a movie or TV show I can't bring back to my memory) that it's easy (relatively speaking) to kill someone with a gun, because there's distance involved. You don't have to see the results of your work close up. But a knife can't – usually – be used at long distance. Oh, if you're very dexterous you might be able to throw one at someone and kill them (more likely though that you'll either miss entirely or just wound them, and have to go in then for the kill anyway) but usually you're going to have to get down and dirty in the trenches, as it were.

You're going to have to hold the person, restrict them (for who is going to let you stab and kill them without resisting?) and you're almost certainly going to have to look them in the eyes, see the fear or the arrogance or the hate or the mute cry for pity in those eyes, and then watch the light in them dim and be extinguished forever. You're going to have to hear their burbling cry as the blood fills up their throat and they begin to drown in their own blood. You're going to have to feel the thrashing of their limbs, the jerking from side to side of their head, the drumming of their heels on the floor as they die, and you're going to see, step in, kneel in or otherwise experience the slowly spreading pool of their life fluid in which they will eventually lie like a grotesque island in a red sea.

Oh yeah, it's up close and personal, and it's not something I would have thought I could ever do. But I have. And I continue to. I've become something of an adept with the knife now, which is good in one way, as now I can end the suffering of the victim pretty quickly, bring it all to a conclusion with the minimum of fuss and the least trauma. For both of us. You should have seen me in the beginning. Hack, hack, slash - I hadn't a clue. Achieved the same result in the end, of course, but it took a lot longer, there was a lot more blood, a lot more screaming, and also a lot more hunting and as you might (or might not) expect, a lot of screwing up my courage before the deed.

Like I told you, whether you believe me or not, I don't want to do this, and I certainly wanted to do it a lot less the first time. I couldn't imagine myself taking the life of another human, but I knew I had to, and I suppose that lent me strength and determination. When you know there's no alternative, when you have to do something despite your own feelings, you just have to get on with it. Removal of choice is one hell of a motivator. And I knew I had been left with no choice.

And I've wandered off on another tangent, haven't I? Sorry about that. I think I was just explaining, or exploring the idea that, if this is a dream, how I could have become so familiar with weapons I've never used. I just went on at length about the usage of a knife, but you shouldn't think this is my only weapon. I've used hatchets, hammers, guns, ropes, spears, swords, even, as I said, a chainsaw more than once. I don't know: they seem to just come to hand, as if... well, that's another theory I'll get into in a moment. But I said there were other issues with the dream one, so what are they?
Time is a major one. I don't know how much time has passed here, and if this is a dream world perhaps no matter how long it seems I'm in here, outside in the real world maybe only hours have passed, maybe only minutes. Who knows? But if time “out there” is the same as time “in here” it seems I've been here - “dreaming” - too long. I have no way of marking time: no calendars, no clocks, no watches, no sunrise or sunset, but I know that I have killed a lot of people. I don't know how many as I said earlier, but I'm pretty certain that the number couldn't be counted on the fingers of all the hands of a football team of Shivas, so let's round it out at a hundred. I feel, fear it's more, much more, but let's take that because it's a round figure and I'm not great with maths.

So if it is a hundred, and allowing for, let's say, an hour per killing (it isn't; many take only minutes but some take a long time, so I'm just going to average it at an hour) and then another hour for me to recover, and go seek my next victim, so two hours. Two hundred hours in total, which comes out at, what, ten days? Nearly. That's too long, surely, to be asleep. And that's another thing: I never have to sleep here (suppose if I'm dreaming what would be the point? Reminds me of that Poe quote about dreams within dreams) and I never have to eat, use the bathroom, or even rest. I do rest, but only because I need to gather my mental energy reserves, not my physical ones. They don't dull at all, they're constantly as sharp as the blade of the knife I just drove into this woman. But you can't go running after people and killing them, chopping them down like wheat stalks in a field, a human combine harvester, a reaper, or Arnie in T2. Mentally – unless you're completely insane, and maybe it goes for those people too; I wouldn't know as I've never been insane, so far as I know – you have to compose yourself, get ready for the next attack, plan it out, get your weapon ready.

I'm inclined to lean towards the dream theory, but as I say there are a lot of things about it that I'm not convinced about. Another one is that I'm mad. No, I know I said just now that I'm not insane, not so far as I know. But what if I am? What if I'm even now lying on some table, or crouched in the corner of a room with interior decoration inspired by the Michelin Man, grinning and drooling as I try to break my arms free of the restraints, while outside a light over the door will flash an urgent red if I should somehow manage that? What if there are drawings all over the clean white walls, in crayon and other substances generally not used in the writing arts, faces and symbols and equations that mean nothing equals nothing, and names and places and dates that mean as little to me as they do to the puzzled doctors who visit me from time to time?

Have I been locked up because these things I do – these things I think I do now – are reflections, remembrances of atrocities I have committed? Am I being punished for taking the lives of countless innocents, and unable to stand trial have been committed to this institution, shut away where I can no longer harm decent folk, strapped into a special jacket so that I cannot harm myself? Did the memory of what I did finally break on the blood-red shores of my mind and overwhelm me, pitching me headfirst into a grey, unforgiving sea in which I now drown?

Am I mad?

I must be.

And yet, I don't feel mad.

Does a madman (or in my case, madwoman) feel that they are mad, I wonder? Or do they consider themselves the only sane one, and everyone else off their trolley? Or do they even realise there is anything wrong with them? Do they realise anything at all? Do I, can I perceive the world as it is, or do I see what I want to see, or what my madness chooses or forces me to see? Am I a slave to it, or does it serve me?

And finally, is this all a game? I don't mean like the lab rat one, with myself as the pawn or puppet of unscrupulous faceless men in suits, whether working for the government, military (is there a difference?) or more private concerns. No. I mean, is this literally a game? The way the killing never stops, the way weapons seem to appear either when I think of them or need them, or just for no reason. The way none of the victims are armed, or seem aware of my presence until I'm almost on top of them? The way nothing outside of the killing and brief moments of consolidation and rest seem to exist in my world.
Can it be that I am not real, merely a collection of pixels on someone's computer screen, part of a programme in a video game, a character fated to kill and kill again, racking up high scores and gaining bonus weapons with each kill? Am I part of something that is rated MA for Mature Audiences? And when the kid or adult playing this game, directing my movements, making me kill tires of it and turns it off, will I rest? Will I find peace? Or will I just – what do they call it – respawn? Rise from the dead (though I don't have any memory of ever having been killed) and continue on with my pointless, savage killing spree?

To be perfectly honest with you, it could be any of these, or none. I really don't know, and the headaches get worse when I try to figure it out, so I've stopped doing that. Besides, I need all my cunning and agility now. I've noticed the last few kills have been progressively harder. The victims seem almost aware now that I'm here, like they're ready for me, and while none of them has been able to fight me, not being armed, they've struggled, resisted, and drawn out the end. This one lasted three hours. That's a long time to face someone with a knife and not die, but she seemed determined to survive. I made sure she didn't of course; her fate was sealed and there was nothing she could do about it. But she gave me my toughest challenge yet.

Which probably lends weight to the video game analogy, when you think about it. If the enemies, as it were, I face in the game are not armed, how can it be fun for the player unless their responses change, unless their reactions get sharper, faster, and they are better able to resist me, making it harder for me? Gotta make her work hard for the money, right?
****************************
Funny how things go. Last time I spoke to you I mentioned that none of my victims had been armed, and they hadn't, but the last three have been. Also, they've been harder to kill, even allowing for the fact that they're no longer defenceless. This might confirm the video game hypothesis – hell, it could confirm any of them, including the one where I'm locked up in a rubber room! But I'm finding it more difficult now both to track and kill them. The last one even managed to cut me up, kinda bad really. Still feeling that one. Almost literally licking my wounds as I speak to you. Not feeling too well and though in my head my mission remains the same, and far from dimming the urgency has in fact strengthened, making me more determined than ever to kill these opponents, I got to admit it's not as easy as it was.

But I'll prevail. The last one, as I said, got her licks in and it might be a little longer than usual before I'm out on the hunt again, but a few flesh wounds won't stop me. Can I be killed? Good question, and one I've asked myself, but there's only one way to answer that and I'm not ready to go down that route just yet. From the pain I'm now feeling I can certainly assert that I can be hurt, so probably stands to reason that I can be killed. Not that I'm going to let anyone do that, but in one way it makes me a little more cautious. When I felt I was more or less invincible, I had no problem despatching these women. Why is it always women, I ask? Or do you ask? Am I talking to myself? No idea. Possibly not important, but the question is valid.

Of the surely hundreds, if not more, kills I've made, not one single one has been male. Not one. There've been women – lots of young women – girls of teenage years, younger even, older more mature women and even ones I might consider someone's grandmother. Not that age has stopped me. I feel nothing can. It's almost like I'm being, not quite controlled, but perhaps directed, advised maybe? Something is telling me that I have to do this, and I know that whoever or whatever that is, they're right. A child with blonde hair in pigtails clutching a blue teddy bear is just as much a target, just as much a threat as a powerfully-built, athletic woman of thirty or forty, and even the silver-haired granny seems dangerous, something that has to be eliminated.

I suppose if none of them are real it doesn't and won't matter. If I'm not real it sure won't. But I do on occasion take a moment to consider what will happen if they are real, and I survive to go on trial for all these, well, they'd be categorised as murders, wouldn't they? What else do you call the slaughter of unarmed women, and even if the latest ones are now armed, it's still hardly a fair fight. Oh, they've given me more of a challenge, these last specimens, but though I've had to work harder I've come out on top, and they never attack me: it's always self-defence with them. I can't ever expect any lawyer to offer me such a plea, nor any court to accept it. There's no mitigation factor for what I do: I simply have to do it, but they wouldn't understand. You wouldn't understand. You don't understand.

Neither do I. Not really. But I know there is no choice.
**********************

Been a while since I last spoke to you, and man have things taken a turn for the worse. The last two were damned hard to put down, and I took a lot of damage myself. Not quite sure I'm ready to face another one. But I see one approaching now. It's weird: up to now, as I think I told you last time we conversed, it's always been me hunting them. Now for the first time I'm being stalked. I tell you, it's not a nice feeling. Jumping at shadows, never sure when you can rest (not that I seem to need that physically, but emotionally it's important I think), always on your guard. Suppose, when I think about it, that's how they must have felt when I was hunting them. Well now I know, and it ain't good. It's one thing when you can set your traps, plan your strategy, scope out your victim, quite another when you're taken completely off guard and they get the drop on you.

They're getting stronger too. I don't know what it is, but they seem not only more resistant to my attacks but able to press their own now. They've found weapons, yeah, from somewhere I don't know – where do I find mine? They just, you know, appear as I need them. Maybe it's the same for them now. Maybe whoever wrote this video game or whoever is controlling this experiment is trying to level out the field? Maybe my own diseased mind is rebelling, turning against itself, and giving me harder obstacles to surmount. Hey, what do I know? Don't look at me for answers. You probably have them, but aren't prepared to show your hand just yet.

Fuck! One just came at me while I was talking to you. Have to excuse me for a moment. This one looks...

Tough. By Christ she was. How many hours have I been away? Right. So you're not saying. Or you don't know? Well it seems like it took a hell of a long time to win that battle. I'm bleeding in several places, and if you can die in here, I'm starting to think I'm heading that way. Hard to concentrate these days – nights? - and my strength is rapidly fading. Hard to even stand up straight. Hard to... oh fuck. Another one.

You know... it's... funny but I... thought that one looked... familiar... somehow. Like I... Jesus fucking Christ that hurts! Like I... recognised her... though I knew... I had never... seen... ah fuckfuckfuckityFUCK! Can't be... oohhhhhh! Can't be... long... now....

Thought that... was... it. Just... aaarrrrgghh! Just blacked... out. But you know... now that I... look... at you... you... look familaARRRGGHHH! Oh fuck! You look familiar... too...

Oh... my head's... my head's swimming. I think I'm... I think I'm hal-hal-hallUCINATING OH CHRIST! You... look... just like... the one I just... fought. Didn't.. I....?

Aw... ****. You're... one... of them... too... aren't you?
You're... all of them. I... recognise you... now.
I recognise... me.
****.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Oh... so now... you're gonna... talk to me? I can... see your mouth... moving... I can... I can hear... the words...
I can... hear your... voice.
Are... are you... are you God?

No, Jennifer, I'm not God, and neither are you. You had many theories about this place, about where you were, who you were, why you were here. The one about the nightmare was the right one, technically. You are – were – in a nightmare.

But there's one important point you weren't able to consider, as it never occurred to you.

It wasn't – isn't – your nightmare.
It's mine.

You're a part of me, Jennifer, a part I've always allowed to control me, and a part which, had I not fought back, would have killed me, or kept me here, which amounts to the same thing.

I know you're dying. I can't say I feel any sympathy for you. I want you to die, Jennifer. I need you to die. If you don't die, I can't live. This is one of the universal truths you were dimly aware of while you fought in here. If you didn't defeat me, all this would be taken from you.
And it will be.

But you won't care, because you'll be dead. Though really that's not a true statement, as you were never alive in the first place.

Let me try to explain it to you, Jennifer, before I leave you to die. Seems only fair you should know why you're dying, why you have to die. A long time ago – a year, they tell me, though I have no way at the moment of confirming this, so have to take them at their word – I had an accident. A bad one. Let me go a little further back though, to put this in perspective. Sorry, I know you're hurting. I don't wish you pain. I don't hate you. But you have to die, and there's just no way around that, and after all, you chose the method of attacking me so it's only fair and appropriate that you die in the same way as all your victims died.

Anyway, I was not – am not – a good person. Nobody could call me that, at least, not without lying through their teeth. I was a wife and a mother, and I sucked at both. I was lazy, arrogant, weak. I was bored with my life, with my perfect husband (though I now realise he was far from perfect, for who is?) and had no time for my three little children, seeing them as more an annoyance, a distraction, an unnecessary drain on my finances, rather than the blessing they are, or were. My husband made – makes – good money, and he gave me all the money I needed, happy to do it because he loved me, and he trusted me. Big mistake. Rather than spend the money on shopping trips I got into drugs, first relatively innocuously. I would go to parties – without my husband – and meet dubious people. I eventually became a cliche, selling my body for heroin when the money ran out and Danny refused to, or was unable to give me more.

It's nothing special as a story, happens all the time. Danny and I drifted apart, I spent time in jail, he held on for as long as he could then finally I forced him to file for divorce. I actually told him I wanted it, because I knew I'd get a very generous settlement which I could then plough into my addiction. Heroin was all: I no longer cared about Danny, I had never cared about the kids. All I wanted was my smack, and I didn't give a toss who I hurt in order to get it. Danny didn't want to divorce me – the poor fool still loved me, thought he could change me – but the decision was taken out of his hands when, fleeing from the cops with a key of the stuff in my trunk I slammed into a wall and they had to cut me out of the car.

I've been in a coma, they tell me, since then. I don't remember any of it. Little flashes: the pain of a sharp object across my throat, a kick in the head, the buzzing of a chainsaw? Faces floating in front of me, the faces of my family, and your face, always yours, grinning, looming, leering, hating. I knew your face. I knew it was my face. But I didn't know that I knew. I just had this terrible feeling of recognition every time you attacked me, like being slaughtered by your twin sister.

Oh yeah. It's been me – you – us you've been killing all this time. Every victim, every murder you've committed has been a part of me. I don't quite understand it, but Danny has, apparently, been coming to the hospital every day since I was admitted, sitting by my bed and telling me what was going on, keeping me updated in the hope that I might come out of it, come back to him.

It wasn't working, because I didn't want to.
But I do now.

But those victims I was talking about? The ones that never fought back? Well, until now that is. All aspects, I'm told, of my personality. You went for the weaker ones first of course. There was my sense of self-worth – easy pickings there, no resistance and a quick kill. Then my ambition, also weak, easily murdered. Others, too: again I don't understand it but it has something to do, I believe, with how my brain was perceiving my coma, and how it was deciding whether or not to fight back, whether to remain here and give up or try to get back to the real world, try to wake up, try to come back to life.

Hope. Guilt. Self-loathing. All little defenceless prom queens to be stalked and destroyed by the night slasher, all easy prey for the monster who walked among them. Me. Us. Whatever. Frail, fragile little weaklings who fainted away dead at the sound of the steel sliding into flesh, who closed their horrified eyes and passed away at the first spurt of blood from the artery. No match for you, those cutouts, those losers, those quitters. Because I was a quitter. I wanted to lose. I wanted to stay here. It's easier, of course it is. But nothing worth doing is ever easy. The good things demand sacrifice, the triumphs in our lives are only achieved through self-denial and backbreaking labour, through determination and acceptance of loss, acceptance of our fallibility, the recognition and realisation that we are not perfect, never can be, and probably never should be.

To slightly paraphrase the Beastie Boys: you gotta fight for your right to life.
And I didn't want to fight. Not back then. What had I to live for, Jennifer? My husband was leaving me (yes I know I said I wanted the divorce, but that was the heroin talking, not me) and taking my children. And he was right to. I couldn't look after them. I couldn't give them the nurturing love they needed. No safe haven in this harbour, kids. They'd be better off without me. So would he. I knew it, and he knew it. And then that small part of me that still realised that there even was an outside world, a reality beyond the one I found myself in, remembered that even if things had been peachy with my home life, I had crashed in possession of a kilo of horse. I was going down, if I ever woke up.

I had nothing to look forward to but a long stretch inside, a lonely life that would be even lonelier when I got released, assuming I didn't top myself or get on the wrong side of a shank while incarcerated. Outside, if I made it, I would be as alone as I would be inside. Nobody left to care for or about me, no chance of a job, and in all likelihood the craving would not only still be there but would have increased, as only the very foolish and naive think that you can't get drugs in prison.

So what else to do but slide down into welcome darkness, hide in the anonymous protection of the coma I was in? Why come out? Why not stay there? It was safe, it was quiet, and nobody could hurt me there. More importantly, I couldn't hurt anybody. I was better off where I was. My husband and kids were better off where I was. Everyone was better off if I just remained where I was and never troubled the world with my sorry presence again.

Which is, I believe, Jennifer, where you came in.

Now I'm no shrink, and I don't believe in God, so I don't have any way to adequately explain it, but you seem to have become the personification of my despair, though you would not of course have recognised yourself as such. You were born, if I may use that term loosely, with a single objective in mind: your survival, and continued existence. Hey, I don't blame you, you know. It's the driving force that impels us all, the instinct that makes us step back when a car nearly runs us over, or stop when we run towards a cliff, or too fast down steps. It's the defence mechanism that has us throw out our arms when we fall, or cover our heads when something heavy – usually something much too heavy for our mere arms to protect us from – falls from the sky. It's the sense of preservation that makes us turn away if we see trouble, refuse to bear witness or pick someone out from an identity parade even though we know who it is. None of us want to die. We all want to live as long as we can, and that desire is inbuilt and hard-coded into our DNA. So how could you not wish to preserve your life?

The only way you could do that, though, was to ensure that I remained in the coma, and to do that, you had to destroy my urge to wake up. Because some part of you knew, instinctively, that if I really wanted to come out of the coma, there was nothing you could do to stop me. You weren't strong enough on your own. The odds and the numbers were against you, but what use are superior numbers if they're made up of chicken**** soldiers who will run at the first sound of a shot? And that's what my – let's call them emotions, though that's not quite right, but it will do – were; cowardly, craven, weak, miserable little excuses for an army.

But not them all.

Because somewhere along the line, don't ask me how, I started to hear things. Maybe it's true what they say about people in comas, that if you talk to them they hear even if they can't respond. I certainly heard Danny talking to me, though for a long time all I could hear was a low mumble, a kind of muttering I couldn't even identify as his voice. But slowly I came to understand that it was him, that he hadn't abandoned me, that he was promising to stand by me, maybe bring the kids to visit me when I was locked up, and afterwards, when I got out... well, to be fair he made no promises, nor would I have expected or really wanted him to, but he gave me the impression that the door – no pun intended – might still be open for us. It was all I needed to start fighting back.

All I needed, except I had no clue how to. I tried to wake up, tried till I felt every blood vessel in my body was bursting with the effort, but nothing. And then one day I heard him talking to the doctor – actually it may have been a priest – and this guy was explaining a theory he had, that the patient in a coma fought a kind of existential battle, where one half of the brain, soul, heart, call it what you will, dug its heels in and wanted to stay asleep. Sleeping was easier than facing what I had done, and as I was already in a coma it would be, this man said, like trying to pull a massive plug that had been sunk into the earth out with my teeth, but that if I didn't manage it I would remain in the coma.

She has to fight, he had said with a tinge of sadness and regret in his voice (or was that the doctor? I couldn't see anyone of course so had no idea who might be talking) and she has to want to wake up. If the part of her that fears coming back, doesn't want to take responsibility for what she has done, wins, then she will never wake up, and she may just slip away.

And that's what you are, Jennifer, or what you were anyway. You're that part of me that tried to keep me asleep, roaming the corridors of my brain like some slasher movie stalker, hunting down my weaker impulses and killing them, destroying me piece by piece, taking my resolve and my determination to break out of here and rejoin my family, weakening my defences and shaking me by the throat like some wolf finishing off its prey.

I was ready to let you win, to just sink down into the mire of my own bad choices and talent for fucking my life up, and that of everyone I knew, until today.

What happened today? I'm glad you asked.

You see, today Danny was back at my bedside, the way he has been for a year now, every day without fail. But today he did something he has never done before.

He brought my kids to see me.

And I heard their voices, heard them crying, whispering to their mummy to come back, please come back, they needed her.

I say this in the most general terms, but after all, you're me, as such, and so I can say it to you. You're a woman. You know the greatest, most indefatigable, most unstoppable force in the world is the love of a mother for her children. You'll give your own life for your kids.
Or take it back.

So, yeah, I feel a little bit sorry for you now, Jennifer, as you lie there bleeding and dying, and finally realising what it is you've been doing, and how, despite your many victories, you were always fated to lose. But I don't feel that sorry. You're a bitch, Jennifer. A selfish bitch who tried to keep me apart from my children, and for that you deserve to die.

I don't know, though: maybe you'll live on when I wake up. You're a part of me, after all, a small, insignificant part now of course. I'm not saying I'll get off dope like that, and I know I have a hard time facing me once I wake up and can be moved to prison. But I can face all that now, because I am no longer alone.

Perhaps you won't be, either.

I really don't know, and to be brutally and frankly honest with you, I don't care either way.

Goodbye Jennifer.

I'm going to open my eyes now.

Boss of Bosses

Ah yeah, think ya got it all figured out, huh kid? You've been with the firm, what – a year now? Oh, sixteen months, ya say? Well well. And now you're just about ready to take over. Gonna go up against me, huh?

Yeah, yeah, you're the one with the gun. Think a gun makes you a big man, do ya? Ya got a lots to learn, kid. If ya ever lives that long that is. Nah, not a threat son. Don Angelo Di Marco, he don't make threats.

Kinda remind me of myself when I was younger, kid, you know that? New on the job, fulla piss and vinegar, ready to take on the world. I know that feelin'. Why should ya work for me when ya can have it all for yourself? Just what I was thinkin' back then about my boss. Old guy was losin' it, lettin' insults pass, not collectin' on debts, showin' – Jesus Christ! Showin' mercy! I ask ya, right? Time the guy was put outta his misery. Time for, ah, new blood, capische?

Yeah I had the same idea, kid. I was in your place, standin' where you are now, but I didn't use no gun. Nah. See, I knew somethin' about this Family that you don't. We been here forever. We got secrets.

Lemme tell ya a story. What? Got somethin' more important to do? You're about to take out the Boss of Bosses, an' ya don't wanna hear his final testimonial? Hell, ya owe me that much, right? Sure ya do. Right then, ya gotta come with me then, back about – oh, fifty years ago I guess it would be now. Heh. No, I guess I don't look my age, true. All this good livin', you see. Good to be the boss.

Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah. I was standin' where you are, facin' my boss. Folks always thought there was somethin', you know, different about Don Vito. His enemies had a nasty way of vanishin', an' nobody ever found no bodies. But that wasn't strange; happens in any crime syndicate. Lots of places to bury people – or parts of 'em – where they ain't never gonna be found. Nah, the really weird thing about Don Vito was his aversion to the day. Never rose till the sun went down, conducted all his business at night. If he had deals to be done in daylight, well, he had agents to take care of it. Didn't eat much either – well, when I say not much, I means nothing. Not so much as a scrap of food. And for an Italian, well, he sure avoided goin' to church. Never set foot in there, not once.

Sure, I knew why, but then, I was part of the Family. And we were loyal, and sworn to secrecy. Sworn to protect the Family.

But I was about to break that oath of loyalty which had been the hallmark of our Family for – well, for longer than you can imagine, kid.

I was young an' foolish, full of my own confidence.
Invincible.

I broke into Don Vito's office – not hard, for a man of my talents, I assure you – and I was waitin' for him when he came back from a meetin'. His eyes popped when he saw me. Not exactly friends, him and me – members, you might say, of opposin' factions within the Family. Well he looks down at my gun, up at my eyes, over at his three goons, who all go for their weapons.
And he laughs.

He sneers. Don't this punk kid know who he is? Does he really think a gun is going to have any effect on a guy like Don Vito? The goons, taking their cue from the boss, begin to laugh too. They're waitin' for the signal, but they ain't never gonna get it.

I squeeze the trigger and hit him square in the heart.
Don Vito laughs as, instead of hot lead slammin' into his chest and ruinin' his expensive Brooks Brothers suit, water spurts out of my gun.

Don Vito laughs.
The goons laugh.
Then Don Vito stop laughin', and starts screamin'.

He's clutchin' at his chest, flappin' at it, slappin' it with his palms. Black smoke is risin' from the folds of his shirt, and a nasty, cookin' smell is in the air. Don Vito looks at me with eyes that suddenly realise what's happenin', as the smoke gets thicker and heavier, and red and orange flames start to leap from his chest, his neck, his hands as the water trickles down his body. I fire a few more shots, and Don Vito sinks to his knees, his entire head wreathed in fire, skin meltin' down what's left of his face, his body already crispin' on the Axminster.

One of the goons rushes to him, one comes at me. I take both of them out with a few shots. A few bullets impact my body, but I shrug them off. The two of them begin to smoke like their boss. The third one has turned and run. I take careful aim at his back. The gun sputters and coughs, but nothin' comes out.

Empty.

Cursin', I reach in my pocket, pull out the small glass vial with the holy cross embossed on the side, refill the pistol, and go after him. I catch him halfway down the stairs.

I spray his back, emptyin' the gun into him, and he literally erupts in flame, cindered remains fallin' down the steel steps. He don't even got time to scream.

I walk back to the office, kickin' apart the ashes of the man who was once Don of the First Family, crime boss of all New York, and I stride to his desk. I pick up the phone, and give the code word.

You ever heard of the Night of the Long Knives, kid? No? Ya oughta pay more attention to your history. See, there was this guy, Adolf Hitler. He wanted to take over his country, but there were guys in the way, guys he didn't trust. Gotta have trust in this business, right? So what does Hitler do? He does what any good mob boss would do. He removes the threat, makes sure there ain't nobody to stand in his way.

This here is my Night of the Long Knives, kid.

Oh yeah, your accomplices are all bein' dealt with as we speak. One of them gave you up.

Loyalty, kid. Ain't got loyalty, ain't got nothin'.

Tell ya what, kid, I couldn't be bothered bitin' ya. Why don't ya do me a solid an' point that gun at your head? Go on, that's it. All ya gotta do now is pull the trigger.

Yeah, I'm real sorry too kid. Only got this desk French polished today and now I'm gonna have to have your brains cleaned off it. Ah well. I got people for that.

Good to be the Boss.

Support Group


For a long time, I stand staring at the door. It's like I'm paralysed, but I know it's fear that stops me. Which is pretty odd, when you consider it. I want to change – I know I do – but it's hard, taking that first step. The perfectly ordinary door leading into a perfectly ordinary building yawns before me like a huge black mouth, waiting to swallow me. I can feel the icy kiss of the rain as it falls about my head and shoulders, running in small trickles down my neck, and it's strangely comforting. I could stay outside, here in the rain, in the dark, in the cold. It seems... right.

But Herman is there beside me, and his pale hand is on my sleeve. Small droplets of rainwater glance off it and hit the ground; some others, having landed on his skin, run slowly over his knuckles and down his wrist, dripping off his hand to join their brothers on the dark pavement. There is concern in his eyes, concern that does not belong there. For a moment, I hate him.

“Come on, Victor.” His voice is soft, low, a sibilant hiss in the darkness, but forceful in its way, containing both persuasion and wounded pride, a hint of disappointment and rather a lot of encouragement. “You knew this would be hard, but it will be worth it, I promise you. The first step,” he nods at the door, waiting for me hungrily, seeming to grin at me, “is to walk through that door.”

“I – I don't think I'm ready.” If I hate Herman at that moment, I hate my own voice even more. It shakes with fear, fear which disgusts me the more because it's real, and I'm usually not afraid of anything. I hate it, and I hate that I'm letting it win. But I am afraid. “Maybe next week.” I begin to turn from the building, turning up my collar against the rain, more a symbolic gesture really as the weather does not in the least bother me. His hand on my arm tightens. I know how tight that grip can get, and for a moment my eyes flash a challenge in the gloom, reflected in the white sodium glare of the street light.

“No.” It is a simple denial, more an order, a refusal to accept my defeat. “No, Victor. Next week you'll feel the same, and if you walk away tonight you're going to feel like a failure, and I won't allow that.”

“You won't allow it?” Now the challenge is full-born in my eyes, a red anger rising in them that would speak, in other circumstances, of mortal combat. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I'm your friend.” The three words are spoken quietly, gently, but with commanding force. The strength of his forceful, gentle commitment defuses my anger, deflates my burgeoning arrogance, and shrouds me in shame. I nod.

“I know,” I tell him. “I know. But as my friend, you must understand how difficult this is.”

This time he nods, and looks back at the waiting door, an immovable object waiting to meet its irresistible force. “Of course I do,” he assures me, his hand still on my arm, as if, should he release it, I would be gone in a flash, disappearing into the night, leaving him behind, leaving any potential hope for salvation behind. He's right; I would. “But we've talked about this. Nothing that's worth doing is easy, and there are no quick fixes. You want to get better, don't you?”

This time it is he whose eyes bear the challenge, but it isn't the challenge of combat or that of resistance; his gaze dares me to have the courage of my convictions, to do what I said I would do, what I promised him I would do.

To take that first step.

I try to make my feet move in the direction of the door, but they are determined to carry me away from it. Only his grip, strong but caring, arrests me. I wonder how he can do it; this is not how we are. How can he be so understanding, so friendly, so, so... good? Do I want to be like him? I've asked myself this question a thousand times in the last few months, since he first told me of this program, of his experiences with it, and how it helped him. And I've swung between that's what he wants, good for him to can't I have it too? Eventually, after what most people would call soul-searching (though I do not use such a term, for why would I?) I came out on the latter side of the argument, and gave in to his repeated blandishments, allowed him to encourage, almost force me to accompany him to one of his meetings, hoping but not believing that I would gain something from it, that it would help me, that I would attain from it what he has.

Peace. Acceptance. Serenity.

What have I become? I sleep through the day, go out at night looking for my fix, my hit. And I get it, but it does nothing to assuage the hunger in me, the need, the desire for more. It's slowly destroying me, this addiction, I know that. But it's so hard to stop. If it's even possible. It's ruined my life, this thing that has taken over my every waking moment. It's made me hurt the people I love, do anything to attain that high, to feel that – that invulnerable, that strong – though I really know, deep down, that it's weakness that drives me, not strength.

Strength, as Herman has pointed out to me, comes from wanting to change, not allowing this thing to define who I am. Strength comes from standing up, from saying no: this is not the way I want to live, this is not how I am going to live. I am going to do something about it.

As if he's reading my mind, he asks me “Do you not hate what you've become, Victor? Can you even look at yourself in the mirror?”

“No,” I tell him honestly. “No, I can't.”

I used to despise addicts. No will power, I would scoff. No self-respect, no control. The scum of the earth. I would, I arrogantly told myself, never be like them, grubbing around for my next shot, selling my very soul for the one thing that keeps me going, the thing I must do, the thing that has made me its slave. But it's funny how your perspective changes once you're riding the red horse. You see a whole different world from up there, and it's not a better one. You understand more, you realise what it's like, and despair eats your heart as you come to accept that it will never change, that you are trapped like this forever.

And then, in the darkest of dark nights, a torch shone through for me, and here I am standing beside my friend, a sinner at the gates of Hell, waiting, hoping to be admitted.

This is my chance, my chance to turn it all around, to turn my back on the life I have led and make my existence mean something. This is my chance to atone, to walk a different path, to step out into the light, terrifying as that seems.

But, as Herman has told me many times, this isn't like one of those car washes where you go in with a filthy vehicle caked in grime and muck and it comes out sparkling clean, good as new. It's not like confession, where the faithful who have sinned go in and repent, and come out with their souls as shiny and scrubbed as when they were born. It's a long, arduous process, and it takes time, and it takes commitment, and it takes perseverance. It's not easy, but it starts with one step.

If I can make that one step.

But I'm finding it a lot harder than I had expected.

Still, like Herman says, nothing worth doing is easy, right?

“I'm not going to try to force you, Victor.” His voice seems to come from a long way off, and I notice faintly that he has taken his hand off my arm. His eyes are serious. Are they ever any other way? Above in the sky, the eastern wind pushes a small bank of clouds from the moon and the half-full pale yellow disc illuminates us, standing outside the building like two penitents fearing to enter our god's sanctum. Well, one fearing and one trying to urge him. “But aren't you tired of living the way you do? Aren't you tired of hurting people, of hiding who you are, of the terrible agony that comes with every morning, the awful realisation that you've done it again? Don't you want to take back your life, take back control, be the man you want to be?”

I find it hard to answer, but I nod. My eyes shift towards the door again. Perhaps it's the appearance of Lady Moon, lightening the darkness, but somehow it doesn't seem as threatening as before. I believe I may be able to approach it.

“The first step in dealing with your problem,” Herman tells me as we stand in the hallway (I hear a low murmur of voices from down the hall, and a tiny sliver of light spills out from beneath a closed door, which we approach now), “is admitting you have one. They'll help you, as they helped me. But you need to be open to that help, and ready to change. Are you ready to change, Victor?”

I nod, uncertainly. “I want to,” I tell him honestly. He smiles, and knocks on the door. We are admitted to a circle of people, who do not look that much different from us, all sitting on plastic chairs. They welcome us into their circle, and I am encouraged, as a newcomer, vouched for by Herman, to introduce myself. I know what to say – what must be said – Herman has coached me in this, and there is a certain form which must be observed. It's hard to say it – hard to admit it to others, when you've spent so long hiding this secret, protecting it, guarding it, fearing that it might be discovered.

But this is it, now. I've come too far. I've made the giant leap, and it's time to make another one. I've lived in the darkness for too long. It's time to do something I never thought I would, and step into the light, even if it hurts.

I stand, clear my throat, look around at my fellow attendees, at Herman, and back.
“Hello everyone,” I say, a slight tremble in my voice. “My name is Victor, and I'm a vampire.”
“Hello Victor!” they all chorus.

I'm feeling more comfortable already.

Not one of us

“Welcome back. The headlines on SCNN: still no verdict in the Rosco Peterson trial, now in its sixteenth day.

(VT rolls)

“I'm coming to you live from the victory speech of our new Prime Minister, Jurgen Reynolds, whose party, the HLRP – Hard Line Right Party – swept to power in a landslide election victory yesterday. The speech was marred by the attempt of one man to assassinate Mr. Reynolds. As the assailant was led away by police he was heard to scream “He's a demon! He's a demon!” Mr. Reynolds' interrupted speech then included a mention of the attempt, calling for psychiatric aid for the man, and pointing to it as a stark example of the dangerous freedoms allowed by the liberalism of the previous government. The new Prime Minister promised tighter security checks and better screening for hereditary mental problems. Harry Doveturtle, for SCNN.”

(VT ends)

“That was the scene over two weeks ago, the attempt resulting in the swift passing of the Draconian Acts, which I'm sure have made us all feel much more secure.”

“Thank you, Harry. We welcome to the studio the very eminent Dr. Indira Patwani. Dr. Patwani, you were called as an expert witness at the trial of Mr. Peterson. Why was that?”

“Well, Maurice, I specialise in certain conditions of the brain, and it was my belief – and remains so – that Mr. Peterson was suffering from a rare case of DPRD.”

“D... P... what?”

“Oh I do beg your pardon. We psychologists are so used to using acronyms, we tend to forget people may not know what they stand for. DPRD stands for Degenerative Personality Regression Disorder. DPRD occurs in, oh, maybe one in a million, one in two million brains. It is a condition that can go undetected for years, decades even, and then be triggered by some major event. In this case, it seems to have been set off by the HLRP's shock election.”

“Yes. It was a shock, wasn't it? Rumours of election tampering?”

“Not my area, I'm afraid, Maurice. I'm only a doctor. But in that capacity I have seen, in my time, perhaps three cases of DPRD, and I am convinced this is one of them.”

“So, how does this bear on the case, Doctor?”

“I'm getting to that. You see, a patient suffering from DRPD sees reality literally fragment before him. He sees his world break apart. It no longer makes sense. Things, as I believe one poet had it, fall apart.”

“The centre cannot hold.”

“Precisely. And in this case, the fragmentation of his world made Mr. Peterson believe utterly that Mr. Reynolds was, and is, a demon.”

“But surely, Doctor, we all -”

“I'm coming to that. DPRD is insidious, Maurice. To one suffering the symptoms, everything else can seem real and only one tiny part is wrong. But – and this is the important, and indeed tragic part – that one part that he sees as being wrong is in fact the only part of his world which is still, as it were, right. He is imagining all the rest, but believes it to be a true reflection of his world. What this means is that when Mr. Peterson saw our Prime Minister as a demon, he didn't realise --”

“Sorry to cut across you there, Doctor, but I'm told we have breaking news down at the courthouse. Sally Wilson is on the spot for us. Sally? You there?”

“Hi Maurice. We're told that the jury has just returned, and that a verdict is indeed imminent. This will bring to a close the longest-running criminal case in recent history. Rosco Peterson has been accused of having links to the liberal – ah, right. Yes. Thank you. And here it is, Maurice. The moment we've all been waiting for. The jury has found Rosco Peterson NOT GUILTY, by reason of insanity! Quite unexpected verdict there, Maurice. This is Sally Wilson, for SCNN, returning to you in the studio.”

“Not guilty. Are you surprised by the verdict, Dr. Patwani?”

“Not at all.”

“Really?”

“I knew he would be found not guilty. How can you blame a man suffering from DPRD for his actions?”

“And you are certain he was afflicted by this – what did you call it? DPD?"

“DPRD. Without a doubt. Worst case I've seen in my time. Mr. Peterson was unable to see himself – and the world around him – for what it is. He saw the Prime Minister as a demon, but it would not occur to him, in his sick state of mind, that this was the natural order of things, and that we are all demons.”

“I see. Well there you have it folks. A sensational end to a sensational trial. Thanks to Dr. Indira Patwani for sharing his insights with us. Looks like that book is going to be a bestseller, doc! That's all from Sixth Circle Network News on the day Rosco Peterson, attempted killer of our Prime Minister, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Remember, for all the news from the Sixth Circle of Hell, keep it here, on SCNN. Good night.”

Star-Crossed

Nikkolai salivated as he ushered her outside into the cold night air. The roar of the music was abruptly cut off as the door swung shut, thumping bass and squealing synthesiser beats fading away as the sound of distant night traffic and the sigh of the wind replaced them, making him feel more at home. He hated dance music, especially that bloody EDM, but those clubs were the best ones to pick up women. He had his arm around her waist, and in some small part of her drug and alcohol-addled brain the nineteen-year-old with the skirt that barely qualified as such, tottering on white boots with heels far too high for someone of her diminutive stature, must have wondered why that hand wasn't sliding further down? Maybe this guy really was one of that dying breed, a gentleman? Maybe she had lucked out, hit the jackpot.

As he encouraged her down the alleyway, she sighed inwardly. No. Just another guy looking to get his. No reason why he should want to go into this dark, lonely passageway otherwise. Any moment now his hand would drop and begin to creep up her – OW! What the hell was that? Was this guy kinky or what?

“Wha – wha you say... name was .. 'gain?” she slurred, falling against him as he supported her.

“Nikkolai,” he told her tersely, looking around. Not that anyone would mark them, two more drunken lovers staggering out of a club.
“Ni – Nicho-las?”

This always angered him.

“No. Not Nicholas,” he corrected her. “Nikkolai. Two K's , A and an I. Nikkolai.”

Suddenly her heart began to race, and she felt sure it was more than just the two tablets of MDMA she had taken earlier. Something had penetrated her, and not in the place she usually expected to be penetrated. Her breath was coming fast now, laboured, like it did sometimes when she tried to run for the last bus. She suddenly thought of her mother, waiting up anxiously for her, watching the door. It might have given her mother some small comfort to know that she was the last thing on her daughter's mind before she slipped away.

Withdrawing his fangs, Nikkolai wiped his sleeve across his mouth, the blood making an ugly smear, as if someone had hit him in the face. He lowered the lifeless body of the girl to the ground, knelt down beside her, listened at her heart. When he was quite sure she was dead – he might be a monster but he wasn't a sadist – he reached in his pocket and thumbed the black Zippo. He touched the tongue of flame to the edge of her PVC skirt, which began almost immediately to crackle. By the time he had turned the corner the body was already smoking.

Nikkolai had found one foolproof way of covering his kills. If you burned the body, there was no evidence and nobody would see the tiny holes in the neck which spoke of his presence. Not that anyone would take any notice of such a thing, of course.

Nobody believed in vampires in these enlightened, arrogant times.
And his name, so revered in the past, so royal, had become corrupted.
No Nikkolais now. All Nicholases.

He always made sure he set his victims straight before the end.
It was vain, but it was an annoyance when they didn't get your name right.

Their lack of faith made it easier for him to hunt, but he still missed the old days, when he could inspire terror by simply walking past closely-shuttered windows in hovels and cottages the length of the country. Ah, once they stop believing, he noted sadly, the fear is gone, and with it, the respect.

But the girl had been little more than an appetiser. Perhaps it was her youth, or the drugs in her system, but there had been something bitter about her blood, and he had not enjoyed the repast. He needed more.

“Got a light?”

He turned to see, with a mild shock, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen standing behind him. She had long black hair, dark as the night, so dark in fact that it seemed to be a part of the night. It tumbled down her slim shoulders in waves, those shoulders naked due to the strapless dress she wore, which did all it could to contain her heaving breasts. Unlike his last victim, her hem was high, but not scandalously so, stopping about halfway up her creamy thighs, which were encased in high boots of soft black leather.
Everything about her, in fact, was black. Hair, makeup, dress, boots. Even her eyes looked black in the moonlight. He recognised her instantly as what had been called some twenty or thirty years ago goths, though how little these humans knew of the true meaning behind the word made him smile, and not in a pleasant way. A perfect target for him, a perfect victim. If anyone believed in vampires, this one surely did.

He snapped the Zippo, lighting the cigarette she held out to him like a movie star from the forties. He had known some of them personally; this girl, this woman could have worked alongside them. She might even have put the likes of Doris Day or Audrey Hepburn to shame. He really had not seen such an almost elemental beauty in – well, longer than he could remember, and that was a long time.

“Thanks,” she grinned. “I should really give these things up.”

He looked at the cigarette gravely. He did not approve of smoking, and carried the lighter for other reasons.

“You should,” he agreed, a bit of a snap in his voice, a slight edge of contempt. “They will be the death of you.”

As if he had said something hilarious, she tipped back her head and laughed, a coarse and yet tinkling laugh, like a fairy princess chewing glass.

“I've lasted this long,” she told him philosophically, taking a deep puff and exhaling the smoke into the air above his head. “No much point in giving up now.”

To his surprise, he found himself concerned for her. That was a new feeling for him. The last time he had felt actual concern for a mortal... well, he had warned her to get out of Paris as the mob closed in, but though she was a queen she hadn't a queen's sense that the jig was up. Not his fault if she lost her head.

“Die young, and leave a pretty corpse, is that it?” He found himself grinning; she would certainly leave a very pretty corpse. She laughed that strange laugh again.

“Oh, I'm not as young as you think, kid.”

Kid? Nobody had called him kid in, well, a long time. A very long time. He didn't like the word. One of the reasons he had left the Deep South after the war had been lost. He hadn't survived this long without knowing which way the wind was blowing.

“You look young.” She shrugged, took another pull.

“So I've been told.”

It was true: she could not be any more than maybe twenty-two, perhaps twenty-four. She had all the energy and vigor and beauty of youth. But there was, when he looked closer, something about her eyes that spoke of age. Even so young, really at the start of her life, he could see she had already had a hard one.

But she would not have to endure any more hardship.

To his amusement, and then annoyance, he found it hard to speak. It was as if her beauty, her very presence was overpowering him. And he was not used to that.

“Want – want to come back to my lair?”

She grinned mischievously at him, looking up from beneath impossibly long black eyelashes.

“Your lair?” she repeated. “What are you, a serial killer?” She poked him in the ribs with her elbow. Nikkolai felt it, which in itself was odd, given his supernatural strength.

Damn it! Why had he said that? He decided to make the best of it.
“Come into my parlour, little fly,” he grinned.

She suddenly linked arms with him. That, too, was striking. People just didn't do things like that today. He remembered escorting the Duchess of Bloomsbury to the wedding feast of Charles V. And he remembered how later he had indulged in a feast of his own.

“Hmm, I'm more a wasp, really,” she told him, grinning. “I'm Kitty, by the way.”

“Kitty?” He frowned; it didn't suit her, somehow.

“Well, Catherine,” she admitted with a shrug, “but I don't like the name. Always thought it was, you know, too formal.”

“Nikkolai,” he said, heaving a heavy breath. “That's two K's...”

“An A and an I,” she finished for him. “I know. An old and respected name, that. You don't hear it much these days.”

Well, thought Nikkolai, a very special woman indeed. This could be very interesting.

Let's go.” She almost dragged him down the road. He was, again, surprised at her strength, for one so small, but allowed himself to be urged along. Hell, this was almost too easy.

It turned out that they had more in common than the vampire could have believed. She talked of politics with him, of the economy, of wars – she had a good grasp of history, at least, fairly recent history. They talked of music, and literature, and before he realised it the first rays of morning were beginning to quest through the shaded windows. A chill ran through him. Suddenly, he didn't want to kill her. She wasn't like any victim he had ever taken. There was something... different about her. Special. Unique.

But as Cat Stevens once wrote, morning had broken, and the thirst would not be denied. It wasn't hard to do: they had moved closer all night, and now she fell easily into his arms as he embraced her. The first shock when his fangs went in always sent a thrill through his – what?

But this was impossible!

He was feeling a sharp sensation in his neck!

Panicking, unable to believe it, he withdrew, just in time to see her wiping the blood from her rosebud mouth with a grimace.

“Urgh!” she spat, wrinkling her perfect nose. “You're a vampire, too?”

He sat back, looking at her, feeling wonderingly at the two tiny pin pricks in his alabaster skin. It all made sense now. For a moment they just stared at each other, unsure what to say.

Then Kitty burst into helpless laughter.

For a moment, he thought she was laughing at him, and his anger rose.
Then he recognised the humour of the situation, and he joined her, the two laughing as no vampire has laughed for centuries. They usually have little to laugh about.

They shared his coffin, as he had no spare. She lay on top of him, smiling down at him.

“So who -?” He did not need to complete the sentence. She knew.

“Eklund the Vile,” she told him. He nodded.

“I know him. Nice guy. Just don't mention Liverpool.”

“The city?”

“The football team.”

She laughed. “A fan, is he?”

“Quite the reverse. Dyed in the wool Red Devil, in more ways than one!”

She grinned. “You don't have to tell me that!” she remarked.

They were silent for a while, each communing with their own thoughts.

“I've never hunted with anyone before,” she said at length.

“You want to hunt with me?”

She looked hurt for a moment.
“Don't you?”
He smiled. “Can't think of anything I'd like better.”

“By the way, if it's not a rude question, how old are you?”

He made an effort to calculate, shrugged.
“I'm not sure, to be honest,” he admitted. “You?”

“Oh, I'm ancient,” she giggled. It was a lovely sound. “I go all the way back to the Blitz I do.”

“All that way?” He was teasing her.

She snuggled closer to him, laid her head on his chest. It was deliciously cold.
“You fought in any wars?” she asked him, touching his icy lips with her long fingernail.

He nodded. “A few. I was in the Civil War.”

“American?”

He shook his head. “English.”

“Ah.” She tapped his nose. “Well, that makes you old enough to be by great-great-great-whatever-grandfather!” She pulled back from him as if in shock, then grinned again.

“Never mind,” she laughed. “I always did prefer older men.”

This is really not a story at all. It's a novella, my attempt at combining the master detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a ghost story. I have to say, I found it tough going: I've never written this way before, with someone as the narrator who is involved in the story but not all of it. It's not easy. Hopefully what I came up with wouldn't shock Sir Arthur too much, even if it is far removed from his genius.

Anyway, for better or for worse, I present to you the first of seven chapters in

"A Grave Injustice - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery"

Editor's note: in accordance with the last will and testament of Dr. John Watson, this story has been withheld from publication until a more tolerant climate prevailed in England. The revelations within the text, although names have been changed to protect careers and reputations, were deemed too serious and threatening to be allowed into print in Dr. Watson's time. It was also considered by Dr. Watson to be prudent that the remarks made by the late Sherlock Holmes himself towards the conclusion of the case be kept from the public, lest they adversely affected his career and standing in the community. It was the doctor's wish and instruction that only when the details would no longer be in danger of harming any reputations, careers or lives of anyone connected with the narrative should the publisher, to whom this was entrusted, allow it to be seen by the public.

With the agreement and permission of his estate, and the aid of his great-grandson, the eminent heart surgeon Dr. Charles Watson in checking the text to ensure nothing compromising remained, especially with reference to his great-grandfather and his most eminent friend, as well as of course Her Majesty's Government, we are advised that the time has come to tell this most fantastical, but entirely true tale.

We therefore present to you, very slightly edited as above, but otherwise entirely as it was written on October 31 1899, the final case for Sherlock Holmes, and the last written by Dr. John Watson, of 221B Baker Street.

Chapter I: A Ghostly Message

I: Death of a Nobleman

“Spooks and spirits!”

Holmes threw the paper down in a fit of disgust, casting it away from him. It crumpled to the floor, almost falling into the fire before he snatched it up impatiently. I looked up from my book, my eyebrows raised.

“My dear Holmes!” I ejaculated. “Whatever is the matter?”

He fixed me with a steely eye, as if he held me responsible for all the charlatans and frauds in London, if not the world. His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Fools!” he snapped. “What utter nonsense they print these days! Why, Watson? I ask you, why is it that our esteemed newspaper editors find not enough interest and intrigue on the London streets that they need resort to such, such... aaaahh!” He hit the paper with the backs of his fingers, as if it offended him.

“Come now, Holmes,” I remonstrated with him, leaning back and relighting my pipe, which had gone out. “Surely it can't be as bad as all that?”

For answer, he sprang out of his chair and all but shoved the newspaper at me, the headline glaring at me. It was so close I had to refocus my eyes to make sense of it.

ANOTHER SIGHTING OF WEST END PHANTOM!

I read the article, shaking my head. I felt I had to agree with my friend. When there were so many other important news stories to be told, why did our national press insist on titillating its readers with such nonsense?

“A couple out for dinner at a fashionable restaurant – the name of which we withhold at the request of the establishment – called the manager to complain of the cold. As we are currently suffering through one of London's worst heatwaves, the manager (who has also requested anonymity) attended the couple, thinking perhaps the woman suffered from a thinness of the blood, or some such disorder which would make her feel the cold more than other people. He was quite astonished to find that, as soon as he neared their table he, too, felt cold. 'Icy cold', the unnamed official described the chill. He had, he noted in his statement, been in his youth to the Arctic, and declared that what he felt was at least that cold, if not more so. The woman's teeth were chattering and, to prove this was not some strange sort of illusion being shared by all three, the wine in their glasses had frozen solid, and the man's spectacles were covered with a thin layer of what could only have been frost.

The couple noted the presence of a man seated at a nearby table, and the manager approached him to ask if he, too, felt the unseasonable chill, but swears that as he turned the man vanished into thin air. The woman screamed, the man leaped up – all three had seen the disappearance – but just then the temperature returned to normal and the wine thawed. The police were called, but were unable to locate the man.

Our readers will recall, of course, the two previous sightings of what has now been dubbed “The West End Phantom”, when a woman on her way home found to her horror that a man had apparently materialised in her carriage. She screamed, and the cab came to an abrupt halt. But when the driver looked in, she was alone. Neither of the doors, she swears, opened, yet the man was gone, as quickly and mysteriously as he had appeared. There had already been one sighting of a man who was seen loitering near the court house, but a constable investigating swears the man dissolved into air before his very eyes.

One can but wonder where this fantastic spirit will choose to manifest itself next, and what its purpose may be in doing so, if it has any.”


“What absolute twaddle!” I growled. “When there was yet another flower girl fished out of the Thames only two nights ago, the seventh in a month. I say, Holmes,” I looked up at him. “Why not look into that? The police seem to have no leads.”

Holmes gave me a half-bored, half-sneering look as he took back the newspaper.

“I go, as you know, Watson, where I am invited. These drownings have been recorded as either accidents or suicides. It is a sad fact, my friend, that the great mother river gathers more poor unfortunate souls to her cold bosom in a week than either you or I could guess, and the public at large does not care. What are these poor girls but an unwanted burden on society? In the words of our greatest writer, the official attitude of Scotland Yard seems to be that they are decreasing the surplus population.”

I was somewhat aghast, though it was not hard to believe. The death of a few flower sellers, some of the lowest of the low, the least fortunate of the millions who make up this great city of ours, was hardly a pressing matter for the police. Especially if it seemed there was no crime involved.

“But so many in so short a time, Holmes!”

He frowned. “It is entirely possible, Watson – possible, I say to you, mind, not probable – that there is a killer behind all these untimely deaths, someone who is stalking our flower girls, and we should care. We simply cannot afford to. I cannot go expending my energy trying to track down a murderer who might not even exist. Besides, there is the Liebert case, which occupies all my time.”

He was right, though I feared that this time even my good friend, who had solved so many crimes and freed more innocents than any other man in London, or likely in England, had this time too steep a hill to climb. Mrs. Liebert had already been arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced for the murder of her husband. She currently languished in prison, awaiting her date with the gallows. Both Holmes and I - indeed, it seemed, most of London society, and probably most of the country - had raised more than an eyebrow at the unexpected sentence of death, but then, the man who had sat the bench was well known for his severe treatment of criminals, regardless of their sex or status.

Of course, the evidence was damning, and the lady's guilt proven. But Holmes as usual saw more to it, and also as usual kept his cards very close to his chest. He had his own ideas about the current state of our judicial system.

“What incredible bad luck that she should have drawn Lord Bailey as the trial judge,” he moaned. “What other man would have pronounced sentence of death on a woman?”

I nodded in sympathy.

“Not for nothing is he known as the Black Judge,” I noted. “Sixty-three cases tried in the last two years, all but three of them ending in a verdict of hanging.”

Holmes growled. “And not all of them capital crimes. Do you know, Watson, he even sentenced a boy of twelve to be hanged for petty theft of a few miserable shillings?”

“The law,” I sighed, “is on his side though.”

Holmes' face was black as a thundercloud.

“I have, as you know, Watson, the greatest respect for the law,” he said, lighting his pipe and shaking his head. “But this idea of men who are so far past working age that they should be in a bath chair watching the sunset rather than trying to decipher the case of another unfortunate who happens to fall to their tender mercies, is something that has long been at the root, I believe, of many a wrong verdict, miscarriage of justice, and, sad to say, innocent man hanged.” He looked up sharply. “The whole system of justice needs a complete overhaul, but with the stranglehold the aristocracy and nobility has on appointments, this seems to me something which will not happen in my lifetime, nor in yours.”

I arched an eyebrow. I had never taken my friend to be a revolutionary or an activist, though I could not fault his reasoning. Too many old men who should have retired ten years ago were still practicing on the bench, many often having to be nudged awake during a case. It really was a shocking state of affairs, but had been the norm for so long now that I feared Holmes was right when he prophesied gloomily that it would take longer to change than either of us had time on this earth.

I picked up a paper, this one The Times, and gasped aloud.

“Well, Holmes, it seems the Black Judge has passed his last sentence, and surely now stands before a higher court, to be judged himself!”

“What?” Holmes' head snapped up, like a cobra detecting its prey.

“It's all here.” I tapped the newspaper and read the article to him.

It is this newspaper's sad duty (read the article) to record the passing of one of England's finest judges. Lord Bailey, known for having the longest serving record on the bench, was killed early yesterday evening when he stumbled out into the road and was knocked down by an omnibus. All four passengers maintained that His Lordship had a terrible expression on his face, a look of pure terror, and ran into the street without once looking, as if he were being pursued by something which terrified him.

Father James Dwyer, the curate of St. Margaret's, was travelling as a passenger on the omnibus, and attended the stricken judge. Seeing no hope of recovery, Father Dwyer took the man's last Confession and administered the Last Rites. By the time a policeman brought a doctor to the scene, His Lordship had sadly passed on to his reward.

The body was removed to the city morgue until it can be claimed by His Lordship's relatives. We are sure our readers join with us in offering our heartfelt condolences to His Lordship's family. England shall not see his like again. Further, we add our voices to the desperate need for regulations governing the speed of these death-traps which menace our roads every day.


“England shall not see his like!” Holmes' voice was dripping with sarcasm, and I had to agree. “Let us fervently hope not! That man should have been put out to pasture years ago. How many innocents have suffered under his cruel justice, Watson, I wonder? How many men gone to the rope when a prison sentence would have sufficed?”

Holmes sighed, took the paper and reseated himself.

“Perhaps,” he suggested as he puffed at his pipe thoughtfully, “there is justice in this world after all.” His eyes narrowed. “I do find myself wondering though what would make a man of such sedentary habits as Lord Bailey run screaming out into the road?” He was scanning the rest of the newspapers, checking accounts. “No pursuer was found, though I suppose it is possible such a person, having seen the result of his pursuit, whether it be his design or no, could have left the scene unnoticed in the dark and the confusion.”

I felt ashamed of making light of the situation, but both Holmes and I had good reason to feel little sympathy for the death of the man who had so callously condemned our client to death.

“Maybe it was the West End Phantom after him,” I joked. Holmes gave me a stony stare, the kind of look nobody cares to get from England's most accomplished – and indeed, to my knowledge, only – consulting detective.

“As I believe I made clear by my somewhat inappropriate and uncharacteristic outburst, Watson, I place no stock in the supernatural, as you well know. Most people were prepared to believe the creature known as the Hound of the Baskervilles had come straight from Hell, but I knew better. The case in Cornwall, too, the one you so flamboyantly named “The Case of the Devil's Foot”: the vicar was convinced that Satan himself was walking abroad in his parish, yet I proved, with your help, that there was no superhuman agency involved. No, Watson, the world has mystery enough, evil enough in men without our blaming our woes upon spirits.”

“So what do you think happened, then?”

He sighed. “It is elementary, my dear Watson. Lord Bailey has long been known as a habitual drunkard, and I have heard rumours of other vices, worse again. He is – or was – a bully, an inveterate liar and a coward, and I say so in the full understanding that I am disparaging not only the dead, but a member of the nobility. As to the former, I await his vengeance from beyond the grave.”

Holmes sat back, puffing at his pipe, as if waiting. The large smoke rings spiralled up to the ceiling, there was the trundle of wheels down below in the street, but no ghoul appeared from out of thin air to strike my friend down. He snorted.

“It seems,” he remarked sarcastically, “that the spirit world is a little lacking in its avengers. So. As to the other, well, I very much doubt I shall be the only one listing the late Lord Bailey's vices. He was not a well-liked man, and had few friends. It's quite clear to me, Watson, that the Black Judge got drunk, ran out into the street in some sort of drunken – or one might conjecture, opium-induced – fit, and met his end though no fault but his own.” He clamped his teeth around the stem of his pipe. “There will of course be much public mourning at His Lordship's passing, but not too much in the way of private regret, I would think.”

For a few more minutes silence reigned, as we both read our papers, then I ejaculated “By Jove! I earnestly hope for his sake that circus fellow had the thing licenced!”

Holmes looked up, somewhat distracted. “I beg your pardon?”

I indicated my paper, and he came over to look.

I showed him the short article on the second page, just below one which bemoaned the strike by chimney sweeps having moved into its tenth week. The article was headed

“Monkey Attacks Man at Circus'.

Rehearsals for the final shows of the Fennington and Nilsson Circus, which has been in town for some weeks now, were cut short suddenly yesterday morning when one of the monkeys, which was at the time in a show with a troupe of acrobats, leapt on one of the men and began clawing his face most viciously. It took two men to pull the creature off the acrobat, whose name was given as Francis Deschamps, and who now has some rather ugly scars as a memento of his ordeal. The offending animal was destroyed, and it has been decided that with Deschamps unable to perform, and none of the other acrobats willing to allow the monkeys into their act, the circus will depart these shores earlier than was originally intended. The circus is regarded as one of the finest in the world, having only recently completed a two-year tour of North America.

“Trained animals going wild, people seeing apparitions that vanish, a judge running into the street screaming like a woman!” Holmes returned to his seat, his brow clouded. “I swear to you, Watson!” His face was drawn and tight, but exhibiting a certain redness I had seldom seen in my friend, as his patience seemed on the verge of snapping. “It seems all of London has lost its mind! Why can't – halloa! What is that commotion outside?”

Jumping to his feet, Holmes walked to the window and stared out. Instantly he was again the man of action I knew so well, and which suited him so completely.

“Hurry, Watson! To the door!” he cried. “A woman has fainted on our very doorstep! Bring your kit!”

II: A Most Perturbed Visitor

Banging downstairs, we gave Mrs. Hudson quite the fright, but this was no time for finesse. Holmes opened the door carefully, as it appeared the lady had fallen against it, and opening it too suddenly or roughly might have hurt her. Like someone gathering up a fallen bird, Holmes exhibited that gentleness which was for him so rare, but which he was capable of displaying, and carried the woman into the parlour. She began to make faint moaning sounds, to our immense relief, and as Mrs. Hudson, who had fled into the kitchen at sight of Holmes' unconscious burden, returned with some brandy and water, colour began to return to her cheeks and her eyes flickered open.

“Wh- where am I?”

She looked around, and it seemed to me that for a moment, naked terror was in those hazel eyes. She scanned the corners of the room, as if looking for something, something I got the distinct impression she feared to see. Once assured by her eyes that she was free of whatever had been troubling her, she sighed and seemed to relax a little.

“You are in Baker Street, madam,” Holmes told her kindly, gently. “This is my associate, Dr. Watson, who will, with your permission, conduct a quick examination to ensure you are not hurt.”

Her eyes flew open, and recognition sparked in them.

“Dr. Watson! Then you must surely be Mr. Sherlock Holmes!”

“At your service, madam.” Holmes bowed stiffly. She reached out and grasped his hand.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes!” she gasped, as he, uncomfortable as he was with human contact, drew back involuntarily. “Do forgive my forwardness, but I now recall: it is you to whom I was bound when I had my faint.” She frowned. “Do you know what happened? Did you see it?”

“See?” Holmes seemed a little lost, a position almost alien to my friend. “I am afraid I was not a witness to your fall, madam -”

“Mrs. Fraser,” the lady introduced herself. Holmes bowed again, as did I.

“Mrs. Fraser,” he repeated the name. “I merely heard a noise in the street, looked out the window and noticed you had fallen. I did not, I am sorry to say, see how it occurred, or why.”

Mrs. Fraser was by now able to sit up a little straighter, and I had finished my very cursory examination.

“You seem perfectly fine to me, Mrs. Fraser,” said I. “Can you tell us what caused you to swoon in the street?”

She seemed hesitant.

“You will think me foolish indeed, sirs, but I swear that what I tell you is the truth.”

“Go on,” said Holmes gently. “We will make no rash judgement upon your sanity, I do assure you.”

“Well, as I am not familiar with your address, Mr. Holmes, I walked around a little before I could find the street. I was looking for a policeman to assist me when I saw a man whom I seemed to recognise, though his face seemed in shadow. This in itself I found odd, as it is, as you can see, a bright sunny day outside, and the sun is in the centre of the sky at this moment, throwing the shadows the other way, away from your door. Yet there he stood, shrouded in darkness, his head down, walking along the street. He stopped then at a door, leaning against it, and I approached him, to ask directions, when – and you must believe me, Mr. Holmes – he simply vanished before my eyes!”

Holmes' eyebrows raised and he rolled his eyes but said nothing.

“I now realise,” went on our visitor, “that the door he had been leaning against was your own, and so I had found my destination. However at the shock of his disappearance I fainted, and remember no more until you revived me just now.”

Holmes folded his arms, a determined look on his face.

“So,” he sighed. “You are yet another victim of the West End Phantom?” He turned a terrible gaze upon her, the kind of look I have seen strong criminals quail and crack under. “What is the meaning of this, madam?” he demanded harshly of her. “Does someone play a trick on me? Are you part of a conspiracy to drive me mad?”

“My dear Holmes!” I remonstrated with him, placing myself between him and Mrs. Fraser, to shield her from his wrath. “Such behaviour is most unbecoming of you!”

For the barest instant, a look the likes of which I have seldom seen crossed my friend's face, and I actually thought he was going to strike the lady. Then his expression changed, the tension went out of him and he relaxed, like a spring uncoiling.

“Forgive my brusque manner, madam,” he said, somewhat stiffly I thought. “But the newspapers have been full of so-called reports of this spirit, and it is an affront to my logical thinking that such things should be given credence. I am weary of reading about these sightings, and to think one such had been brought to my door...”

He stopped, bowed, shrugged.

“I do not know what it was I saw, Mr. Holmes,” the shaken woman averred. “Perhaps it was a ghost, perhaps it was my own imagination, or the fact that I have not slept properly these last six nights, but I swear to you on all that is good, on the grave of my departed husband, that I saw what I saw. I have no explanation for it, but I believe it must be connected to the reason I came to see you.”

Holmes appeared to have control of himself now. Never had I seen him so enraged. Well, perhaps once or twice. The affair of the “Five Orange Pips”, when he had sent a man unknowingly off to his death. The anger that had caused him to snatch up his whip and drive “Hosmer Angel” out of Baker Street. And of course, the time on the moors, when we had come across what we believed to be the body of Sir Henry Baskerville. Clearly, these sightings of the West End Phantom were affecting him more than he would care to admit.

“You shall tell us all about it, madam,” he promised, “ but I fancy you would be happier to discuss the details in a more, ah, private setting, am I correct? Do you think you might manage the stairs? I know I am always more comfortable hearing the particulars of any case when in my own apartments, and it will undoubtedly be more conducive to our conversation.”

Mrs. Fraser nodded, and I thought I detected what looked like gratitude in her eyes.

“I believe I could make it upstairs indeed, Mr. Holmes,” said she, smiling at Mrs. Hudson, who still looked a little prickly. “Thank you indeed for your kindness, Mrs. Hudson. I am indebted to you.”

II: The Writing on the Wall

“I wonder that a lady of your obvious standing does not come to see me in a carriage.” Holmes remarked when we had repaired to our rooms and Mrs. Fraser was settled in one of the chairs, the colour returning to her face. I took my chair and he as usual sat in his armchair, tapping out the remains of his last pipe. “Though perhaps the sudden decline in your fortunes explains this. Nevertheless, it is a long way to come, all the way from Sheffield.”

Mrs. Fraser's eyes widened, but I knew Holmes well enough by now to be able to follow his deductions. Nevertheless, I knew the faint amusement it gave him to display what some people had called magic powers, until he explained and then they tended to either laugh or nod, as it all seemed so simple.

“Your boots and your cloak, to say nothing of your hat, are of the finest quality,” Holmes observed. “However, if I may be so bold, they have not been, ah, updated, in some time. I detect signs of mending, and I do believe that is a small patch there near your shoulder. You have come from Sheffield, as is clearly evidenced by the return ticket you hold in your glove, and we heard no sound of carriage; indeed, had you arrived in one and fainted it would be a hard-hearted driver indeed who would not help you, or at the very least ring our bell for assistance, as I am somewhat well known in these parts. Therefore I conjecture that you walked from the train station – no, no! I am in error. Of course you did not walk. The scuffing on your boots, so clean and well kept otherwise, and that very tiny tear in the hem of your dress denotes the standard hazard of travelling on one of those blessed omnibuses.”

Mrs. Fraser nodded each time Holmes made his deductions.

“You are correct in every detail, Mr. Holmes,” she said, admiringly. “I feel that I have chosen wisely in coming to you.”

Something in our visitor's manner, the way she visibly seemed to flinch when Holmes struck a match to light his pipe, stayed his hand.

“You are averse to tobacco?” The question was said almost with a touch of irritation.

“You are of course master in your own home, sir,” said she, “but I would just point out that I suffer from asthma, and so even the smell of tobacco...” She trailed off, somewhat embarrassed to be asking such a boon.

Holmes shook the match out, put the briar pipe to one side, laying it on the table. There was just the barest flash of annoyance in his eyes, but it did not show in his voice.

“Then for the sake of your health I will of course forego my smoke.” I was impressed; I knew the pipe was to him as invaluable and indispensable an aid to his thought processes as a notebook is to a police constable, and that he was willing to accede to her unspoken request showed what a man he truly was.

“Now, if you please, Madam: your story, from the beginning, and pray leave nothing out, no matter how small or insignificant it may appear to you. It has been my experience that those things which I like to refer to as trifles often turn out to have the deepest importance, frivolous though they may at first seem.”

I noticed that the lady had removed her gloves as Holmes had spoken, and now she toyed with them nervously in her lap. In a halting voice – whether this was from her recent faint, or was her normal way of speaking I could not guess – she began.

“First of all, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, I should say that my name will of course mean nothing to you, but should I mention another name you will understand perhaps why I have come seeking your help. That name, gentlemen, is Francesca Liebert.”

Holmes sat up straighter, his keen eyes alight with interest, the muscles along his arms tautening in a way I had often marked. He was intrigued. As, indeed, I must confess, was I.

“Indeed!” He made a motion with his hand, which I knew was a habitual thing he did, expecting the pipe to be there, then with a sort of irritated wave at himself dismissed the gesture, settling for stroking his chin instead. “You are related, I presume?”

“I am her sister. You will of course be very aware of Francesca's predicament, gentlemen. At this very moment she languishes in Pentonville Prison, sentenced to hang for the murder of her husband.”

Holmes nodded. “A most unfortunate and troubling case,” he murmured. “I was quite taken by some aspects of it. Your sister, sadly,” he looked sharply at Mrs. Fraser, his eyes hard, “refused my offer of assistance at the time, quite rudely turning me away. And as for the police, well!” He shook his head, looked over at me. “I am sorry to say that once Scotland Yard has its man – or, of course, in this case, its woman – they tend to become blind to anything which might damage their case, and so I am certain some very important aspects of the murder were overlooked in the rush to judgement.”

Mrs. Fraser coloured, her cheeks heating up at the rebuke Holmes afforded her, though directed not at her personally. “I am afraid Fran has not changed her mind on the matter, Mr. Holmes,” she confirmed, “which is why I have come to ask for your help. I know you are likely ill-disposed to assist us now, when we have been so ungrateful to you after you offered your help, but I cannot but help think that my sister had a reason for not wanting you involved.”

Holmes' eyes were suddenly bright.

“Yes,” He nodded, leaning forward. “I got the distinct impression she was trying to drive me off, lest I discover something she would rather remained hidden. Knowing my, ah, reputation for being able to see what others cannot – including very much our gallant guardians of the law – she feared I might unearth some secret? Something which might perhaps throw an entirely different light on the matter?”

“Mr. Holmes.” The lady's face had gone ashen again, and I hastened to move to the dresser, pouring her out a small sherry. She took it gratefully, sipped from the glass with dainty lips. “I am not a rich woman. I never was, but in the past few months much of my savings, including, I am somewhat ashamed to say, the legacy left me by my late husband, has gone on Fran's defence. Yet I fear that even the barrister whom I secured at great cost knew full well the case was futile, knowledge that did not prevent him from taking his fee.”

There was a hardness in the woman's tone, and I understood perfectly. Our own great writer of the age, Mr. Dickens, had underlined the rapaciousness and greed of those who made a living in the legal profession by bamboozling clients with extra charge after extra charge, papers for this, papers for that, appeals that went nowhere, costs and fees, until their client was both physically and financially exhausted. Another symptom of the general malaise afflicting the corpulent, complacent body of our legal system.

“Quite so.” Sherlock Holmes looked longingly over at his pipe, but mindful of the lady's breathing difficulties, restrained himself. “I have heard our English lawyers described as little more than pirates with a licence, and I must admit it is a description I can heartily concur with. So, if I am to understand then, Mrs. Fraser, you spent all, or most of your money on a lawyer, but to no avail?”

“Well.” Mrs. Fraser looked down, as if ashamed. “As you of course know, the verdict was a guilty one, and to not only my shock but, I believe, that of most right-thinking people, she was sentenced to hang. The date is set for seven days from now.”

Here, to our intense embarrassment and my own private dismay and sympathy, Mrs. Fraser broke down and wept into her hands. I was mildly surprised to see, as I moved to comfort her, my friend rise from his chair, go down on one knee and take her two hands in his as gently as a lepidopterist cradling a rare specimen of butterfly. Sometimes, the harsh coldness of Holmes' manner shocked me, even now, when I knew him so well, but this was not one of those times. Tilting the lady's chin up he looked into her eyes, which were shining with tears.

“Fear not, madam,” said he quietly. “If justice has not been done, I am the man to see that the balance is restored. Just gather yourself a moment, and when you are ready, pray continue with your account. And be in no doubt that you are among friends here; we will do all we can to help you and to prove your sister's innocence, if innocent she be.”

Wiping her eyes, Mrs. Fraser looked at Holmes.

“I imagine, Mr. Holmes, you are familiar with the details of the case, as you were involved in it until my sister asked you to refrain from investigating further.”

Holmes snorted. I could see his ego had been slightly bruised, and this was not something he suffered lightly. In the main, Holmes did not differentiate between men and women: a slight from one was exactly the same as a slight from the other, and unwelcome from any quarter.

“Hardly asked, madam. She all but had me banished from the police station. Most impolite.” He frowned, nodded. "And most singular, indeed." He coughed, a slightly embarrassed air about his next words. "One does not wish to, ah, as they say, blow one's own trumpet, but it is a matter of record that my reputation is such that many insoluble problems have been cleared up by my efforts, and many an innocent person saved from the gallows. While," he tapped his chin thoughtfully, "I could of course make no promises, it does seem strange that someone sentenced to die should refuse the help of perhaps the only one in England who could prove her innocence."

He sat back, made the gesture again which would have involved holding the stem of his pipe, had that article been in its usual place, protruding from his lips.

“I can only offer my apologies,” said Mrs. Fraser, looking ashamed, “and assure you that Fran had, I am sure, good reason to be as, ah, forceful as she was with you. Whatever she is hiding – and I do assure you, I have no knowledge as to what it might be – she seems willing to give her life for it.”

Holmes snorted again.

“That, my dear Mrs. Fraser,” he told her with asperity, “has been evident from the first time I met your sister.”

“Oh?” Our client seemed a little taken aback. I thought I saw some flicker of hope kindle in her tired eyes.

“Yes, it was evident from, well, many factors,” Holmes nodded, “but mostly from the rather cold way she met the news of her husband's death. Not a tear, madam, did I see, fall from her eyes, nor the sign of any. This,” he leaned back, steepling his fingers and looking up at the ceiling, “I am afraid to say, played its part in allowing Inspector Lestrade to come to an opinion regarding the killer. Not,” he added archly, “that the good inspector had any doubt, I am quite sure, of her guilt, he not having the mental faculties and the power for observation with which I am, thankfully, blessed.”

Mrs. Fraser started in her seat.

“Then you believe Fran to be innocent?”

“There is not the slightest doubt of it,” Holmes told her, as if he discussed the most obvious thing, against which he would hear no argument. “I had my suspicions before you entered our home, but as I was not required on the case I could not make those known to Lestrade. It is not,” he transferred his gaze from a contemplation of our ceiling to Mrs. Fraser's face, in which now hope was lighted, like a candle behind a heavy curtain, “for me to interfere with the official police for my own ends.”

Mrs. Fraser nodded, understanding.

“As I told you, sir, my fortune is not what it was. Yet of course I do not expect you to work for free, and so...” She reached into her bag, her brow creased. Holmes reached forward, staying her hand.

“As you probably know by my reputation,” he told her without the slightest hint of pride or arrogance, “I interest myself in cases which intrigue my curiosity, or have a very singular aspect. I could not involve myself officially, as I had not been invited to, but in my own small way I have been turning the facts over in my mind and it seems to me there is far, far more to this case than meets the eye.”

Again his hand strayed towards his pipe, as if it had a mind of its own; again he restrained it with a gesture of annoyance.

“Should you decide to engage me to look into the case,” he told her, looking into her eyes searchingly, “you are of course free to defray any small expenses I may incur in its investigation. However I would be churlish indeed were I to insist you pay for my services, when our legal system has already robbed you of almost all you have. No, my dear lady, I have no wish to be paid. If you know of me, you will also know that the pure prospect of an interesting investigation, to say nothing of the opportunity to save a lady's life and prevent a terrible miscarriage of justice is reward enough. We are at your service, my friend and I. You have but to command us.”

Holmes' eyes were shining with that light I had seen so many times before, when he was about to set out on a fresh investigation, that look of keen interest and – yes, almost eagerness – that he got when, as he once put it, the game was afoot.

“I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson!”

The lady was virtually overtaken with gratitude. Holmes waved her thanks away.

“I do not say,” he warned her, “that it is possible to save your sister, for in order to do so I must not only prove her innocence, but also present the police with the real culprit. But we shall endeavour to do our very best towards achieving that end.”

He rose to his full height, stretching his legs by the unlit fire and leaning his long arms on the mantel.

“Now, I shall relate what I know of the case, adding my own observations – which have not been shared with Scotland Yard, I should stress, as I like to keep my theories until they are ready to be revealed as full and unchallengeable – and you shall correct me on any detail I may have got wrong, or any point I may omit.”

Again, I could see Holmes really felt the loss of his pipe, and to be honest I could have done with one too, but the lady's health was at stake, and as she was now also our client, it would have been rude and indeed reckless of either of us to light up. Holmes leaned back and closed his eyes, again pressing the points of his fingers against each other.

“It was early on Sunday morning last, the 17th, that the maid rose and went to the sitting room to open the windows, this rather uncomfortable heatwave we have been suffering through making the rooms stuffy and close by midday. She testified that, to her surprise, the door was locked, and voices could be heard from within, raised as if in anger or at least animated discussion. This maid, one with the – ah! - amusing name of Chambers – knocked on the door, finding it hard to believe anyone could be up and about at this time – I believe this all occurred around six o'clock in the morning? Her knocks went unanswered, as the people in the room continued to shout. As she turned from the door to fetch one of the footmen and confer with him as to what should be done, she heard a terrible scream, and the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.”

Mrs. Fraser nodded. “You are right in every detail, Mr. Holmes, but for one: Chambers deposed that she tried the door at quarter to seven, having been slightly late in rising, troubled as she had been by a headache.”

Holmes smiled tightly. “Ah, so. Yes. Well, you will appreciate that when I am taken off a case” - here he shot our client another annoyed look - “I tend not to keep all the details fresh in my mind. I have many calls upon my time, and cannot spare room in my brain for unnecessary encumbrances. As you say then, a quarter to seven. The footman gave evidence that when he arrived at the door all was quiet, and he admitted entertaining the thought that Chambers had been allowing herself to run off on a flight of fancy. However when he tried the door he did indeed find it to be locked. He then reported to the butler, who, armed with a set of keys, tried to open the door but found that something prevented him.”

“The key was still in the door on the other side.” I had not spoken since we had settled Mrs. Fraser in our apartment, and my mouth felt dry as I added my small contribution to the discourse.

“Precisely!” Holmes pointed at me, his eyes like those of a hawk seeking its prey. “Which tells us that whoever had locked it had done so from inside. One of the people heard arguing, without a doubt.”

I leaned forward a little, frowning.

“Did Chambers say how many people she heard arguing?”

“Excellent question, Watson!” grinned Holmes. “And one which, I am afraid to say, our good friend Lestrade did not ask, taking as his answer to the unspoken query the evidence presented to his eyes, and not that which might have suggested itself to his brain, had he considered a while longer and more deeply.”

Mrs. Fraser shook her head.

“It was assumed to be two,” she said, a little confused. “There were only two people in the room when entry was effected.”

Holmes held up his finger in the air, as if presenting it as an exhibit of evidence at court.

“Yes,” he smiled tightly. “When entry was effected. But what about before? Could there not have been a third person present?”

The confusion grew on our client's face.

“Why do you ask this, Mr. Holmes? The police did not.”

“Indeed. And that is where they may very well have made their first, and in your sister's case, fatal mistake. I will now describe for you the scene of the crime, as it was when I was called in. The lady, your sister, lay on the armchair, fainted of course, a bloody knife in her right hand. The body of her husband was on the ground, covered in blood. In his hand was found a fragment of a note, with the top part torn away. It read, as anyone who has perused the newspapers in the last few weeks or has followed the case knows:

live without you. You are my heart and soul. I will not lose you.

The name at the bottom was Frances, though it was not signed, merely written."

Mrs. Fraser stifled a sob at the reminder of the most damning piece of evidence, other than the knife in her sister's hand, which seemed to have condemned her to her fate. Holmes coughed.The key to the room, having been forced out of the keyhole from without, had fallen to the floor; I believe the butler trod on it when he entered. A thick smell of smoke pervaded the air. The fire had not been lit, nor would one expect it to be, for it would be a cold-blooded person indeed who would need warming on a morning such as we have been having in this heatwave.”

“You found the presence of smoke odd, Mr. Holmes?” It was either a query or a challenge. I thought perhaps Mrs. Fraser was endeavouring to see if my friend's reputation was well earned. He smiled graciously at her, as if seeing a kindred spirit of sorts.

“Did you?”

“I did.”

“And why, pray?”

He watched her like the master watches the promising pupil. I doubted our visitor had any aspirations in the detective line, but Holmes seemed to see a mind sharp as his own in some respects.

“Because Peter did not smoke,” said the lady. Holmes nodded.

“You are quite certain of this?”

“Oh, quite. You see, Fran is my twin, and she suffers from the same affliction I have from birth struggled with.”

“You both have asthma?”

“Indeed.”

“I see.”

I, too, was beginning to see. What man of any conscience would smoke when it might damage his wife's heath?

“I do not say,” went on Mrs. Fraser carefully, “that he still loved her.”

“Yes.” Holmes nodded. “I gathered as much from my interview with her at the police station. But I also gather divorce was not in the air?”

Mrs. Fraser shook her head vehemently.

“Oh no. Peter had far too much to lose, socially and even financially, by inviting such scandal. No, they kept up appearances to the outside world, and it was only the close family circle who knew that there was nothing but cold, shared self-interest between them.”

“She no more wanted a divorce than he.”

“It would have been the ruin of her, Mr. Holmes, and then there would be the shame and expense of a battle for custody of their son.”

“Harold, I believe.”

“Yes. He is a good boy, devoted both to his father and his mother; only nine years old, and currently at boarding school. To have to ask the child to choose...”

“Quite so. And so the parents kept up the pretence, but there was no love there.”

“None at all. Oh, I don't mean they hated each other, Mr. Holmes. Far from that. But any love there had been had long turned to ice.”

Holmes shook his head. “None of which,” he observed, “helps your sister, giving as it does a motive for her to murder her husband.”

“One the police pounced upon,” sighed the lady.

“Yes.” Holmes commiserated with her. “I am afraid that the adage 'if it seems too good to be true is usually is' has little sway in the ranks of the police department, about as much as deduction and logical reasoning. The guardians of the law sadly take things often at face value, particularly if it secures them a conviction.” He tutted. “If only they would take the time to look that little bit further...”

Mrs. Fraser looked at him, her eyes shining now.

“So you have your doubts, Mr. Holmes?”

“My good friend here, Doctor Watson, could no doubt regale you with accounts of cases believed hopeless, in which men were to hang, which my doubts were instrumental in being overturned. I do not admit defeat easily, my dear Mrs. Fraser, and I certainly have in no way, to use an old metaphor from my boxing days, thrown in the towel yet. There are many singular features of this case which interest me and give me hope that we may yet prove that your sister is no killer. But surely,” he steepled his fingers and looked at her over their tops, in that manner which always reminded me rather disturbingly of the entomologist studying the insect, “you did not come here merely for a progress report? I think you should know, Mrs. Fraser, I am not a man to -”

She cut him off though, something I had seldom seen anyone do, and were she a man he might indeed have taken umbrage at such impertinence. Holmes did not make many allowances for the gentler sex, but here he was prepared to concede ground.

“Forgive me, Mr. Holmes, but you are of course correct. I came to you because I had to.”

“You had to?”

“I was... well, this is hard to explain, sir. I suppose you could say I was sent, guided even.”

Holmes groaned. “I do so earnestly hope, madam,” he warned her, “that we are not returning to the issue of this – this phantom you believe you saw vanish outside my door?”

“Well, yes and no.”

“Really, madam!” Holmes' ire was up now, his temper exhausted, and he snapped at her in the same way a policeman might a troublesome interviewee. His eyes were hard as flint, and there was a flush creeping up his pale cheeks, a sure indicator that here was a man not to be trifled with. Mrs. Fraser seemed confused. No, not confused, I thought, studying her as my friend had trained me to. Embarrassed?

“You will think me quite mad,” she whispered. A slight tone of accusation, bitterness tinged her voice. “I have no doubt you already hold that opinion of me, Mr. Holmes.”

“It is not,” he told her sharply, “for me to make that determination, madam, for I am not qualified to make such a diagnosis, though my friend Dr. Watson may have other ideas. I will confess I have rather had my fill of ghosts, spirits and phantoms this morning. However, we will reserve judgement on supernatural matters for the moment. Pray continue.”

“It was like this, Mr. Holmes.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “I was in bed, hardly sleeping. I have not managed to sleep much, with all that has been weighing on my mind, what with poor Fran due to be...” She stopped again. Holmes waited for her to proceed. “Well, I woke – that is, I came out of the light doze I had managed to drift into, and what do you think I saw standing before me in the darkness?”

“I cannot imagine,” drawled Holmes, looking over at me with a look that said he feared he very much could imagine.

“Now, before you go thinking I am prone to fancy, Mr. Holmes,” said Mrs. Fraser, with a touch of pride in her voice, “you should know that all of my acquaintances and family know me to be a most practical woman, someone who is not easily given to imagination or hysteria. There is no history of madness in our family, and while I am of course under a great deal of strain, I can promise and swear to the Lord Almighty that what I saw was real.”

“Do go on.” Holmes was idly looking down at his fingernails now. It seemed he was rapidly losing interest in our visitor.

“There was a figure standing over the bed. It gave me such a fright, I pulled the covers right up to my chin, shivering in fear. In that moment, it vanished, right in front of me.”

Holmes sighed, made to get up.

“Madam, I will do all I can to clear your sister of this heinous crime, but I really must protest at these... these ghost stories! Now if you would please excuse me, my time is very valuable.”

She did not rise.

“But I have not yet told you what was left behind, Mr. Holmes.” She visibly shivered as she said it. Holmes was reaching for his pipe, standing at the mantelpiece, his back turned to her.

She looked over at me.

“His name,” she said.

“Whose name?” I asked, as my friend seemed to have dissociated himself from the conversation.

“His,” she pointed at his back. “Sherlock Holmes.”

Chapter II: From Heaven to Hell

I:

Holmes turned around like a whip cracking. His eyes were suddenly bright.

“My name?”

“Yours, sir.”

“Where?”

“On the wall.”

“Written?”

She considered, as if wondering how best to describe or explain it.

“I would not say written, sir,” she decided at last. “At least, not in any ink I have ever seen.”

Holmes frowned.

“I see. And did you show this writing to the police?”

“Oh no sir. It only happened last night, which was why I came straight around to you this morning.”

Holmes considered. I could see the look of annoyance fade from his face in an instant, replaced by an eagerness for the hunt. He was making for his room, searching for his coat.

“Can I take it the writing is still there, Mrs. Fraser?”

“Oh yes, sir,” she nodded. “There is nobody else in the house.”

“No servants?”

She dropped her eyes, as if embarrassed again.

“No sir. I am not a woman of means, and what money I had has mostly been expended on my sister's defence, even though she does not want one.”

“Very good!” Holmes was now talking from his dressing-room, and emerged a moment later attired for the street. He nodded to me. “Watson, fetch us a cab. I believe the the next train to Sheffield departs from Paddington in half an hour. We will return with Mrs. Fraser to her house and peruse this... unearthly writing. Mayhap it will provide us a clue.”


II:


The journey north into steel country took us two hours, during which time Holmes said little, and I, reluctant to leave Mrs. Fraser unattended, engaged her in light conversation, which turned mostly on the subject of her late husband. On arrival in Sheffield, a short hansom ride brought us to Mrs. Fraser's small house which, though small, was not poor, while it was still obvious that Mrs. Fraser had come down in the world, as she explained to us apologetically as she opened the door.

“I was unable to stay in my previous residence, the rent being so high and my finances so low, necessitating a move to a, well, less expensive residence.”

Holmes touched his hat. “You are to be commended, madam, for your dedication to your sister. I only wish she appreciated it.”

“I am sure she does,” insisted the lady, leading us inside, “in her own way. This way please, gentlemen. Mind the bannister, for it is in need of a nail and has a tendency to bend outwards.”

I fancied the thing was more in need of complete replacement, and felt it only my gentlemanly duty to offer to try to effect repairs. As Mrs. Fraser pointed me towards the cellar, where her late husband's tools were kept, Holmes, giving me a look I found hard to interpret, followed her up the rickety stairs.

It took but the work of minutes to strengthen the rail and ensure it did not move, and I rolled down my sleeves, returned the hammer and nails to the late Mr. Fraser's tool box, and joined Holmes in the bedroom.

My friend had his lens out, and was staring at the words on the wall, which even I could see on entering. The letters looked at first as if they had been done in charcoal, yet they glowed with some inner light which that material does not possess, unless set afire. The name was not actually complete, but hard to mistake the message:

GO
SE
SHERL
HOLME

I could not fathom why someone might only complete half of each word. If the author had been interrupted while writing the message one would have imagined something along the lines of

GO
SEE
SHERLOCK
HOL

or similar, but here were words cut off while others made after them had been started. Most singular indeed. But even more so was the composition of the letters, and the question of how they had been put there. Holmes confirmed they were neither chalk nor paint, not charcoal either, as had at first appeared to me, and no chemical he was familiar with. They were, his examination told him conclusively, not written in blood either.

“This message,” he announced, straightening up and pocketing his glass, “was somehow burned into the wall. I find it hard to ascert -”

His words were cut off by a high-pitched shriek, and he turned from me to Mrs. Fraser. For one moment I had the distinct impression he was about to take out his lens again and examine her, to determine the cause of her distress and fright, but instead he followed her pointing finger, and all but shouted himself. I personally took a step back, grabbing at the door frame to steady myself as my legs threatened to trip over each other.

Right in front of us, as we watched, and with no possible agency to explain it, words appeared on the wall!

With a sizzling, hissing sound, as if someone were using a tool to burn the letters into the brick, like the ranchers I had heard of in the United States of America, who used heated metal rods to imprint their sigil on the flesh of their livestock to mark them as their property, we all three watched In dread, mute fascination the new message as it seared itself both into the wall and into our brains. Holmes had whipped out his lens and was watching closely, though considering the method of writing the message, he did not touch the wall or get too close. There was a curious smell of roasting flesh, like when the boar turns on the spit. I felt queasy suddenly.

The words appeared, slowly and with a sort of halting, jerky motion

CIRC
CRO
BAT
CAN
AD
A
REVE

In the very act of writing what appeared to be a letter N the ghostly hand – for such I must call it – stopped, and the message appeared to be done. Or as much as was going to be written. As the writing had appeared on the wall, Holmes had first pawed the air frantically, as if trying to touch the author, be he invisible or in some other way disguised against our senses.

He turned to me, his face pale and ashen.

“Nothing,” he breathed, like a man who doubts what he says. “Nothing, I tell you, Watson. There was nothing there!”

For a moment he continued to stare at the half-formed message on the wall of Mrs. Fraser's house.

Then I yelled “Holmes!”

I had just realised that she had fainted, and rushed to her aid, as did he. As we attended to her, Holmes almost screamed at me, pointing up.

“Watson! The ceiling! The ceiling!”

Scrawled above us, in those spectral letters charred into the roof, larger than those on the wall by a factor of at least three, the words

ADONIS
SAVE
HER

III:

Having settled Mrs. Fraser and left her in the care of a neighbour, we returned to Baker Street to ruminate on the events we had just witnessed. It took several glasses of brandy before either of us were able to speak, and when he did, Holmes' voice was missing the usual self-confidence and arrogance, the certainty and belief in his own talent that usually characterised it.

“I am not a man, as you know Watson, to place any faith in higher powers,” he told me, his eyes somewhat haunted. “Yet I must admit I have no logical explanation for what we have just seen. Had it been reported to me, I could have given you any number of possible causes; indeed, when I entered Mrs. Fraser's room and beheld the writing I was already turning over solutions in my mind. But having seen that writing appear before my very eyes, having ascertained that there was no physical agency present, having smelled the very stone burning as the letters appeared – I don't mind telling you, my friend, I am willing to entertain notions I would otherwise normally dismiss.”

I nodded, my own hand on the glass not quite as steady as I would have had it.

“At least we both saw it,” I noted. “I confess, had it only been yourself that had been a witness I might have been tempted to wonder if you had somehow imagined it, and I am sure you would likely have had similar thoughts about me, had the positions been reversed. But there is no getting away from it, Holmes.” I leaned forward, my voice betraying something of a tremble. “Something wrote those words, something we could not see, or feel, and it happened right before our very eyes.”

Holmes was on his third pipe, the room almost choked with thick dark smoke. I was finishing my second. Had Mrs. Hudson come in at that time, she would possibly have considered sending for the fire brigade.

“You assume the writing to be connected to the case?” It was not really a question, but Holmes nodded gravely.

“Having recovered somewhat from the initial shock, I have been considering the import of the words. I took notes of course.” He flipped open a note book, where the messages had been reproduced by him by much more earthly means on paper with pen and ink.

“First,” he said, in his methodical way, we have the initial message.

This is not a difficult message to understand. Although for some reason our – hmm – our ghostly writer has not completed some of the words, it clearly should read GO SEE SHERLOCK HOLMES. Perhaps this phantom hand was prevented writing my surname, or perhaps it considered the first name sufficient. There are not, I believe, many men named Sherlock in England, let alone London.”

Just the mention of the spectral message sent a cold shiver down my spine again, and I tipped back my brandy glass.

“So it was advice.”

“Or an order. Or a suggestion. At any rate, the message told Mrs. Fraser to come to me, so we can assume that whoever – or whatever – wrote it was acquainted with me, or at least, with my reputation.”

I forced a laugh. It sounded cold and hollow.

“Why, Holmes!” I expostulated. “Half of London is by now acquainted with your reputation. You are famous.”

He gave me a hard look.

“Hardly that, Watson, hardly that. However it is true that my name has been in the newspapers and the police reports, even if I have shied from taking credit for most of my cases. The knowledge that I am involved in any such is usually a good indication, both to the public and to the official police, that it will be cleared up. So in theory, anyone could have written that message.”

I shivered. “Not in the manner in which it was written,” I pointed out. He shook his head.

“No,” he agreed. “There is no agency I know of which could have created it, which is why, very much against my better judgement, Watson, I am forced to look beyond the material world and perhaps consider that the answer may lie elsewhere.”

“A ghost?”

“Let us say rather, some agency which we are as yet unable to understand.” He seemed naturally reluctant to admit to any supernatural involvement. We had of course had cases which had seemed, on the surface, to be rooted in matters other than earthly, but they had always proven to be explainable by this world's logic. So far, I could see no manner in which this could be put in the same category.

“Some agency,” I noted, “which is not only familiar with your work but also with Mrs. Fraser.”

He pointed at me. “That is very important indeed, Watson,” he agreed, approvingly. “Whatever this – agency – might be, it is in some way intimately connected with our client. So much we have established. Let us look, then, at the message which appeared while we watched.”

I felt a cold thrill of fear run through me again, as I am sure did Holmes, though he made sure not to let it show.

“We have more unfinished or incomplete words. Let me see: REVE. Well, we saw the N begin to be written, so we may with some confidence assert that word to be “revenge”. I doubt any other word fits?”

He looked over at me enquiringly. A thought had come to my mind and I snapped my fingers.

“Revenant!” I ejaculated. “Isn't that another word for a ghost?”

He frowned, made a note in his pad.

“Revenant. We will add that as a possibility, and giving the, ah, somewhat supernatural origin of the writing in question, a definite possibility. I ask you this though, Watson: if the agency was trying to tell us it was a ghost – or, if you will, a revenant – why write that? Would it not be obvious, to any other than I, who refuse to believe in the existence of such things, that what they were looking at was, as I think you called it, ghostly writing? Why force the point? No, on the whole, given the tenor of the message I feel we are on firmer ground with revenge. By the by, we shall leave that to one side. I have also committed a sin I castigate others for, which is to fail to begin at the beginning, going, rather like an impatient reader – or client – to the end without first examining the beginning. So.”

He traced back up along the line of letters and words; I could see his pen slide up the pad, where he tapped it meaningfully.

“We begin with this word: CIRC. This is obviously an incomplete word, but could be many things. Circle? Circumference? Circumlocution?”

“Circe?”

“Watson!” He thrust the pad down on his knee, tapped it irritably with the pen.

"I do apologise, my dear Holmes.” I had not realised I had spoken aloud.

“It is highly unlikely,” he said through gritted teeth, a grimace I felt – or hoped – was more for the problem than directed at me, “that a witch from Greek legend is likely to figure in this message.”

And though I knew it was a mistake, I could not help but point out the obvious.

“The word Adonis is used later.”

He sighed. “Indeed. I have my own ideas about that, but we will get to it in due course. If you would be so kind? Thank you. Now, let us assume the most obvious thing. Whatever this – oh damn it to blazes!” His irritated shout made me wonder what I had done now, but this time the fault did not seem to lie with me. “Let us just call it the ghost, for the sake of narrative, shall we? I despise allowing superstition and folklore into my reasoning, but I tire of calling it the agency. So, for now, and reserving the right to continue to disbelieve in such beings until their existence can be scientifically proven, or at least not disproven, our ghost is surely likely to have chosen the shortest words they can for their message.”

“And why is that, Holmes?”

He looked at me with that withering gaze, the one that said don't you see it?

“Was it not evident to you, Watson? Jumping the yawning chasm between the real world and that of the supernatural in order to allow the existence of the latter in the former, did it not seem to you that this ghostly hand which gave us the message did so with some difficulty?”

I had to confess I had not noticed that.

“Consider.” He leaned back, steepling his fingers again and closing his eyes. “Once more, reserving judgement as I do on the existence of spirits, were a man with a bad hand to write such a message – someone who had injured themselves, or who was perhaps close to death – would the words flow with ease and rapidity, or would they seem to appear in a somewhat sporadic, haphazard manner? The words we witnessed came slowly, and seemingly, to me at any rate, with a great amount of effort, as if it was painful, or at least hard to do. Loath as I am to speculate upon matters of which I have not the least experience, I might consider it similar to a man trapped behind a sheet, trying to push through to write with a sharp pen on the wall.”

He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with the analogy but still believing it was the best one.

“If we were to again stretch the bounds of our own credulity and assume that this – this ghost had to struggle to reach through from, as the clairvoyants are so fond of calling it, the other side, then might not those efforts come in a sporadic manner? If, for whatever reason, this was so, would not then the, ah, ghost, wish to expend the minimum effort, this best being achieved by using the shortest words?”

I had to admit that what he said seemed as likely as anything I could come up with. Holmes went on.

“So then, we have a short word, let us say, six letters at most. Circle? Circa? Circus? Well, we shall come back to that. The next in line is CRO. I think we can safely assume this to be CROW, especially as it is followed by BAT. So, for some reason, a crow and a bat.”

“Could be,” I offered, “a cricket bat.”

Holmes pursed his lips, looked at the words.

“Possible,” he allowed. “However, coming directly after crow, I would rather imagine the word would refer to a bat of the flying kind. For now, this will be our working hypothesis. It may of course change, should we receive updated data. So. Can, add, a – these words seem complete, and if taken together do indeed form a phrase, can add a, though unfortunately we are not told what can add what to what. It seems improbable that the message is that a crow and a bat can add a something. Hmm. Could it be a clue? Can add a clue? I wonder... Watson! Hand me down my book of heraldry, would you?”

In sudden excitement, Holmes scoured the pages, turning each over and peering at them through his glass.

“Wyvern, dragon, lion, unicorn, fish – wait a moment!” He examined the page he had stopped at closely, then shook his head in disappointment. “Nay, there is a crow on the crest of the DeForge family, but no bat, nor anything resembling one. In fact, I don't believe there are any bats on any of the family crests in England. Bah!” He shut the book with a gesture of irritation, laid the lens aside.

“Perhaps we are approaching this from the wrong direction,” he suggested.

Something occurred to me. I pointed with the stem of my pipe at the ceiling.

“The other words, Holmes?”

He shrugged. “Save her is crystal clear,” he said, “given whose house we were in. Whatever this – ghost – is , it is aware of the connection between Mrs. Fraser and Mrs. Liebert, and must somehow know of the charge against her. There is no other reason it would have summoned us, using the sister as the means of getting us there. Save her. Save Mrs. Liebert. What connection, though, could a spirit have with... unless!” He clicked his fingers. Giving me a very serious look, he sat back.

“Watson, what I am going to say to you now flies in the face of everything I have believed for as long as I have lived, but it is perhaps time for me to take heed of my own advice. If we do not – cannot, in fact – discount the existence of a spirit which can communicate with the living as impossible – since we have seen evidence of this with our own eyes, and there is no other explanation – then the existence of such a being becomes only improbable.”

I nodded, pointing my finger at him.

“And you always say that whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!”


“So the only logical – if one can apply logic to such a seemingly illogical idea – answer has to be that this is, somehow, the ghost of Mrs. Francesca Liebert's dead husband!”

“By Jove, Holmes!” I felt both an impulse to applaud his reasoning and a wish to wake up, as if this were all a horrible dream. “He's trying to help us!”

Holmes looked again at the writing.

“Save her...”

“But what of the other word, Holmes? Adonis?”

“Greek god of beauty.” There was a strange look on his face. “Perhaps our ghost had a poetic turn of mind?”

He sighed, and picked up his violin, regaling me for the rest of the evening with old Greek tunes, and would speak no more of the case.

IV: Abandon All Hope

I arose the next morning to find Holmes gone. This was no surprise and nothing new. My friend was constantly vanishing, visiting this haunt or that, tracking down informants or running down theories. I set off for my practice, and was walking by the Church of St. Margaret's when to my utter astonishment who should I see coming out of the grounds but Holmes! I believed this was the first time I had seen him in a church, and the first since he had been forcibly and rather comically dragged there by the soon-to-be-husband of Irene Adler, to stand as witness to their wedding.

Not wishing to embarrass him into admitting that he had obviously had to reach out to a higher power for inspiration and help, I kept my distance, but even from where I stood I could see a frown of distaste and dismay written upon his hard, stern features. He drew something from his pocket, and I saw it was his notebook. He looked at it, wrote something down, replaced it.

Then, looking around in case he was observed, he hurried away. I hailed a cab and continued on to my practice, confident he had not seen me.



It was late in the evening when Holmes walked in the door. He looked drawn, weary, sick at heart. I moved towards him, but he waved me back with his usual irritated look, and collapsed into his chair. Gratefully, he lit his pipe for the first time that day, inhaling and then with exceeding pleasure blowing out the thick smoke rings. For a few moments, he just sat like that, watching the smoke drift slowly up to the ceiling, a haunted look in his eyes.

“Watson,” he said to me in his most serious voice, “I do believe that if there is a Hell, we have ourselves manufactured it, right here on Earth.”

I was unsure how to respond to this, so merely waited for him to continue, as it was evident he would. He sighed.

“In all the places I have spent my worst hours – waiting in the cold and rain to catch my quarry, lurking in an opium den in the hope of picking up information, even that time I felt the cold hand of death literally on my throat at the conclusion of the case of the Reigate Squire, as you so poetically named the adventure in Acton, nay, even the horror I felt when exposed to the effects of the devil's foot smoke in Cornwall, nowhere do I believe I have spent a more horrible time than I have passed today. I am not ashamed to admit to you that my very soul shrivelled within me at the sights to be seen within those high, forbidding walls.”

I poured out some brandy from the decanter and took it to him. He smiled, accepted the glass and, to my considerable surprise, drained it at a draught, his fingers so tight on the vessel that for a moment I feared it would burst in his hand.

“But where have you been, Holmes?” I could not fathom what could engender such despair in his bosom.

“The word for Hell,” he said slowly, “is Pentonville.”

Now I understood. He inhaled deeply again, puffing out the smoke almost as if in an attempt to purge his body of any of the air he would have inhaled while at the grim prison.

“You have been to see Mrs. Liebert.” It was the only answer. He nodded, looking away from me.

“I noted yesterday that our criminal justice system needs a serious overhaul,” he reminded me, “if not a complete root-and-branch change. I can think of no part of it which more sorely needs that change than our prison system, with special emphasis on that hell hole.”

There was a cold supper laid out on the table. He rose, unfolding his long legs like a stork, and made his way over to the table, where I joined him. I had of course eaten by now, but I was reluctant to leave him eating alone at the table. For one of the first times in his life, I felt Sherlock Holmes craved, aye, needed company, and I was certainly not about to deprive him of it.

“How did you find her?”

Between bites of cold meat and hot tea, he related to me the story, or at least as much as he could bear to tell me. Holmes had of course visited prisoners before, usually to question them, advise them or just to get an impression from them which would help him to come to a conclusion as to their guilt or innocence. But in the sixty cases which I have committed to print, and the hundreds more which I have not, he had rarely seen a woman in prison. There had of course been lady clients, even some accused of murder, but these had usually been exonerated quickly enough that a prison visit was not necessary. Besides, Pentonville had only recently been opened, and this was the first time he had been through its doors. I got the distinct feeling he would be in no hurry to repeat the experience.

“She bears up well.” I could see the lie in his eyes, but allowed him his small subterfuge. I am not a man easily shaken, as my readers may know, but the idea of a gentle woman spending time in a cold, dirty cell in that awful fortress was enough to make me feel quite ill. “She refuses to change her story, even though it is patently obvious to even the least imaginative man that she is trying to protect someone. If I can just discover who that is, we will be some way towards proving her innocence. However -” he brightened slightly; looking over the rim of his teacup at me, I could see the elated sparkle return to his eyes that always appeared when things were starting to fall into place, when the darkness was beginning to be shot through by even the faintest shafts of light.

“However?” I prompted, as he had stopped talking and seemed to be lost in thought. He shook himself, returning from whatever convoluted avenue of logic or deduction he had been proceeding down.

“She did clear up some points for me, despite herself, even if she would prefer, in her determination to assume the blame, that she had not helped me. I was able to confirm, for instance, that her husband did not smoke. She gave me this information, presumably as it seemed irrelevant, and perhaps she believed she might be, as they say of the railways, switching me to the wrong track. It is an important point, though. You will readily understand why?”

Of course it was obvious, but I knew Holmes liked to ensure I was following his logic, and was on, so far as I could be, or any man could, the same track as he, that we were, to use an old phrase, singing from a similar hymn sheet.

“We know she doesn't smoke,” I said, filling my own pipe. “Quite apart from it being most unladylike, she has the same asthma her sister suffers from. And if her husband does not partake, and the fire was not lit...”

“Exactly!” Holmes leaned back, a sandwich in one hand. “Then where did the smell of smoke which was marked on the butler entering the room come from? He desposed that it was thick and cloying, as if a man had just been smoking a pipe or cigar. I was able to detect its presence clearly an hour later when I was called in, though I doubt a man of less sensitivity to and experience with tobacco could. So who was smoking?”

“There were only two people in the room,” said I thoughtfully, and he watched me as a master watches a promising pupil, all but guiding me along, willing me to the conclusion. “Neither smoked. There was a smell of smoke. Therefore...” I clicked my fingers. “Holmes! There was a third person in the room!”

He grinned, nodded. “There must have been,” he agreed. “It is the only logical solution, and you know how I love my logic, Watson.”

Unwilling as I was to poke a hole in that logic and deflate his theory, I had to ask the obvious question.

“Then where did they go? There was no possible way they could escape. The room remained locked from the inside until Carter the butler forced it open, and he stationed Thompson at the door until the police arrived. Assuming the footman remained at his post, nobody could have slipped past him.”

“Indeed. I interviewed this footman, Thompson, and I found him to be a fine, upstanding fellow, a lad of the most unimpeachable character. I feel I can vouch for his having told the truth when he swore he did not move from his station, and that nobody came out of the room. Which leaves us with only two possibilities. Either the third person was still in the room, and somehow contrived to escape after the investigation, which seems to me next to impossible. There were constables everywhere, both at the door of the room, in the room and stationed outside. The day was by now well on its way to becoming the afternoon, and the servants were bustling around the house, for the work of a domestic does not stop because the master has met his end.”

He shook his head, dabbed at his lips and returned to his armchair, where he lit a second pipe. I moved to my own chair.

“No, Watson, I cannot discount it of course, but the balance of probability seems to indicate it unlikely. We are left, then, with the other option.”

“Which is?” I really could not see that there was another option.

“Which is,” he declared, “that the third actor in our tragic little play found another means of exiting the house.”

I tried not to scoff, but a snort did escape me. He looked up sharply.

“What means?”

“I have not yet,” he admitted, with a somewhat dark look in my direction, “worked that out. But consider, Watson. The door was guarded. The windows were locked, and showed no signs of having been opened, as Chambers had been coming in to do so when she found the door locked. Once the body was discovered, Lestrade ordered them left shut, no doubt thinking somewhat along the same lines as myself. The room, though large, has few if any hiding places, and I can't for the life of me think where someone might conceal themselves.”

I regretted it immediately, but it seemed so absurd to me that I spoke without thinking.

“Perhaps it was the West End Ghost!”

He gave me a severe look, one which made me squirm in my chair and take a sudden and deep interest in the price of corn in the Times.

“I think,” he said icily, “had you been witness to the deplorable conditions under which Mrs. Liebert is now forced to live, as she awaits her fate, you might not be quite so flippant, Doctor!”

There was cold rage in his face, and for a moment I actually thought he was going to rise and strike me. I felt ashamed at his words.

“You are of course correct, Holmes,” I said penitently. “It is no time for levity.”

“The other point Mrs. Liebert cleared up for me,” he went on, ignoring my apology, “is quite singular too. It turns out she is left-handed.”

“I see.”

“No, you do not.”

“No,” I admitted. “I do not. Please explain.”

“It's elementary,” he told me with that quiet tolerance he used when explaining things which he himself felt needed no clarification. “When Mrs. Liebert was discovered, she was in a faint. The knife which killed her husband was in her hand.”

“Yes?” I still failed to see the significance. Holmes, with that air of the showman he often used when revealing things, smiled thinly.

“Her right hand.”

“Good Heavens!”

The implication could not be clearer. He nodded.

“There are only three possible explanations, Watson. One is that Mrs. Liebert is what they call ambidextrous. You of course as a doctor are familiar with the term?”

“Certainly. One is either left or right handed, but a person who is ambidextrous is neither.”

“Precisely. They favour neither the right nor the left hand, and can use either as easily as the other. You or I, Doctor, both being right-handed, would find it a challenge indeed to write, or play billiards, or even open a door with our left hand. Our brains tell us that the right hand is the one to use, and it is an automatic response. It is of course easily proven.”

And so saying, he caught up an apple from the bowl next to him and tossed it to me. I caught it with my right hand.

“So! A right-handed person will always catch with the right hand, while one who favours the left would automatically raise the other hand. An ambidextrous person could use whichever he or she chose.”

“And you have confirmed Mrs. Liebert not to be such a person?”

“A very simple experiment assured me she favours her right hand. And so we have option two, which is that having stabbed her husband to death, Mrs. Liebert then sat or collapsed in the chair in which she was found, but before fainting changed hands, moving the knife from her left – the one she would have used had she, for purely the sake of argument, stabbed him – to her right.”

“That seems unlikely,” I admitted.

“It is more than unlikely,” Sherlock Holmes declared. “I say it is so far beyond the reach of logic and human nature that it is next to impossible. So now, Doctor, I ask you to recall once more that most favourite of my maxims, which is that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“And the improbable,” I asked, “the truth here is?”

Holmes put down his pipe, steepled his fingers, looked up at the ceiling again.

“As we have established beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a third person in the room, and that surely this person can be assumed to be the killer of Mr. Liebert, does it not then follow that this unknown person would have tried to implicate his wife in the deed by placing the knife in her insensible hand?”

“By Jove, Holmes!” I ejaculated, standing up and advancing to offer him my hand. “You're right! You've done it again!”

Holmes looked at my hand with the same distaste he viewed any human contact, and shook his head.


“I have done nothing, my friend,” said he with a sigh, “other than put together an alternative version of the events. It fits the clues, but at the moment we have no way of proving that it does. We have no evidence, and no jury in the land would entertain such an appeal. No, Watson. We need to gather the threads until we can weave them into a tapestry that will show conclusively that Mrs. Liebert is innocent of her husband's murder, and to do that we will in all likelihood have to deliver the true murderer into the hands of the law. I fear nothing less will shake our friend Lestrade's conviction that he has his man, or in this case woman, and that the case is closed.”

A certain light seemed to enter his eyes, banishing for a moment the tiredness.

“Some of my other enquiries, Watson, have borne better fruit. Will you come with me to the Diogenes Club? I must see my brother.”

V: Is There a Doctor in the House?

The effect the note Holmes showed to his brother had upon Mycroft surprised me, though it seemed to confirm some suspicion his younger brother had. Mycroft turned pale, looked around and mopped his forehead, shiny with sweat.

“That name must never be mentioned outside of the club, Sherlock!” he hissed, a slight tremble in his voice. “Its very existence is the most closely guarded secret in England.” He shot his brother a suspicious, questioning look. “How did you come to hear of it?”

“For some time now, Mycroft, I have known such a place exists, though I confess I was and am ignorant of its location. I quite understand the need for secrecy, but when I tell you that the life of a woman – who is almost certainly innocent of the crime of which she is accused – hangs in the balance, you will appreciate the importance of our being admitted to this most select establishment.

Mycroft shook his head, paced up and down, with the air of a man upon whose shoulders a great burden pressed.

“Even I could not get you in, Sherlock. It is strictly members only, and that membership is predicated upon certain, ah, criteria.” He looked up sharply. “Logically, there is only one possible case you could be working upon now, and that is of course the Liebert murder. But I fail to see how this can have any connection to... ah.” He snapped his fingers, nodded. “Of course. Lord Bailey.”

Holmes smiled thinly. Another hard stare from Mycroft.

“But how did you know...?

“I have my sources, as you know, brother,” Holmes reminded him.

Mycroft Holmes grunted.

“Well, I am fully aware you have your methods, Sherlock,” he agreed in a sort of annoyed tone, “but I had not dreamed they extended into such... private areas. All I can tell you is that not a single member of the cabinet, nor any of the government will admit to having even heard of the Adonis Club. It is no small threat when I say it would be the ruination of their career, and probably lead to a term of imprisonment.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded, pressing his fingers together.

“I understand. A matter of national security is it? Defence of the realm? Political hot potato?”

His brother studied him, and it seemed to me that Mycroft was trying to discern whether or not Sherlock Holmes was serious, or if he was mocking him. He shook his head, still undecided.

“Let us just say,” he placed one of his large fingers against his large nose, “that it is utterly vital the secret of this club remain so.”

Holmes leaned forward.

“Are you a member, Mycroft?”

Unaccountably, his brother suddenly shook with laughter, his face turning positively red. He wiped his eyes with a silk kerchief, shook his great head.

“Gracious, no, Sherlock! Not my style, old boy. Not my style at all. But I know people who are, and they, well...” He pointed meaningfully at the ceiling. The inference was clear. People far above Mycroft Holmes had reason to keep their membership of this shadowy club from general knowledge.

“If I can give you my oath,” said Holmes, “that the secret of the club, including its location, its very existence, will not be shared with anyone, least of all the police, and that I will involve none of its members in my investigation, can you tell us the address?”

His brother rose to go, heaving his great bulk out of the chair like a walrus flapping down to the edge of the sea.

“I am afraid I have said all I can say. Good day to you, Sherlock.”



I was somewhat mystified, as Holmes seemed to know exactly where the place was, why he had been at such pains to get his brother to tell him.

As we rode in the hansom he touched his nose.

“I merely wished to push Mycroft as far as I could, to see exactly how deep this secret is, and how much he knows about it. Clearly,” he remarked, “though not a member, as he says, he is well acquainted with this Adonis Club.”

Even now, I find it inopportune to reveal even the name of the street we found ourselves in, as, considering what we eventually found out about the mysterious club, the need for its very location has become even more vital. I should also, in fairness to my readers, explain that the name used here is not the name of the actual club, and has been chosen by me for reasons which will become clear once the story has been completed.

Suffice to say, then, that Holmes and I appeared at the address he had given the cabby and approached the door. Our plan was well in hand; Holmes correctly assumed that even his fame would preclude entry, and so he relied upon me. As he rang the bell a rather large man with an interesting collection of scars and tattoos appeared, the fact that his two brows met in the middle making his scowl even more threatening.

“Wot you want?” he snapped, eyeing the two of us.

Undeterred by his manner, Holmes made to push past him, but of course the brute barred the way, and it would have been easier to have pushed over a large oak tree. Holmes of course knew this, but his haste and impatience were part of our plan.

“Move, man!” he shouted in annoyance. “It's a matter of life or death!”

The face of the guardian of the entrance to the club screwed up in a mixture of consternation, suspicion and disbelief.

“Wot?”

“My good man,” said Holmes, indicating me, “this is Doctor Henry Bellingham, who was sent for personally to attend one of your, ah, members.”

Like a gorilla grappling with the concept of advanced mathematics, the attendant frowned as he tried to work this out. From over his shoulder came the low sound of music, laughter and the buzz of conversation.

“'Oo?” he demanded, unintentionally sounding more like the simian he resembled. Holmes rolled his eyes. Sidling up to the man, like a willow before one of the mighty California Redwoods, he attempted to put his arm around the brawny shoulders, but his reach was unequal to the task, so he settled for patting him on one shoulder.

“I am quite sure, my good fellow,” he said, “that you understand how important privacy is to your members. You would not expect me to name one of them, out here in the street?”

The gorilla seemed to think this was reasonable. His decision may have been assisted by a faint clinking and the glint of silver as Holmes pressed something into his paw. The big brute thought about it, thought about it some more, then came to a decision.

“Just yerself,” he said, pointing a meaty finger at me. “Yer stay outside.”

Holmes stepped back, ushering me in, and the gorilla led the way.

Now that I was in, the question was, how good an actor was I? I had never played the game so popular in America, the card game they call poker, but I was an excellent bridge player, so I knew a thing or two about misdirection. The gorilla led the way down the hall – his knuckles almost seemed to drag along the floor, though I fancy that may have been my overactive imagination and the sense of heightened anticipation I was in as I penetrated what Holmes believed to be the dragon's lair – and brought me to a desk, where sat an unsmiling, obsequious man with a bald head, impeccably dressed and with a nose lifted so high that, had he raised it any further his very neck must have been in danger of cracking.

“Doctor.”

The gorilla had evidently used all the brain power at his command to remember my profession. It was too much to expect he would remember my assumed name. For a moment I was in a panic as I could not recall it myself. What name had I given to the attendant? Then I realised it didn't matter, as he was hardly likely to contradict me or challenge me on it. Even so, I wanted to stick to the plan as closely as possible, and luck was with me, as the name suddenly came back to me.

“Bellingham,” I said curtly. “I was called, at this most ungodly hour.” I made a great show of being annoyed, while the bald man looked up a register.

“Name?”

“Bellingham. I just told you.”

“No.” The man rolled his eyes expressively. “The member's name.”

“Ah. Well, I was told to speak it to nobody.” I tapped the side of my nose. “Safety first, what?”

“Quite,” the desk clerk agreed drily. “However, it does present a problem, Doctor...?”

“Bellingham.”

“Doctor Bellingham. If I don't know who you are here to see, how can I direct you to their suite?”

“This is true.” I pretended to think it over. “Tell you what,” I said, seeming to have an idea that would break this impasse, “show me the register, and I will point out his name. Then my vow of secrecy to my patient will not have been broken, technically. Ah, unless you mention it to anyone.”

The bald man looked highly affronted.

“Discretion is our watchword here, Doctor!” he snapped. “I fear showing you the register would be quite impossible. Our members value their privacy.”

“Hmm.” I nodded. “Very well then. I shall just have to tell the Prime Minister that I was sadly unable to treat his -”

“The Prime Minister?” The words had an immediate effect on the bald man, as of course I knew they should, even if I knew the Prime Minister about as well as I knew Her Majesty. “Well, of course, that is quite a different matter. Let me see. Hmm. Yes. Well, in that case I see no reason you should not read the register. Wouldn't want one of Her Majesty's servants going without vital treatment, would we?”

And so saying, he turned the large book he had been looking in towards me, and I scanned down the page. Picking a name at random, I pointed. His eyes widened a touch.

“Him? A member of the government?” He seemed surprised. “We of course do not enquire into the affairs of our members, but I had been under the impression that he was a shipping clerk in -”

I cut him off, again tapping the side of my nose. His eyes widened further.

“Really?” Then his eyes narrowed, and his thin lips pursed as he seemed to consider it. “Yes. Yes it all makes sense now. Of course.” he looked at me with a slightly conspiratorial look, “Not that it's any business of mine, certainly. His secret,” he tapped his nose, imitating or answering my gesture, “is safe with me.”

He pointed up the stairs.

“Room 17, third on the left. Ah, if I may ask?” He touched me on the sleeve as I made to follow his directions. “What exactly is the nature of his illness?”

“Oh,” I told him as I walked towards the staircase, “you will of course understand that is highly sensitive information I am not at liberty to divulge.”

He smiled a watery smile.

“Of course. Quite right and proper, too. Forgive me for asking.”

I had mounted the stairs as he spoke, and soon left him far behind.


Holmes was waiting with a hansom outside as I left the building, the big attendant watching me warily as I departed. I thought it prudent to follow my friend's example and pressed some coins into his hand, which caused his huge face to all but split in a ragged smile. He waved one meaty paw at me.

“'Night, Doc!”

How easy it is to turn a potential enemy into an ally, or at least a non-enemy, by the simple expedient of, as the gypsies say, crossing the palm with silver.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked Holmes as I climbed into the cab. He looked at his pocket watch, snapped it closed.

“Precisely four minutes.”

“But how did you know I would not be longer in there?”

He smiled his knowing smile.

“A simple calculation, Watson. I merely worked out how long it would take my good friend, with all the guile he has accumulated through our relationship, to gain access to the registry, then added the time to walk one corridor in a relatively hurried manner, return to the ground floor and slip out the door. I was -” he checked his watch again - “twenty-one seconds out, but then, you did have to disengage yourself from that bannister on the way down.”

I was used to my friend making clever observations, but there were times I really believed he was a wizard, or had been beside me, for how else could he know?

“Holmes, you astound me! How...?”

Before I had finished the rather predictable question he had delivered the answer, pointing at my sleeve.

“A small tear,” he observed, “not large enough to have been caused by being caught and trying to extricate yourself from a bad situation, but just the right size to result from your sleeve having been caught on a badly-hammered-in nail. The only place likely to have such poor workmanship would be the bannister, which would certainly have seen quite some wear and tear in its time. It could have been the door, of course, but any nail is likely to be much higher and there is no real way in which you could have snagged your sleeve on that. No, I feel confident that in your haste to depart, and without wishing to make it seem like you were hurrying, you did indeed catch your cuff on the errant nail and had to take a moment to release yourself with the minimum damage caused to your coat.”

I sat back, in awe, as ever, of my friend's mental capacities and deductive reasoning.

“Correct as always Holmes.”

He sniffed. “A mere trifle, barely worth discussing. But to more important things. How did your little spy mission go?”

I felt rather proud of myself, this being the first time I had operated without Holmes, though under his direction of course. The main mission had been, naturally, to get a look at the list of members, which I had. After that, it was merely a case of walking up the stairs to the room indicated by the clerk, passing it, standing for a little while at the corner and then returning, nodding to the bald man, who would assume that I had finished my ministrations and was leaving. A man like him was never likely to go and check I had seen the member I indicated, and had he tried to investigate, his lower status would have assured he received short shrift from the unknown man in Room 17.

“I could not write them all down,” I told Holmes, “but I have, as you know, a good memory and I can remember most if not all of them.”

“Excellent!” Holmes was pleased indeed, as he extracted a notebook and began recording the names, some of which caused a raised eyebrow and an intake of breath. One name would, I knew, certainly impress him, and I was proven correct when he let out a cry and tapped the notebook, closing it with that look of triumph he had when the case was beginning to come together.

The cab jolted along the dark streets, only the glow of a gas lamp illuminating the road as we cantered along. He looked out the window, lost in his own thoughts.

“I have not been idle myself, you know, Watson.” He turned and grinned at me. “We shall have to wait till the morning to see what fruit my labours have grown, but I begin to see some light at the end of this dark tunnel.” With a sudden explosion of exuberance, he laughed out loud and cried “On, driver! On! On to Baker Street!”

Chapter III: Friends in Low Places

I: As One Door Closes...

I felt a little fatigued from my exertions of the previous night so I slept later than usual. Holmes, of course, was up with the lark – if indeed his head had ever hit the pillow – and looked to have been reading for some time when I finally rose. Books were piled around him in an untidy jumble on the table – Burke's Peerage was the one his nose was in as I joined him – and as he read he wrote in a notebook beside him, hardly even looking at what it was he wrote. He looked up as I entered.

“Good morning, Watson!” His face, though haggard from lack of sleep and red around the eyes, had the flush of excitement I always noted when he was well on the chase. “Some of those names you recounted to me...” He trailed off, tapping the book. “One would wonder why so many eminent men would be -”

His sentence was broken off as Mrs. Hudson opened the door, the very picture of disapproval and scandal.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said, in a very tight voice, “there is ... someone... to see you.”

Holmes looked up. “Gentleman or lady, Mrs. Hudson?” His eyes were twinkling with merry mischief, and I wondered what he was up to. Our landlady pulled a face.

“I'm sure I would stretch the meaning of the word entirely to call her a lady,” she remarked. “Not that it is my place to say, of course.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hudson!” Holmes returned to his book, wrote something down. “You are, as always, the very soul of gentility. Show her up, if you please.”

Mrs. Hudson disappeared with one more frown of deprecation, and a moment later returned with a specimen of the kind of female I imagine would have been more comfortable and at home in a dance hall.

The lady, for such I suppose I may call her, was about of the middle height, with bare arms which showed freckles halfway up the left, no gloves on her hands and a rather poor quality dress. The boots she wore, though shiny, looked to have seen better days, and her hair, a dusky red, was patched with more strands of grey than I would have expected in a woman of her age. Her makeup was heavy, lending further credence to the possibility, even probability that she was older than she looked, but was trying to conceal the fact.

It could not, however, disguise the puffiness around one eye, which was darkening and swollen, or the split lip, which, though it had obviously stopped now, looked to my professional eye to have been bleeding for some time. Two of her teeth were crooked, and it was quite obvious she had received a blow of some sort.

“Miss Penny,” Holmes drawled. “Good morning to you. I trust you have news for me?”

Only now did he look up, his eyes instantly losing their amused twinkle and hardening to sharp flint.

“My dear girl!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. “Whatever happened? Watson!” He darted a look at me. “See to the lady, would you?”

“Of course, Holmes.” I had been about to offer my services, of course. I guided her to a chair, and she sat down gingerly, as if afraid her body coming in contact with our furniture would soil it. I suddenly felt very sorry for her. Somewhat in awe, she took in her surroundings.

“Cor!” she said in a very thick London accent, “Yer that Sherlock 'Olmes, ain't yer? And then you,” she turned to me, and I felt my cheeks flush slightly at the rather low cut of her dress, which left little to the imagination, “you must be Doctor Watson.”

I nodded, a sort of half-nod, half-bow. From my position it was hard to avert my eyes from her ample charms, but I did my best.

She giggled. It was, I must admit, intoxicating to hear, though I feared it could be a slight case of hysteria brought on by her wounds.

“If I'd knowed yer was the great Sherlock 'Olmes, sir,” she told my friend, her eyes cast down demurely, “I would 'ave done wot yer asked for free.”

“Nonsense!” smiled Holmes. “Good work deserves good pay, and I daresay the sovereign will come in handy.”

She blushed. “That it will, Mr. 'Olmes, that it will. I won't 'ave need to go out on the streets for many a month now, Just as well, too, for 'oo would look at me now, the state I'm in.”

Holmes had a reputation, unfairly earned, I believe, of being immune to the female, but while he would not be swayed by a pretty face or moved by tears, he was still a man, and seemed to feel a man's outrage, as did I, at the attack perpetrated on the luckless Miss Penny. More, perhaps, as it was becoming increasingly clear that he was in the main responsible for it.

“Beauty,” he told her, “is but skin deep, they say, Miss Penny. You have a good heart.”

She shrugged. “A good 'eart won't pull in the punters, Mr. 'Olmes,” she told him. “But the money you paid me to talk to those blokes comin' out o' that club will sure 'elp. You was lookin' for the skinny on it, wasn't yer sir?”

“Skinny?” I had never heard the word. Holmes glanced at me in amusement, as did the voluptuous Miss Penny.

“It is a word used on the street, Watson. You or I would say data.”

Miss Penny looked at Holmes as if he had used a word she had never heard. Then she asked “Mind if I smoke, sir?”

Holmes gave me another amused look, no doubt noting the expression of scandal on my face. A woman smoking, indeed!

“By all means.” Holmes reached across to her, proffering his cigar box. She grinned again, took one.

“Ooh! Don't mind if I does, Mr. 'Olmes, thank ye very kindly sir!” She accepted his match, leaned back a little as she inhaled. “Cor! It don't 'alf beat them cheap Woodbines!” she remarked. “Why, a girl could get used to this.” She winked at me, which left me in a terrible quandary, as I would never ignore any woman, no matter her class, yet in meeting her gaze I was presented with, as the Penny Dreadfuls describe it, quite the eyeful.

“Now, Miss Penny.” Holmes sat back in his chair. “While the the good doctor performs his ministrations, perhaps you would tell us exactly what happened. I do hope I was not instrumental in any way in your injuries?”

“Well now.” The woman exhaled, fixing her eyes on my friend through a cloud of thick smoke. “I 'ave 'eard it said wot yer always says, begin at the beginnin', sir, and so I shall. I must say, I never did 'ave such trouble, sir, I do assure yer.”

“Trouble?” asked Holmes, mildly.

“I do 'ave a certain, ah, reputation, yer unnerstand, sir,” she said, with a touch of pathetic pride. “They do says I can tempt any man I wants, from the 'ighest to the lowest.”

Holmes smiled. “I don't doubt it.”

“Never in all my born days 'ave I failed before.” She seemed quite put out, inhaling again and blowing out the smoke. “I suppose yer might say, it's a point of honour really.”

I had to fight down the thought, which was completely unworthy of me, that honour and this lady's obvious profession were indeed strange bedfellows.

“Six men I approached,” said she, shaking her head as if in wonder. “Not a one of 'em as was interested. Not a one!” She repeated the words, as if she had to reinforce them to ensure this was reality, as if such an event could not be credited. “I suppose,” she allowed, more to herself than to us, “it's always possible to come across the one bloke wot's married an' ain't interested in a bit on the side, or, I dunno, a priest maybe? But six? Six in a row? And all from the same crib? I does confess, sir, I am at a loss.”

Holmes looked over at me archly. “The threads, Watson, the threads.”

She looked suddenly embarrassed, mortified even.

“Oh! 'Ave I damaged yer expensive chair, Mr. 'Olmes? I do beg yer pardon.”

Holmes laughed. “No, no, nothing to worry about, Miss Penny!” he assured her. “Nothing at all. Do go on.”

“Well.” She tapped out the remains of her cigar. “As I say, a queer lot they was, to be sure! Not a one of them as would give me a light, the time o' day or so much as a second look. I mean, I really failed yer, sir, and I should return yer money, only, well...”

Holmes waved his hand dismissively.

“No, no, you keep the money, Miss Penny,” he abjured her. “You performed the task for which you were paid, and in the course of that task you were most shamefully attacked. As,” the slightest hint of impatience showed in his tone, “no doubt, you are about to enlighten us.”

A shiver seemed to pass through her ample frame, and her face turned ashen. “It were that Canadian bloke. Honest to the good God, I thought I was a goner.”

Homes seemed unperturbed. I knew him well enough, of course, to know that inside he was shaking with anger, but had no intention of showing it.

“Do proceed, please.”

“'Ands like leather, he 'ad.” She felt her face. “Really 'urt. For a moment there I thought 'e was wearin' 'eavy gloves, but then I seen the marks on 'is skin.”

“Marks?”

“Yeah, like I don't know, scratches or somethin'. An' a real 'eavy breather he was too. Kept findin' it 'ard to catch 'is breath. Don't mind tellin' yer, sent shivers down me spine.”

Holmes nodded, taking notes as she spoke.

“You are sure he was Canadian?”

“Oh yeah. Scary, 'e were.” Her eyes clouded over, and for a second the self-assured woman of the streets was banished, and looking out of those hazel eyes was a small, frightened girl. “Terrified, if I'm 'onest, sirs. Knocked me right down, 'e did, and then 'e stands over me, rantin' and ravin'. Thought me number was up, I tell no lie. Fact is, think it would have been, 'ad not a copper I know come along an' run 'im off. I still remembers the look in 'is eyes! Pure 'ate, it was. I tells ya, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, not the Ripper 'imself coulda 'ad such 'ate in 'is eyes. Looked at me like I was an insect, or summat. I'll remember that look to me dyin' day.”

She shivered, and Holmes poured her a brandy, which she knocked back in one gulp.
When she had calmed down, I asked her if the police had given chase. She shook her head.

“Nah. By the time Percy – that is, PC Butler – had checked I was all right 'e were long gone. 'e asked me t' come down to the station an' give a description, but I wanted nothin' more to do with the bloke. 'sides, I reckoned with them scars 'e was probably a sailor, an' would be gone by the mornin'.” She winked impishly at me. “A girl in my line o' business, Doctor, spends enough time in the nick without invitin' more.”

“Nick?” I looked at Holmes, who rolled his eyes.

“The police station, Watson! Goodness, how you need to update your local slang!”

Stung at little by my friend's, as I saw it, unnecessary rebuke, I turned my attention to the lady.

“How did you know,” I asked, finding my voice after several attempts and keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the top of the door, “that he was from Canada? Surely he could have been an American?”

She gave me the same sort of look Holmes did when I made a stupid error, or asked him something he considered I should already know.

“Nah, Doctor,” she said with conviction. “I knows Americans, and 'e weren't one. See, I 'ad a regular few years back, came over from Toronto, fur trapper. We 'ad, well, we 'ad I suppose wot yer might call a love affair, but 'e pushed his luck once too often at cards and, well...” Her eyes clouded for a moment, and I felt an instant of real pity for her. Had her man not been killed, perhaps he would have rescued her from this life. As it was, here she was. “Any o' the other girls woulda taken 'im for a frog, but I know 'ow them Canadians speaks, with their bilong.. boling.. belong... oh!” She snarled in irritation, and my moment of pity evaporated as I saw a woman who would, and probably had done what she needed to survive. For a moment only, I was transported into her world, and it was not an experience I relished.

“What do you call it? When someone 'as, you know, 'nother language they speaks?”

“Bilingual?” I offered. She snapped her fingers, pointed at me.

“That's it!” she declared. “Boilin' gull. Always slippin' from English to French, was Marcel. Drove me nuts it did. This bloke last night, 'e was the same. Got real hot under the collar, he did, and started spoutin' French at me. No idea wot he was sayin', but I recognised it as French.” She frowned. “Think of all the blokes 'e would have been the last to turn me down, wot with 'is face all cut up like it was.”

Holmes looked sharply at her.

“Cut up?”

“Yeah.” She seemed to be trying to remember. “Same as 'is ' ands, like 'e 'ad been in one o' them knife fights or sumthin'; face all scratched to 'ell, beggin' yer pardon sirs.”

“I see. Can you, I wonder, Miss Penny, remember exactly what this man said?” Holmes had extracted another sovereign, its appearance changing the girl's pensive look to one of naked greed as he held it before her.

“Well like I says, sir, 'tweren't nothin' I unnerstood. I only knowed it was frog talk bein' as 'ow my fancy man used it when we was together like. But even then, never did cotton on to wot any of it meant.”

“That's all right,” Holmes smiled. “If you can just repeat it, as you remember it, it may make some sense to me. I am somewhat fluent in the language of romance.”

“Ooh!” she blushed, then screwed up her brows in concentration. It was quite a thing to see. “Let's think. Hmm. Somethin' like... uh, jay oon artist a veck la stork – no, no wait. Weren't stork. Sork? Sork? That a word? Maybe in frog speak.”

Holmes nodded. I had some small smattering of the tongue myself, and began to apprehend the words.

“Go on,” he said encouragingly. “You're doing very well. Anything else?”

“Yeah. 'e said – lemme see if I can recall – too fam ay the ablee. Too ay dam in in fur.” She opened her eyes. “That's all I remember, Mr. Holmes.”

Holmes smiled again, dropped the coin in her hand. She grinned back.

“Oh yeah,” she said, fishing in her cleavage, to my intense discomfort. “Nearly slipped me mind. I lifted this from 'is pocket.” She handed something to Holmes, which he glanced at, smiled and put in his own pocket.

“You've been most helpful, Miss Penny. I wish you good day, and thank you.”

She dropped another curtsy, as I quickly averted my eyes.

“Charmed, I'm sure!” she breathed. “You're a toff, Mr. 'Olmes, and no mistake. If ever you're on my patch, you just come an' see me, ye hear? Ye won't pay a penny for it, I do vow!”

II: Word Games

When she had left, I breathed an audible sigh of relief and sat down, like a man who has spent an entire night's watch holding his breath. Holmes didn't seem to notice, or if he did, refrained from remarking upon my discomfort. He was looking at the piece of paper his visitor had passed to him, his eyes shining.

“Watson, I do believe my nets, cast for so long and so far, are finally close to entrapping our prey,” he declared with a grim smile. “And I may say, it is a quarry which has eluded the finest criminal minds outside of England. But I will have him, Watson, that I will. Look at this.”

He presented his notebook, with the words he had written down as Miss Penny had relayed them back to him.

“Not difficult at all to translate, eh Watson?” He winked at me, and I nodded, lighting my pipe to calm my nerves.

“Surely, Holmes,” I agreed, unsure of what I was agreeing to. He came over with his notebook, pointed with the pen.

“Jay oon artist – well, that is obviously j'ai une artiste – I am an artist. Next we have a veck la sork – the charming Miss Penny,” he looked up at me with an amused look. “She was charming, was she not, Watson?”

“Most charming,” I agreed stiffly. I was sure Holmes was repressing laughter, but he made no more of it.

“She originally thought it was stork, but this does not sound like any French word I have ever heard. So then, sork it is. A veck is surely avec – with.” He pursed his lips, tapped the pen against the pad. “Sork, sork, sork. That is not so simple. And it may have been stork, though I feel it unlikely a man speaking French would suddenly lapse into English for one word.”

“Unless,” I offered, “he was unaware of the French translation of the word.”

“True.” Holmes shook his head, giving the lie to his reply. “But usually our foreign cousins have a habit of adding 'how-you-say', to indicate they do not know the word in their own language. So had he said avec la – how you say – stork – then yes, we might consider that. But on balance I think no. So if we assume sork as the word, and allow for the inflections various dialects would put on such a word, given that the man is a Canadian, perhaps the word becomes – by Jove, Watson! Sirc!”

“Sirk?”

“Circe,” he corrected me excitedly, writing the word down. “Circe with a c. It is the French word for circus.”

“Looks like that witch I suggested earlier,” I could not resist noting. He shook his head.

“They are spelled the same,” he allowed, “but the witch of Greek legend was called Circe, pronounced sir-say. This is circe, pronounced, well, as our charming agent heard it, sirk, though she heard sork. This is news indeed, Watson!”

I was afraid to admit I could not see how. He stood over me, pointing at the words.

“It begins to fit, Watson! It begins to fit!”


“Does it?” I asked, unconvinced. "What about these other words she spoke - too fam ay - ah, whatever it was?" I could not recall all the words. Holmes had of course written them all down, and he referred to them now with almost a cursory glance.

"Oh yes. That. Well, mere invective Watson, I assure you. He was accusing her, and all her sex, of being - ah - the devil, and pronouncing them damned. Not a man," he raised his eyes from the pad, "who enjoys the company of women, my friend." He flipped back through the notebook, pointing his pen at an older page in which he had written.

“You remember the words our – ah, ghostly friend wrote on Mrs. Fraser's wall? One of them was CIRC. Surely this can only be meant to read CIRCUS? And – oh Watson! I see it all now, or much of it anyway. Look!”

He turned the page, showing me the one on which he had written down the spectral words that had appeared before our eyes that morning. He pointed to the three small words.

CAN
AD
A

“I thought this was part of a sentence!” He slapped his forehead in frustration at his own error. “Can add a something. But it's not, Watson, it's not! It is in fact one word. Look!” He rewrote the word on another line, leaving no space between the letters. We were now looking at a single word, which made much more sense in the light of what we had just learned.

CANADA

“Add this to the CIRCUS, the fact that the man with the scratched face described himself as an artist and,” he rummaged for yesterday's newspaper, thrust it in front of me. “The story of the monkey who attacked an acrobat. Watson! Look again at the words. A CRO BAT. Once again I have been a fool. Not a crow and a bat. One word: acrobat! An acrobat, with a connection to Canada, working at a circus. It can only be our man! And here, look, his name – Francis Deschamps, one of a troupe of acrobats with the Farrington and Nilsson Circus! It all fits!”

He was pulling on his coat as he spoke.

“Are we going out, Holmes?”

He threw a scarf around his neck, headed for the door. “I shall call a cab, if you could perhaps slip your service revolver in your pocket, my friend.”

“But, but where are we going?”

“Why, Watson,” he winked, “how long has it been since you were at the circus?”

Chapter IV: Into the Lion's Den

I: Master of the Big Top

As we followed on behind the circus strongman, I reflected that I had never seen such muscles before; he made the attendant at the club we had tried to breach the previous night seem small and weedy in comparison. His biceps bulged and rippled as he walked, his great torso fairly quivering with energy. I felt sure he could, had he a mind to, pick Holmes and I up in one hand and snap us like dry twigs. Indeed, I felt he could probably pick up Nelson's Column and snap it like a dry twig. It would not do, I noted, to get on the wrong side of this man.

“Here we are, gentlemen.” The giant stopped outside a brightly-coloured tent. “Just go right in.”

We had no choice, really: there is no way of announcing oneself outside a tent, other than perhaps a cough or a whistle. No door to rap, no bell to ring. Holmes led the way. A man stood up to greet him, his red coat and black shiny top hat marking him as the ringmaster.

“So, the famous Sherlock Holmes, is it? You don't say!” The man looked up, his eyes hooded, somewhat cold but with a fire behind them that spoke of the capacity for great violence. I suddenly wondered if the big strongman was stationed outside the tent, and my throat became a little dry. “Ah've been told trouble follows you, Mr. Holmes, like an injun after a buffalo. Ah won't have it at mah circus, ah warn you. We've darned enough prejudices to deal with here, without a guy like you bringing further trouble to our door.”

Holmes looked at him narrowly, and I was reminded to be on my guard. One thing that was certainly known about the circus was that they saw themselves as a family, and would support and even perhaps protect one another from the law. Holmes was not always welcome wherever he went, but the cold reception his arrival in the ringmaster's tent engendered was a harbinger of trouble to come.

Ignoring the man's aggressive tone, Holmes blinked and declared “I am aware, sir, that my reputation often precedes me, though I had not expected it extended across the Atlantic!” He pursed his lips. “I had not time to introduce myself, and your rather large butler outside surely does not know who I am.”

The man grinned, a somewhat vindictive, even cruel smile.

“Bruno? Why, he wouldn't know who the President was back home, other than some guy on the back of a coin. But we know all about you, Mr. Detective, and let me tell you, we look after our own here.”

Holmes turned to me with a sigh. “It seems I am not the only one whose reputation is well known, Watson. Doubtless you were, despite your best efforts, recognised at the Adonis Club.”

“Ah don't know about no Ay-don-ees Club,” growled the man in the red coat. “But yeah, ah sure was warned to be on the lookout for a varmint like you.”

Holmes smiled ingratiatingly. “Varmint, as you so colourfully put it, sir, or not, you have the advantage of me. I see from your garb that you serve the post of ringmaster of this circus. Am I to understand that you are also the owner of this establishment?”

“You can believe whatever the hell you like, mister.” He did not extend his hand. “Tobias Nilsson, of Fennington and Nilsson Circus. Ah won't say like you English do that ah'm at your service, sir, for ah am not. Ah have very little time for a sonofabitch like you or your country. We ain't forgotten King George, let me tell you.”

“And yet,” remarked Holmes drily, “you choose to visit our poor country.”

Nilsson wrote something down. Without raising his eyes he muttered “We choose to share with your little country a slice of jest about the best travellin' entertainment show the United States has to offer. But you needn't worry,” he added, looking up at last. “You'll not be troubled by us for long, Mr. Consulting Detective,” he promised. “We take ship for Calais tomorrow.” He pronounced it call-aze. Holmes refrained from correcting him.

“Are all your employees American then?”

Nilsson's brow darkened more, the suspicion in his eyes growing, a man on a defensive posture.

“What business is it of yours?” he demanded.

Holmes ignored the barb.

“It is a simple question, Mr. Nilsson. Surely it deserves a simple answer?”

As if afraid he was stepping into a trap, but could see no way out that might not further incriminate him, the ringmaster grunted “Not all.”

“You have, in fact,” pressed Holmes, “a native from across the border in your ranks, do you not?”

Nilsson's eyes flashed, as if Holmes had insulted him. “You'll find no stinking Mex-ee-cans here, Holmes!” he promised. Ignoring the slur, my friend corrected him.

“The other border, Mr. Nilsson. Canada?”

The man's eyes began to shift left and right, like one who expects attack.

“And what if'n ah do?” he demanded. “Ah employ who ah like, and let no man tell me ah can't!”

“I would not dream of it, Mr. Nilsson,” Holmes said airily. “But tell me, is your circus in the habit of employing known criminals?”

Nilsson stood up, the blood rushing to his face.

“Ah'll have none of this, Holmes!” he snarled. “You think because you're this all-fired famous detective that you can come in here with your accusations and your insinuations, botherin' mah people? No, sir! Not here! Ah tell ya, ah'll befriend a goddamn ****** before ah turn over one of mah folks to your stuffy English law courts!”

Holmes gave him a faintly amused look.

“I wonder,” he drawled, “if your partner holds the same loose attitude to the law as you do. What would Mr. Fennington say about this?”

Nilsson grinned. “Mr. Fennington has been in the ground for six years now, Mr. Holmes,” he answered. “The circus may still bear his name, but it's me that runs the show. Ah'm in charge here.”

“I see.” Holmes looked momentarily nonplussed, then he shook his head and took a step towards the flap. “You may disparage our 'stuffy English law courts', Mr. Nilsson," he remarked, "but while in this country you are subject to English law. I knew a man once - believed he too was above the law."

As Holmes spoke, an image came to my mind of the great African explorer Dr. Leon Sterndale, his blustering arrogance gone, his love dead at the hand of the man he has just slain, his life in my friend's hands.

"Yeah? So what?" Nilsson sneered. Holmes shrugged.

"He told me, at the last, that he had got into the habit of taking the law into his own hands. Had it not been for our, ah, coming to an understanding about his crime, sir, I can assure you the English judicial system would have - ah, what is that quaint phrase you Americans use? Had him for breakfast?"

"Ah still don't see what..." Nilsson was looking a little less certain. Holmes gave him a razor-thin smile, a smile I had seen all too often, quite aware what it portended.

"The point, my dear sir," Holmes enlightened the ringmaster, "is that you may not agree with our legal system, and I don't know what it is like out there where you come from, where there is what I am led to believe is termed, ah, frontier law? But here we have very clear laws, sir, and as you have just confirmed your partner is deceased, then I should say that by Her Majesty's laws, the responsibility for sheltering a murderer is yours, and yours alone.”

An abrupt change came over the owner, and he sat back down heavily.

“Murderer? You never said nothin' about no murder, Holmes.”

“Didn't I?” Holmes picked at his lapel. “Well, we shall just have to see what the police...”

But Nilsson had risen and grabbed at his sleeve before he could exit the tent.

“You'll forgive me for speaking so harshly, sir,” he said, his attitude entirely different now, “but we have a sayin' here: when a man joins the circus he unhitches his past an' leaves it in the dust. Many of our people have had run-ins with the law, an' we tend not to ask questions. But we ain't no shelter for killers, no sir!”

“Come now,” said Holmes, his tone also gentler, “you once helped defend the law, Mr. Nisson – Texas, unless I am much mistaken? Though I see you have since fallen foul of that very law, so no doubt you have your own secrets to protect. I have no intention of dredging up your past. All I want is the man you know as Deschamps.”

“See, you have to understand – wait jest one gold-darned minute!” sputtered the owner. “How in the sam hill do you know all that? ” He looked at Holmes suspiciously, and I saw his hand stray to his hip. “You ever been to the States, Mr. Holmes?”

He may have been used to settling disputes by the expedient of the gun, as I had been told was often the norm in America, but I doubted Mr. Nilsson was so rash as to have brought such a weapon into the country. No doubt the move was a reflex, born of his days as a law officer in the United States, if Holmes was correct.

“Although I have a great affinity for the New World,” Holmes told him, as unconcerned with the gesture as I was concerned – he had obviously already concluded that there was no gun to be drawn, “and some of my cases have involved America, I have never myself set foot upon its soil.”

“Then how in the name of Robert E. Lee...?”

“Oh, it is a simple matter of observation, sir. That medallion you wear around your neck, for example. It is a silver dollar, with a bullet hole in it. It is given to members of the Texas Rangers who reach a certain rank. The idea is, I believe, that the coin is given to the officer, who throws it into the air and then has to shoot the hole through it. The recovered coin is then put on a lanyard and worn as a badge of honour. You, however, wear yours reversed, which speaks of your discontent with the force. Your pride, however, in having been a Ranger keeps the medallion around your neck.”

Nilsson nodded, his eyes betraying a dawning new respect for Holmes. “We'll ah'll be hornswoggled!” he declared. “Right in every detail.”

“But surely, Holmes,” I interjected, “that does not prove Mr. Nilsson has fallen foul of the law? He may merely have left their service.”

Holmes gave the owner a level look. “To take up managing a circus across America, Watson?” He sniffed. “Hardly likely. Besides, you wear your collar fully buttoned up, sir, in the manner of an Englishman, whereas our American cousins are somewhat, ah, freer about the neck. Something to do with the heat, possibly.” Nilsson's hand unconsciously moved towards his collar. “No doubt you tell anyone who may ask how you can stand to be so attired in the midst of a heatwave that this heat is nothing compared to a Texas summer – or, indeed, I might venture to guess, winter?”

Nilsson's eyes had that dangerous look in them again. “You wouldn't survive for spit in a Texas spring, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” It was almost, but not quite, a threat, but it certainly carried with it a modicum of disdain. Holmes shrugged.

“Quite possibly true,” he allowed. “The current weather has me struggling. But it is not the heat which keeps you buttoned up, is it, Mr. Nilsson? Your collar does not quite cover the marks, I'm afraid.”

“Marks?” I could see nothing, but Holmes had obviously hit a nerve with the American. Again he made the move for a gun that was not there.

“By thunder, Mr. Holmes, if we were back in the States ah'd shoot you down where you stand for such an accusation!” His eyes were fire, but Holmes did not seem in the least bothered.

“Ah, but we are not, Mr. Nilsson.” he pointed out. “We are in England, and were you to, as you so colourfully put it, shoot me down where I stand, I fancy our legal system would ensure the task that was begun in America would be completed here. Why you were hanged I have no idea, nor am I interested in why or how you escaped. It is of, as you quite rightly pointed out a moment ago, no business of mine.”

Nilsson seemed to relax. His eyes darted from Holmes to me, and then to the tent flap. He looked like a man considering making a run for it.

“What does concern me, Mr. Nilsson,” Holmes went on, “is the sheltering of a criminal – a murderer, sir! - within the bosom of your circus family here. I tell you now,” he raised a warning finger, “if any of your people attempt to detain me in my pursuit of this Deschamps, I will make it my business to ensure they answer for it in an English court.”

And so saying, he strode from the tent imperiously. I followed, leaving the American fuming behind.

II: The Murderer is Revealed

Receiving no assistance from the owner of the circus, we had no choice but to check each of the tents which dotted the field. After several failures we came to one in which three men were sitting and having coffee. A quick glance at their faces told us these were clowns, currently off duty. None of them were the man we were looking for. Holmes tipped his hat.

“We are looking for a Mr. Deschamps, gentlemen. Would any of you know of his whereabouts?”

One of the men looked up, gave Holmes a surly glance. For a clown, he seemed quite gloomy.

“Medical tent,” he snapped, shortly, returning to his drink.

“Third one along on the right,” piped up another, somewhat more helpful. “Black and white squares. Dude's been there since he was attacked by that there monkey.”

“At least it's put paid to his midnight disappearances,” noted the third.

The remark was made in an offhand manner, but something about it drew Holmes' attention.

“Disappearances, sir?”

The third clown looked at the other two. One, the first who had spoken, looked away, while the second shrugged. It seemed clear to even such as I that they had no great regard for Deschamps, and if he had a secret, they were not bound to keep it.

“Just about every night,” the third clown told us. “We're meant to stay in the compound, see. Kinda rule of the circus. Mr. Nilsson, he don't want us moseyin' off and gettin' into mischief. But you don't tell Frank what to do, no siree bob!”

It seemed that something like a shiver passed through the man, and he wrapped his hands more tightly around his mug, as if craving the heat.

“Frank?” Holmes raised an eyebrow.

“Well, Francis.” The clown scowled at him. “ He hates to be called Frank. Kinda why we do it."

"Not to his face, though," muttered the first clown. The third one shrugged, though it seemed like a shudder,

"Not gold-darned likely," he agreed. "Guy gives me the creeps, y'know? Thinks he's better than all of us. Has this fancy to be called mon-soo-er, bloody Canuck.” Irritated though he was, I noticed keenly that the third clown looked around a little warily, no doubt to assure himself that Deschamps was nowhere in earshot. It seemed our acrobat friend cast a long shadow over this circus. He even had the owner covering for him, or too afraid to give him up. Holmes nodded, took out his notebook and wrote something down, underlining it. He tapped his pen against his teeth, nodded again.

“So Mr. Deschamps – Frank – left the compound?”

“Sure did. Made no secret of it neither. Mr. Nilsson was real mad about it, but he's scared of the guy. There's somethin' in Frank's eyes, y'know? Somethin' that tells you you ain't the fastest gun, so you best not draw. We all seen it, mister. It's kinda... hypnotic, see? When I was only knee high to a grasshopper my paw took me to see this Wild West Show – y'know, like that Buffalo Bill? Weren't him or nothin' but another guy. An' they had this injun, reckon you'd call him a medicine man, witch doctor, some horsepucky like that. Well, when I looked in this guy's eyes, I sorta felt like he was talkin' to me, like he could, I don't know, see into mah soul or some dang thing. Deschamps is the same. Has this, y'know, power to make folks do what he says. Scary. Take mah word for it, you don't want them eyes turned on you, friend. Reminds me,” he turned to the middle clown, who nodded in dumb agreement, “of a rattler, y'know? One false step and you're done, son.” He shivered again, took a drink of his coffee, stared into the mug.

“He's had Nilsson under his spell for years,” he muttered, again glancing around as if afraid he might be heard. ”It's him as runs this show round here. He's the boss man,” he muttered.

Holmes smiled one of those frosty smiles of his.

“Ah, well, M. Deschamps may just find that, to use one of your delightful American colloquialisms, there is a new sheriff in town. Good day, gentlemen.”

Holmes tipped his hat and exited the tent.

As we came out we were greeted by a rat-faced little bulldog of a man, who was walking hurriedly across the grass. Behind him were three police constables.

“Ah! Lestrade!” Holmes greeted the inspector. “I see you got my telegram. Good.” He looked at the three officers. “Good, stout men, not afraid of a little rough stuff?” Lestrade nodded. “Capital! I fear we may be somewhat impeded in our attempt to arrest this man.”

Lestrade swept his glance around the circus, taking in the tents, cages, stands and the various performers who moved to and fro.

“Anyone trying to impede the progress of the law,” he warned, in a voice meant to be heard by all, “will bring down upon him the full force of that law. Stand aside!”

We got some sullen looks as we made our way across the grass but nobody tried to stop us as we headed for the medical tent. On Holmes' advice, Lestrade stationed his men outside, while he himself accompanied us inside, where we found our man, sitting in a chair. He turned to look at us as we entered, his face showing the scars of the monkey attack, just as Miss Penny had described it.

“C'est quoi?” he snapped, lapsing into his second tongue. “Fais attention! Je suis malade!” For emphasis, as if any were needed, he pointed to his face, where the tell-tale signs of what could only be the Herpes virus were already making their presence known.

“Yes,” remarked Holmes. “You are indeed a sick man, though I fear far sicker than anyone here realises.”

Beside me, Lestrade shrugged, and all I could do was watch. Holmes seldom if ever shared his findings with anyone, least of all me, before he was ready. As he had said earlier, all the threads had to be in place before he would or could reveal the finished tapestry.

The man's eyes narrowed, a cunning light entering them.

“Allez-vous!” he snapped, reaching for a heavy stick by his feet as he noticed Lestrade for the first time. “Quelle est votre affaire?”

Holmes signalled to me. I pointed my service revolver at Deschamps, whose hand moved away from the stick.

“I shall tell you what business it is of mine, Monsieur,” Holmes answered. “But I will ask you to speak the Queen's English, which I know full well you are able to do. You are in England now, sir, not Canada. Pay us the courtesy of using our language, as you have used some of its people.”

“Je ne sais...” began the man called Deschamps, then, shrugging, switched to English. “I don' know what you mean, sir. 'Oo are you, that you disturb the great Tumbling -” . Suddenly, he coughed hard, the fit shaking him like a leaf, his face turning red. Finding his breath, he gasped “Tumbling Deschamps, the world's most accomplished acrobat?” He looked at Holmes with a proud, arrogant tilt of the head.

“You've tumbled your last, monsieur,” the great detective returned. The Canadian sneered.

“And 'oo are you to say so, eh?” he demanded. “What give you the right to come here and accuse me of...” He stopped for a moment, frowning. “Of what do you accuse me, monsieur?”

“I think you can drop the pretence, M. Deschamps,” Holmes told him. “It really won't do. We have the letters, we have your note, we have your jacket, and – oh, another thing, m'sieu: did you know Mrs. Liebert was left-handed?”

The blood drained out of the face of the man as he digested this information. Holmes smiled coldly.

“That was your first real mistake, m'sieu, the one that put me on to you.”

“But.. mais comment?”

“Ah, I am in fact in error, do forgive me.” Holmes placed one finger to his thin lips. “Yes, your first mistake – your real mistake, sir, was in choosing to smoke that morning. This gave me my first real clue, and told me that there had been three people, not two, in that chamber.”

Deschamps smiled, as if he had been expecting something else, something more concrete, perhaps.

“Oh now, m'sieu,” he said in his broken English, “zat could 'ave been – 'ow you say – personne? Anybody? Many people smoke.”

“Yes,” agreed Holmes. “However you do not know me, M. Deschamps. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have written some small monographs on various technical subjects. On the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos? You have not read it? Ah. A pity, for had you done so, you might have been less inclined to have smoked that morning.”

Deschamps' eyes widened, then narrowed.

“You lie, eh!” he spat. “Nobody could identify tobacco smoke from its mere smell! C'est impossible!” Even I could translate that.

“Well, that is true to a point,” Holmes allowed. “My own expertise is in distinguishing the ashes, not the smells. But in conducting such a study, one does – rather like Mr. Jabez Wilson with the Encyclopedia Britannica, you recall, Watson? One does absorb some extra data, and I flatter myself that on entering the room in which Mr. Liebert was so brutally murdered that I instantly detected the aroma of a tobacco called, I believe, High Plains, sold only in Canada, principally in the Yukon area, and which you yourself are now smoking, sir.”

With a rather stupefied look, Deschamps took the cigarette from his mouth and stared at it. We could see the letters H, I and G winding around the barrel, with beneath them another line, of which we could only see P and L, but the inference was plain.

“I suppose once a smoker, always a smoker, eh?” Homes smiled a granite smile. “I suspect,” went on my friend, “that it was you behind the poisoning of Sir Robert?”

Deschamps shrugged. “It was important that Lord – 'ow you say? Bailey was the man to try Mme. Liebert.”

“Why?”

“Ah, m'sieu 'Olmes,” the acrobat sneered, a nasty twist to his lip made more grotesque by the way the scars and cuts stretched the skin of his face. “It would seem your reputation is no' so great as I was told! You did not know there was - 'ow you say - bad blood between Peter Liebert and Lord Bailey? That they both bid for the same tract of land in Berne, Switzerland, more than ten years ago?”

Holmes looked blank, and the acrobat sniffed imperiously.

“Mme. Liebert's father – she was not married to him then, was Mademoiselle Schechter – awarded the logging contract to Liebert, 'oo then fell in amour with his daughter. They were married the next spring. Lord Bailey nursed a dark hatred for the woman he believed had interceded with her father on behalf of Liebert. He – 'ow is it you say it – he jumped at the chance to replace Sir Robert when the trial judge... fell ill.”

“You had it all worked out, didn't you, Deschamps? I would be willing to wager that all the flower girls who have died in the last month were your handiwork, is this not so?”

Deschamps spat. “Women! I curse them all! Le monde is better off without them.”

“As it will be without you, M. Deschamps. Or should I say, M. Baudelaire?”

For a moment, several emotions chased across the Canadian's face. Shock, dismay, panic, outrage, fury and then it settled into a complacent and mocking smile.

“Bravo, monsieur 'Olmes!” he clapped his hands sarcastically. “You 'ave me. I congratulate you.” He stepped forward, holding out his wrists to Lestrade. As the inspector made to fasten the handcuffs on him, Deschamps suddenly grabbed him and expertly flipped him over his shoulder. Lestrade landed heavily with an oath, and the acrobat executed a perfect leap over me and sailed through the open flap, landing lightly on his feet. He had barely touched ground before he was off and running, leaving myself and Holmes staring after him, frozen for a second and, I must admit in my case at least, full of astonishment at the man's agility.

“After him!” shouted Holmes, dashing out of the tent. “That is Charles Emile Baudelaire, the Yukon Terror!”

Rushing outside, we saw to our dismay that the man deserved his name. One of the constables lay dead on the grass, his neck broken. The other was nursing a broken wrist, while the third was in pursuit of the rapidly-receding figure.

III: The End of the Chase

Even with five men on his trail, I never realised how hard it could be to catch a man of such agility and nimbleness. As an acrobat, Deschamps – or, as I should call him, Baudelaire – leaped obstacles which we had to run around or climb over. Some of which, I should also point out, were pushed in our way as the killer made his escape. It seemed the clown had been right: everyone here was under Baudelaire's spell. Of course, there surely also came into play that distrust and dislike of the law that is innate in these people, but whatever their motivation, their efforts slowed us down and stymied us, threatening to rob us of our prey.

As I ran, two very large women approached me and, seemingly accidentally, blocked my way. As I moved past them, they moved with me, tittering in apparent confusion or embarrassment as we matched move for move, until finally my urgency outfought my natural instincts as a gentleman, and I pushed them aside. It occurred to me as I left them behind that there was something odd about these women other than their size, then I remembered the beards. A shot rang out, but I had no idea whence it had come, and continued running.

A good distance ahead of me, Sherlock Holmes had had his progress checked as a man led a huge grey elephant across his path, and my friend was forced to wait till the animal had passed. To the left I saw Lestrade trying to fight off the attentions of a brace of clowns, who were hitting him with water balloons and honking little horns, one throwing a bucket of water over the detective, to his intense annoyance. Off to the right, the constable with the broken wrist was staring up at a man on stilts like a midget who fears being crushed by a giant, and everywhere rang out the merry circus music, and people ran hither and yon.

In other circumstances the scene would have been a most amusing one, but all these delays and barriers and distractions had allowed our quarry to make it to the main circus tent, into which he disappeared. Having shaken off two very determined dwarfs, who were trying to hang on to my legs and bring me down, I joined Holmes inside the huge marquee. A moment later Lestrade puffed up beside us.

“I hate circuses!” he growled, gasping for breath. “One of those lunatics tried to set a monkey on me. Had to shoot the damned thing!”

Holmes was looking up, and we followed his gaze as we watched Baudelaire, the Yukon Terror, scale a ladder towards a tightrope stretched at least a hundred feet above, his movements as sure and as rapid as the very primate which Lestrade had had to put down. Holmes made for the rope, but I held him back.

“No, Holmes! He is a professional acrobat!” I warned him. “He can attain the tightrope faster than you ever could, then all he need do is cut the ladder and you would plunge to your death.”

My friend nodded.

“You see the logic of the situation, Watson,” he said, “and you prevent me from acting against my own better judgement. But by God, I'll not lose him – good God!”

His exclamation of horror was repeated by both of us, and indeed the two constables, who had now joined us, all five of us in time to see Baudelaire reach the tightrope, climb to the platform where a man, preparing to launch himself on the trapeze, stared at the newcomer in astonishment. There was a brief struggle, moments only, and the man pitched down towards the floor of the tent with a terrible cry. We rushed forward, as with a snarl of triumph, the Canadian launched himself into the air, using the trapeze to fly halfway across the space. He then let go, but as he fell he executed four perfect loops, and landed unhurt on the ground, like a cat. He was out the entrance and gone before we could gather our wits.

We stared at the dead man on the ground, one of Baudelaire's companions, a fellow performer, whom he had killed without a second thought, merely to gain the advantage on us. Holmes was the first to spring into action. We caught sight of the acrobat tumbling among some further tents, behind which a line of cages stretched.

“He's heading for the animal enclosure!” shouted Holmes, a look of horror on his face. “The fool!”


Indeed, as we caught up with the man and could see him more clearly, he was no longer tumbling and cartwheeling, but running, with a look on his face carved out of pure terror. I could not imagine how that fear could been engendered by the sight of Holmes, myself and the long arm of the English law. As we drew nearer it became evident that Baudelaire was mouthing something, and while we initially believed he was taunting us, it was a simple matter to see this was not the case. His demeanour had changed. From an arrogant, desperate, cold-hearted murderer on the run he had been transformed into a frightened man, a man so terrified that it seemed he didn't even know where he was. His mouth, open in a grimace of terror, seemed to frame the word “No!”

“What's wrong with the man?” called Lestrade. “I thought he was a cold-blooded killer! Can three policemen and your good selves have him screaming so?”

The wails came back to us on the wind as the Canadian vanished between the cages. He was babbling in his own language now.

“Non! Mon chere! Tu est mort! Mort! Je t'ai tue! Tu est mort! Mere de Dieu!”

Even I, with my poor smattering of French, recognised one word in this stream of invective.

Mort.

Dead.

As we followed him – we noticed that the circus folk were no longer impeding us; perhaps the death of the trapeze artist at the hands of their erstwhile colleague had shown them the error of their ways, or perhaps they saw the man who had dominated and intimidated them all for so long was finally unable to cow them – we saw him vanish between the cages.


“He's asking for trouble!” rumbled a clown with a very serious face beneath the happy makeup. “Nobody goes near the lions at feeding time.”

“Watson,” said Holmes to me as we entered the enclosure, Nilsson now having joined us and leading the way cautiously, “don't you get the distinct feeling that M. Baudelaire does not wish to go where his feet are taking him? That something is forcing him, driving him in that direction?”

I had to admit, the look of horror on the killer's face, and the cries in French he made seemed to back this theory up. It was as if he was running from someone – or something – not just us. Holmes gave me a grim smile I did not much care for.

Just then, two dwarfs and a slim woman in a spangly costume collided with the man on stilts, who fell over, causing much consternation. I rushed to his aid, and could determine at once that he had a shattered elbow. I stayed with him and did what I could for the man as the others raced on.

Suddenly, a piercing, soul-rending shriek tore the evening air. It was like the cry of a thousand damned souls, all screaming out at once.


By the time I had finished my ministrations, and joined the others, it was all over.

Baudelaire lay on his back, his arms, legs, back and head torn open, blood and intestines leaking out of his shattered, ripped body, which looked like someone had put it through one of those new machines they have in factories for stripping cotton. He was quite dead.

“What – what happened?” I gasped as I caught up.

One of Lestrade's constables was heaving up his dinner into the grass off to the side. The other two were pale as sheets. The inspector pointed at the cage.

“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” he told me, pointing at one of the cages. “The fellow had a chance to make a clean break, but instead came this way, shouting and screaming, as if the very devil were at his heels. He backed up against that cage, seemingly oblivious to its occupant. He was babbling something in French I think – Mr. Holmes will tell you; his grasp of the language is somewhat better than mine, which is limited to “oui” and “non” and “monsieur” - and was looking away from the cage. Once the hungry lion reached through the bars it was all up with him. We did our best, but nobody was willing to go too close to those slashing claws and teeth. Mr. Nilsson here ran for the trainer, but by the time he got here it was too late.”

I looked at the mangled corpse crumpled on the ground. So badly clawed, torn and chewed was it that had it been come upon after the fact, there would have been little to no chance of identification. The lion's paw had evidently punched in the back of Baudelaire's skull and come out through his face, and there was little enough of the head left to even qualify as one. Lestrade suddenly snapped at his subordinates.

“Get those people back! You too, Osbourne! You'll see worse in your career, my lad, let me tell you. Learn to deal with it, or you may find you're not cut out for the police. Now get to it!!”

Holmes shook his head sadly.

“A fitting end, perhaps, for the Yukon Terror,” he declared. Lestrade frowned at him.

“You really think this is him?” He seemed dubious. “Why, those crimes were committed nearly ten years ago, Mr. Holmes. What would a Canadian murderer be doing working in a circus in England?”

Holmes covered his mouth and nose, and turned away. I did the same. The stench was somewhat overpowering. A pall of death hung heavy over the circus, a dread contrast to the brightly-coloured tents and the now-doleful clowns and acrobats who wandered about in shock. Somewhere, a woman was screaming, while a tiger in the adjacent cage let it be known in no uncertain terms that the death of one human was no excuse to deprive it of its meal.

The four-wheeler which had taken four constables and one inspector to the circus made a slow, morose journey back as the remaining three carried their fallen comrade back to the station. They took with them word of the capture, and subsequent death by mauling, of the notorious Canadian killer.

“I shall of course explain all, Inspector,” Holmes promised. “But first I need a word with our friend, Mr. Nilsson.”



Holmes returned a few minutes later carrying a small box, and then hailed a cab. We found ourselves back in Baker Street, but there was no time to relax. Holmes merely looked in to take his pipe and mine, and a pound of tobacco, and then directed the cabby onward.

“Where are we going now, Holmes?” I asked, a little petulantly. It had been a long day, and I was tired, somewhat heartsick at the carnage I had witnessed, and nursing a very healthy appetite. Such things did not seem to concern Holmes.

“We return,” he announced, “to the scene of the crime!”

Chapter V: Being for the Benefit of Mr. Lestrade


Holmes presumably having already prepared the ground before we arrived, the maid bade us enter the Liebert home. In the fateful room in which the master of the house had met his end, Holmes took the key out of the lock and waved it in front of Lestrade.

“Never thought to check this, did you, my good Inspector?”

Lestrade looked puzzled.

“What is there to check about a key?” I confessed I, too, saw nothing which the key could have told us, but then, I was not Sherlock Holmes.

“When I entered,” he said, showing the key to us both, replacing it in the lock and returning to stand before the fire, which was now lit, the night drawing in, “I noticed dark marks on it here, here and here. You will see that they correspond with the points at which someone would have held, and turned, the key. I was not entirely certain, of course, but I made so by smelling the metal.”

“Smelling?” Lestrade darted me the kind of glance he always used when he believed that, brilliant and analytical a mind as Sherlock Holmes had, sometimes he considered my friend quite mad.

“Yes. I smelled what I suspected I would smell, which was tobacco. High Plains tobacco in fact, made, as I told the late M. Baudelaire, only in Canada – the Yukon Territory, to be precise - and only for purchase there. This told me that someone who had been smoking High Plains had handled, and turned the key. The marks of his fingers and the smell from them were on the key. Since the door was locked, it follows that this person was the one who locked it.”

Understanding began to dawn on the inspector's face.

“So you could tell that neither Mrs. Liebert nor her husband had locked the door?”

“Precisely. And so we have a scenario, whereby we assume one of the two is in the room with Baudelaire, when the other enters, either by accident or design. The Canadian crosses the room and locks the door. This may or may not have been with the permission or agreement of one or both, but considering that what was discussed in that room was of an intensely, ah, private nature, we can assume the former.”

It never failed to amaze me how Holmes took the smallest clues and built an entire world around them. The tiniest detail was often all he needed – or the first thing he needed, at any rate – to reconstruct a crime and solve the case.

“Now, we shall re-enact the crime, if you gentlemen will be so kind. Watson, you shall be Baudelaire, please stand there.” He indicated a point just beside the fire. “Inspector, I must ask you to play the role of the unfortunate Mr. Liebert. If you would just position yourself... so.” He had Lestrade face me, as if we were talking, about a yard or so apart. “And I,” he said, seating himself before the fire, “will be Mrs. Liebert, with the greatest of apologies to that eminent lady, whose beauty, grace and poise I could never hope to duplicate. But we shall work with what we have.”

And so saying, he steepled his fingers. He looked over at the fire, glanced at me, looked back.

“Watson, you are the killer, so if you would please advance to the door and lock it. Thank you. Now, you are facing the wrong way, my friend. Please turn so that you and Lestrade are facing one another. Excellent. Capital. Now, We need a weapon. So. This will do.” He indicated a candle which was on the mantelpiece, unlit. I picked it up.

“This is your knife, Watson,” he told me, rather unnecessarily, but I knew once Holmes got into his stride he would explain everything and leave nothing to chance. “You have been arguing with Mr. Liebert over, ah, well. Over Mrs. Liebert of course. Lestrade, you take exception to something Watson says. You lunge at him, he takes the knife – so! He plunges it into your heart. You fall.”

He waited.
He sighed.
“You fall, Lestrade, if you please!”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Lestrade fell to the ground.

“In the guise of Mrs. Liebert, I faint, so.”

Holmes made a rather convincing swoon.

“Watson, you approach and take the knife – the candle. You place it in my right hand, as did Baudelaire. However, Lestrade!” He tsked, shaking his head. “Had you only checked, you would have found out with minimal effort that she is left-handed. So the idea of her either striking with her right hand the blows that killed her husband, or of, even more fantastical a theory, somehow changing hands before fainting, are so ludicrous as to be not even worthy of contemplation.”

Somewhat stubbornly, Lestrade grumbled “We did think of that, Mr. Holmes. We considered Mrs. Liebert might be one of those people who can use either hand – what do you call them? Ambivalent?”

Holmes smiled thinly. “Ambidextrous. No, she is not. Again, a simple experiment proved this not to be the case when I visited her in Pentonville. You really must take your people more to task, Lestrade! You may get up now, Inspector.” He smiled sardonically as Lestrade scrambled to his feet, brushing dust off his coat. He tutted again, reached inside his jacket, extracted a slip of paper. It was the note – or part of it, at any rate, which he had shown me before. He handed it to Lestrade for his perusal.

“There!” The inspector pointed triumphantly, sure he was about to turn Holmes' clue against the great man. “It says it there, right at the bottom. Love, Frances. A love letter from Liebert's wife to...” He screwed up his brows. “Deschamps? Well, Baudelaire? They were carrying on? Ah yes, I see!” He nodded. “Mr. Liebert found out, challenged the Canadian, who killed him.”

Holmes smiled again.

“Not quite, Inspector. I fear there you do the lady an injustice. If you examine the note, you will notice that it bears no resemblance to Mrs. Liebert's handwriting. She is also unlikely to sign herself as Frances; she does not like the contraction and always uses Francesca, in her correspondence. Fran," he added, with an arch wink at me, "in more familiar terms. But never Frances." You will also note," he pointed at the name, "that our killer, being of - ah, not English extraction, was no doubt unsure as to the spelling of the lady's name. You see, here, he has used an "i" instead of an "e". Francis, not Frances. The male version, a common mistake." Again he arched his eyebrows. "A certain saint from Assisi would not be impressed."

Lestrade shrugged.

“What, then?”

“Well we shall never know for certain,” Holmes said carefully, “for we cannot intrude upon the private affairs of a lady who has now been found to be entirely blameless of any crime, and so her secrets are hers to keep. Were I to hazard a guess though, I would say that the letter was fabricated by Baudelaire, who had become infatuated with Mr. Liebert's wife, and had pressed his most unwelcome and unreciprocated advances upon her. Did you know that Liebert and Baudelaire had worked together in Canada?”

Lestrade shook his head.

“I did not.”

“This was, of course,” Holmes waved his hand airily, “before Baudelaire became the most feared killer in the territory. Oh yes. You knew Mr. Liebert had made his money in timber? Yes of course you did. But were you aware that he had started at the bottom, as a lowly lumberjack, a tree-feller in the wilds of Canada? No? A little research is a wonderful thing, Inspector. I discovered that twenty years ago, the two had been on the same crew, and had become somewhat friendly. He was using his own name then, Francis Deschamps. When the job they had been assigned to ended, each went his separate ways, but after going on a killing spree – the reason for which we will never know now; perhaps the isolation of the Yukon sent him mad – Baudelaire found the territory too hot for him, as Mr. Nilsson, the ringmaster of the circus, would no doubt say.

He managed to cross over the border into the United States, where as luck would have it – bad luck, I am afraid, for poor Mr. Liebert and his wife – he met Nilsson, who sympathised with his situation, though of course the Canadian refrained from clarifying why he was on the run from the law. Nilsson has his own reasons for hating the American legal system, and given the agility and dexterity of Baudelaire – who was of course now calling himself Deschamps – he offered him a position in his travelling circus, as an acrobat. When the circus came to England, he then either met Liebert by chance or engineered an encounter, fell in love with the man's wife (if such a man can be said to even understand the word) who rejected his advances, leading to her husband's murder and she being accused of being his killer, which occurred due to the real killer's quite clever attempt to throw off any suspicion which might somehow lead back to him, placing the knife in the hands of Mrs. Liebert, who had, not surprisingly, fainted at the sight of her husband having been struck down.”

Holmes smiled at Lestrade.

“We have come to the end of our little play, as far as the scene was when you, Lestrade, and your men entered.”

The inspector turned to him.

“Ah, but it is not, is it, Mr. Holmes?” he countered. “It is not as it was when I entered.”

Holmes nodded. “Of course you are right, Inspector. Our little party is one too many. Watson – that is, Baudelaire – was not present when you arrived.”

“So then, put us out of our misery, Mr. Holmes, for the love of all that is good! Where did he go? He can't have vanished into thin air, surely!”

Holmes grinned, turned his eyes towards the fire.

“He did not, of course.”

“The chimney?” We both chorused. Holmes nodded.

“The only other possible avenue of escape from this locked room. I admit, I had not quite worked it out immediately, as in the normal manner of things, and discounting for one moment a certain corpulent figure popular with children, a man could not climb up such a structure.” He paused for effect, grinned again. “But an acrobat? Gentlemen, an acrobat could perform such a feat with ease.”

A stunned silence descended over the room. Then Lestrade burst into a fit of impromptu applause. I joined him.

“Capital, Mr. Holmes! Capital! Though,” he looked a little dubious, “would not the heat...?”

Holmes waved his hand dismissively.

“The fire had not been lit since the previous day,” he pointed out. “The chimney would therefore be relatively cold, or at least not hot. And Baudelaire made his living originally as a lumberjack in Canada. He scaled trees with his bare hands and feet. His skin had toughened to the consistency of leather, as Miss Penny discovered first hand, as it were, when the brute struck her.” He murmured to himself “I really must see she is properly recompensed for the danger I unintentionally placed her in.”

Something had occurred to Lestrade.

“Back in the tent, before he bolted, you mentioned a jacket to Baudelaire.”

“What jacket?” I asked.

“Just what I want to know, Doctor,” agreed Lestrade.

Holmes sat back. I swear, there were times when he could be quite insufferable when he knew more than anyone else in the room.


“I sent Wiggins and his team on an expedition,” he told us. “They were to visit every washer woman in the vicinity and report back when they located the one who had washed a jacket dirty with soot.”

“Soot? But surely...?” Lestrade pointed at the chimney. Holmes grinned.

“Ordinarily, yes, Inspector, such a quest would be pointless, for every sweep in London would be sending his jacket in for cleaning. But you may remember, we are even now in the middle of the longest strike of chimney sweeps in the city's history. Not a chimney has been touched in two months and more. So the only person likely to have that much soot on his jacket would certainly be our killer.”

Holmes turned to me, shrugged.

“Granted, it was only one piece of evidence in a rather long chain I had already established, but our quarry was not to know that. Unaware of his blunder in putting the knife in the wrong hand, ignorant of my knowledge of tobacco, and indeed, completely unaware that his presence in this country had even been detected, he would have seen the sooty jacket as the only thing to tie him to the crime, even assuming someone” - he smiled, self-indulgently - “happened to be clever enough to put the pieces together.”

“Have I left anything out, Inspector? Anything you still do not understand?”

Lestrade shook his head, rising and putting on his hat as he tapped out his pipe.

“No, Mr. Holmes,” he said. “You've laid the case out nice and plain, once you understand the links. Well, I will bid you gentlemen good night. You've done a wonderful thing here, Mr. Holmes. You've solved, at a stroke, seventeen – no, eighteen, if we don't count the trapeze man, for we all saw Baudelaire push him to his death – eighteen murders, unmasked a killer we did not even know was in the country, helped our Canadian cousins and in the process saved an innocent woman from the gallows. I wish to the Lord I had a force of Sherlock Holmeses to assist me in these type of cases,” he grinned. “Or maybe not. Mayhap I would find myself surplus to requirements!”

Holmes offered him his hand.

“Never that, Lestrade!” he declared. “Scotland Yard will always need good, honest, forthright men like you, and I can only be in one place at any one time. You continue to do the good work, Inspector, but never hesitate to call on me should you need me. My door is always open.”

“Speaking of which,” I grumbled, “I should be quite glad to see that particular door. This has been a trying day, Holmes.”

He clapped me on the shoulder.

“But a profitable one, Watson! As Lestrade says, we have not only saved Mrs. Liebert from death, her son from scandal and her good name from being blackened, we have maintained the reputation of her late husband and have also found justice for those seventeen unfortunates killed in the frontier of Canada by that despicable murderer.”

I smiled in reply.

“All the same, I could do with my bed. It is almost ten o'clock.”

Chapter VI: The Real Story

The next morning was a Sunday and I rose late, having no surgery. I was not in the least surprised to find Sherlock Holmes waiting for me, his breakfast long cleared away and the room full of the smell of his pipe smoke. He looked up as I entered.

“Slept well, Watson?” He winked at me. “I think we helped our friend Lestrade as much as we could be expected to, but not as much as perhaps we might have, had we not other... considerations to take into mind.”

I sat down to my breakfast, tapped my spoon against the shell of my first boiled egg. I sat facing Holmes – it would have been rude not to – and carefully watched his face.

“I knew there was more to this case than you told the Inspector,” I said. His face clouded over, the humour vanishing from it in a moment.

“The truth, Watson, is often not only hard to hear, but is something which must be kept from – ah! That will be our visitor!” A knock had sounded at the door, and in walked a lady I had not personally seen before, but knew from the news reports. It was in fact the very woman whom Holmes had just saved from the gallows, Mrs. Francesca Liebert. She looked somewhat the worse for her time in Pentonville, which was only to be expected – her face was drawn and haggard and her eyes looked those of a much older woman – but she was out of that horrible place now, and the healing could begin. I was aware it would be a slow process. Places like Pentonville are greedy and grasping: they retain a part of the soul, even when the person is freed. From what Holmes has told me, and my own experience of patients who have been inside those forbidding walls, it never really lets go, and the damage can be permanent. However Francesca Liebert was a young woman, and her chances of putting it all behind her seemed to me rather hopeful.

“Come in, Mrs. Liebert, come in!”

Holmes helped her to a chair; she walked with a slight limp, a result of the attack upon her by another inmate when she had been allowed out for her daily exercise. I wondered if, considering the fortune left to her by the passing of her husband, we could expect a case to be brought against the Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard for false imprisonment and damage to her reputation? Given how voracious the legal system was though, taking all and giving nothing in return, I imagined she might very well be considering putting it all behind her and starting afresh.

“Words cannot express my gratitude to you, Mr. Holmes,” she began, a light long dimmed now shining behind her troubled eyes. “Had it not been for you...” She dropped her head, leaving the sentence unfinished, though its meaning was clear.

“My dear madam,” Holmes told her, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture, “it was my distinct pleasure. Not only was I able to save you, but in the process, as you may have read, we brought to book a multiple murderer. You were not the only one for whom justice has been seen to be done. Apart from that, and looking at it purely from a selfish, personal point of view, the case provided me one of the most interesting conundrums I have had in my career.”

She looked at him, as if there was something she wished to say, but was fearful of broaching the subject. I had foregone my breakfast in respect to her, allowing Mrs. Hudson to take out my uneaten repast. It seemed churlish of me to sit there and eat while she poured out her thanks to my friend.

“Mr. Holmes,” she began, a tremble in her voice, “Please do not think me ungrateful in any way for the wonderful work you have done in clearing my name, and please forgive what must have seemed like my unconscionable behaviour towards you both times you visited me. But I was given no details, other than that I was free to leave that awful place and return home. If my freedom has been bought at the expense of my family's reputation...?”

Holmes took her hand gently.

“You need not trouble yourself about that, Mrs. Liebert,” he assured her. “Your son – Harold, is it not? In boarding school I believe? Yes, well, young Harold need have no fear. Not a breath of scandal shall touch him, nor yourself. For there is no scandal. The good Inspector Lestrade has been told only those details which allow him to tie up the case and not ask any awkward questions.”

Hope seemed to flush her face, a tiny smile broke out on her features.

“Then... then I have nothing to fear?”

“Nothing at all, I do assure you. As far as Scotland Yard, the public press and anyone other than myself and my good friend Doctor Watson here are concerned, you were pursued and harassed by unwanted attentions from a man your husband knew. This man turned out to be a killer, from whom your late husband tried to protect you, losing his life in the process. There are minor details, such as that Mr. Liebert worked with the man you knew as Francis Deschamps in Canada, but not a scrap of evidence to tie him to the multiple killings perpetrated by he whom we now know to have been the Yukon Terror, Charles Emile Baudelaire. No blame attaches to you, dear lady – in fact, you have the full sympathy of the public, though there may be one or two wagging tongues who will give voice to a calumnious belief that the attentions paid you were not unwanted, and that you were having an affaire de couer with the man who killed your husband. Why, they will ask, did you stay silent when you could just have accused the man who was responsible?”

Her eyes went wide at the sudden intimation of a fresh struggle to fight against, but Holmes held up his finger. I noticed of course that he had tapped out his pipe, knowing from her sister of Mrs. Liebert's asthma.

“I have their answer, madam, and it is one you can use to refute and rebuff such fools who may make such claims. It is simplicity itself. When the door was forced, there were only two people found in the room, with no avenue of escape for a third. This is what you will tell, if you wish to respond to any such allegations, those who accuse you. How could you convince the police that there had been a third person in the room, when to them it was patently obvious that there had not been? What use to protest your innocence when the police had already decided you were guilty?”

She relaxed visibly. “You are correct, of course, Mr. Holmes. However I must confess that I am confused. Where did Deschamps – or, what did you call him? Balaire?”

“Baudelaire. Charles Emile Baudelaire.”

“Quite so. Where did he vanish to?”

Holmes stretched his long legs out before the fire, folded his arms.

“Well, Mrs. Liebert, I will tell you. Dr. Watson knows, but as yet he is unaware of the full extent of the scandal which, thankfully, we have banished, but I think we owe it to him to tell him the full story, do you not agree? I can promise you, it will go no further than this room. My friend is the soul of discretion.”

“Thank you, Holmes,” I said, a trifle stiffly. I could speak for myself, after all. I repeated the assurance my friend had given. I also swore an oath, which is why this story has been held for publication until after my death, and is only to be told when the time has come that such matters no longer cause the furore they did in my day. That time may be fifty years in coming, or a hundred (I pray not so long!) but my will makes it very clear that only when such a revelation as would cause a terrible scandal and cause irreparable damage to a family's reputation can guaranteed to no longer have such an effect, may the story be released to the public. Perhaps, even now, it resides unread in my archives, awaiting a more tolerant time.

Reassured by our promises, Mrs. Liebert began her story. Sherlock Holmes listened intently, nodding when something he knew or had divined was mentioned, frowning when new information reached his ears, and occasionally interrupting the lady to ask a question or clarify a point.

“As you already have found out,” she said, “Peter made his money in America. He was apprenticed to a well-known timber merchant in Philadelphia, but chose to strike out on his own when opportunities presented themselves across the border. In the wild Yukon he joined a crew felling huge swathes of forest, and here it was that he met another young lumberjack, a Frenchman called Deschamps. I don't think he ever knew his first name; the man was close-mouthed and secretive, and always went by his surname.”

“Francis, I believe,” Holmes interjected. The lady nodded.

“Well, it matters not. The two became friends, and, well -” Here her eyes dropped and a flush crept up her cheek. “Perhaps more than that. Peter never spoke of his time in Canada, but I always had the feeling he had a secret he would not, or could not tell me. It seems that one day there was a tragic accident. The men were taking their lunch in a local eating spot, a log cabin set up by one of those enterprising breed of woman who had no fear of the new frontier. But things were certainly rough out there, and probably through no fault of her own, the meat was undercooked. Three of the men developed food poisoning from it, and one died. Deschamps was sick for weeks, close to death's door. When he finally recovered, he swore to Peter that the woman had deliberately tried to poison them, and he vowed revenge upon her. He left the camp that very night. Nothing more was heard of him after that.”

Holmes' eyes were hard. "Go on, madam,” he urged our visitor. She lifted the coffee cup to her lips, sipped, spent a moment breathing the steam from the rim, then did as he bid.

“The next morning the woman was discovered dead, murdered in the most foul and horrible manner. Her two helpers, little more than children, had also been killed. They turned out to be, so I am led to believe by yourself, Mr. Holmes, the first victims of the man who would become known to Canadian history as the Yukon Terror.”

Holmes steepled his fingers and leaned back. His eyes were closed in that half-dreamy state he tended to lapse into when considering ideas. “Yes, I believe he waylaid some poor soul the next day, killed him and planted his documents and wallet upon him, so as to fool the police into thinking it was he, and that he had met his own form of rough justice for the killings. He then changed his name, and vanished into the wilds of Canada."

He made that gesture which again told me he had forgotten he was not smoking his pipe, banished the thought with a slightly irritated look, and looked out the window from where he sat. Outside, the faint sound of children playing, the steady clop of hooves and the occasional shout rose up from the street below. The untamed wilderness of the Yukon seemed at that moment even further away than it was, a world away.

“I have followed the career of this man for years,” he told her, “for crime in all its forms is my passion, and none more so than murder. Of course, I could do little to help. We are a long way from the shores of Canada, and I had not been asked to help the police. Had I received such a summons, I cannot say with certainly that I would have answered it. It is many months' journey to Canada, and I am not at all familiar with the place. I feel I might have been quite out of my depth. I have, however, often wondered what was the spark, the spur that drove this otherwise pleasant man – by all accounts, not least that of your late husband – to become a killer. It fascinates me. In general, a man can get up one day and decide to revenge a wrong, or in some other way commit a crime which may result in murder, but on the whole, one does not simply take it into one's head to murder a large number of people over a wide area for no reason.”

“There are the insane, Holmes,” I offered my semi-professional opinion. I am a doctor, but of the body, not of the mind. Holmes sniffed.

“Doubtless you are right, Watson.” His eyes strayed to the pipe on the mantel, but again out of sympathy for Mrs. Liebert's asthma, he kept his hand from it. “There are those who kill because they are mad, unbalanced, psychotic even. But those sort of people do not generally have the sort of mind that allows them to plan further killings, move from place to place, hold a job, and evade the law for over a decade. Even the infamous Whitechapel Killer hunted in the one area. No, the kind of man who kills many people must have some sort of a reason why he begins, and now it seems we have the catalyst for Baudelaire's crimes. Believing the woman had intended to poison him, he took his anger out on her, and her poor staff.”

It was clear to me that such talk was distressing to Mrs. Liebert, but what also shone through was the woman's fortitude, her determination to have the true story told, even if it was only to be for our ears. Holmes, apparently oblivious to her discomfort, went on, talking as if he were giving a lecture on killers to interested students. I confess that I was intrigued, but I did not believe the subject was a fitting one for a lady's ears. Still, this man had been the reason she had lost her husband and been accused of his murder. It was thanks to his cowardly actions that she herself had been incarcerated in one of England's worst prisons, and had her reputation shattered. I supposed she wanted to know all she could about him.

“From that day, Baudelaire seems to have undergone a change. He developed a pathological hatred of women, believing, perhaps, that they all sought to do him harm, and of the seventeen murders which he is known to have committed – I have no doubt at all there are others which were never discovered or reported, or marked off as accidents or natural causes, not least of them our own poor flower girls recently – fourteen of them were women. The only men involved were either incidental – happened to be there when he made his attempt – or police officers, of which two were killed by this maniac, plus our own brave constable, yesterday at the circus. And the unfortunate who was killed to assume his identity in death. For seven years he blazed a trail of blood and terror across the Yukon Territory, eventually crossing over into the United States of America, where Canadian law could not touch him.”

Mrs. Liebert now took up the story.

“You have told me, Mr. Holmes, that he fell in with a circus crowd, and travelled with them for some years across America. It was with this circus that he then came here, to England.”

Holmes stroked his chin.

“Indeed. I have checked local police reports in nine of the states through which the circus travelled, and have come across a further twenty-four unexplained deaths, twenty-one of which are women, so I think we can take it that our friend Baudelaire was either unwilling or unable to restrain his murderous impulses. But because the circus only stayed a short while in each city, and nobody was familiar with his face in America, his crimes went unremarked and he was able to roam the States, free to kill at will. An interesting story in the Milwaukee Herald for October 1 1889 speaks of a Canadian man whose body was found in Lake Michigan, and though the death was treated as a drowning accident, I wonder if this might have been a tongue silenced, eyes which recognised the face of the infamous killer, and which had to be closed? I do apologise, Mrs. Liebert, I seem to be editorialising. Do go on.”

“You fill in much of the detail of which I was until today unaware, Mr. Holmes,” she told him, then continued. “All I know of the man is of course limited to his arrival in England, and indeed to his time in London as part of the circus. I know he met Peter in some club called the Adonis?”

“Ah, yes.” Holmes looked over at me with a strange expression on his face. “We have had some small experience of this most notorious venue, have we not, Watson?”

Before I could answer, our visitor was talking again, somewhat hurriedly, as if, did she not speak now and tell all, she might shrink from the task altogether.

“There the two men – well, that is to say – they became – close...” She trailed off. Holmes looked over at me again.

“They fell in love, Watson.”

I took a moment to digest this information, frowned, then spluttered my indignation.

“Holmes! For God's sake, man! The lady...”

“The lady,” Holmes said with what to me seemed cold unconcern, “is quite aware, I think you will find, of how things lay. Matters had not been cordial between you and your husband, Mrs. Liebert, is this not so?”

“Again, you are correct, Mr. Holmes.” The lady looked abashed, and a little concerned. “Though how you knew...”

“Elementary, my dear lady. When I visited you in prison I noticed you wore no ring on your finger. Now, that may have been due to its having been removed from you on entry, true; I believe this is standard procedure at all the major prisons, as otherwise jewellery can be stolen by other inmates, or sometimes used to barter for services, or even concessions. Not, I hasten to add,” he looked at her almost kindly, “that a woman of your breeding would stoop to such tactics. But even now, I see your finger remains bare. I also noted that there was a large picture on the wall of the room where your husband met his death. It had been turned around. On examination, this revealed itself to be a wedding portrait. Only someone who has fallen out of love with their spouse does such a thing.”

Mrs. Liebert sighed.

“I cannot deny it. We had not been a proper couple for several years. Peter's interests lay in... other directions. He had male friends call to the house at strange hours, and would not talk about them. I followed him one night when he went out and found he was visiting that club, which I knew nothing of but which you since have told me is called the Adonis Club.”

“Indeed. A club whose membership is highly exclusive, and whose secrets are jealously guarded by its members. A club where gentlemen of similar persuasions can meet discreetly and in safety.”

The import of what Holmes now revealed hit me like a thunderbolt.

“You mean... you mean.. good God, Holmes! Here, in London?”

“A club for homosexuals.” Holmes nodded, Mrs. Liebert buried her face in her hands.

“But surely Holmes!” I ejaculated. “This is against the law! We must inform Lestrade at once!”

Holmes held up a hand calmly.

“Think, Watson!” he snapped, as if irritated by the fact that I had not. “Recall, if you will, some of the names on that list you took down! The great and the good, the scions of noble families, powerful financiers.” His voice dropped to a murmur, his eyes sliding to his left to where the lady still sobbed into her lap. Speaking behind his hand and through gritted teeth he whispered “Members of the government? Do you not realise that to expose such an, um, specialised club would have serious consequences for the ruling class? Perhaps even...?” He made a downward motion with his finger, and raised his eyebrows at me.

My eyes widened. “Bring down the government?” I hissed back, but I could see all at once that he was right. If such news were to leak out, the opposition would have a field day – although my list bore more than one of their members, too! - while many noble families would go under, dragged down by the inexorable weight of a public scandal the likes of which had not been seen since the almost ruin of King Louis XIV and the Affair of the Poisons in Paris in the seventeenth century. For the good of the kingdom, the very existence of that place must not come to the attention of the police, let alone its membership list.

Mrs. Liebert had pulled herself together, and resumed her story, dabbing at her eyes with a white silk handkerchief.

“I believe it was at that damnable place my Peter was reacquainted with that man, would to God he had died in Canada!” The moist eyes were suddenly hard, full of fire, and I considered Baudelaire somewhat fortunate, despite his grisly death, not to have had to face the anger of this most remarkable woman. “He tried to renew the, ah, relationship between the two, and for a time Peter, in many ways a weak man, agreed. But when Deschamps – you will forgive me referring to him as such, but it was the only name, up till yesterday, under which I knew the man – found he was married he flew into a rage. He made Peter swear to divorce me, and Peter, seeing the madness in his eyes, agreed. They met me in the room that morning, ostensibly to break the news and go off together, but Peter, though he no longer loved me, had no wish to involve me in a scandal. He also, I am forced to admit, feared for his business if the truth were to come out. Besides, he told Deschamps he no longer loved him, that what they had had in Canada, though it had been special (she almost spat the word) was over, and that there was no room for him in his life.”

“To say nothing of the laws of the land,” remarked Holmes. She nodded.

“Deschamps assured him he had friends in high places,” she said, and Holmes raised his eyebrows in my direction. “He could smooth it all over, make sure nobody ever found out why he had left his wife. Then did he fall on his knees before Peter, professing his undying love and producing a letter he had written to him. Strange,” she mused, “how a man so cold-hearted and ruthless, who would, according to you, strike down those who got in his way without a thought, could be reduced to the state of a lovesick girl.”

“Love makes fools of us all,” quoth Holmes, rolling his eyes at me, “and softens the hardest heart,”

Mrs. Liebert sniffed contemptuously. “I would say to characterise what Deschamps felt for my Peter as love was stretching the definition to its breaking point, Mr. Holmes. As to the letter, he handed it to him, but Peter laughed at it. Deschamps snatched it back angrily, but it tore, leaving one fragment in my husband's possession. I watched all this with, I do confess, the air of one who is above such things, as someone who watches a play. But then the play became a tragedy.”

She shook as she recalled the events. Holmes rose and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Deschamps raged at Peter, told him he would regret treating him so badly, and produced a knife, which he plunged again and again into my husband's chest. Peter staggered, I screamed and fainted, and that was the last I knew until I was being revived and my husband was dead at my feet. I had no idea how it had happened, and was about to accuse Deschamps when I thought of Harold.”

“Your son. Of course.”

“I asked myself what it would do to him, having his father revealed as a homosexual, a deviant, a criminal? Would not the mud stick? Would the old adage, 'like father, like son' be seen to apply, and would it not destroy his young life? Surely such news would lose Peter's companies most if not all of his business clients, and we should be plunged into penury? Besides, even had I decided to speak up, everyone swore there had been, could have been, no third person. How had he escaped? How could I prove Deschamps had been in the room, and if somehow I could, how would that help us? Better to go to my fate with the family name intact, and allow my son to believe his mother had murdered his father. A black stain, certainly, but it would reflect only on the distaff side, and most likely I would be pronounced mad. Such things have happened before, and the result is not condemnation but sympathy for the son of such a woman. This was my only hope; to remain silent, though it allowed a killer to go free and unpunished, yet save my son from the horrible hand of public scandal and ruin.”

Holmes nodded. “And this is why you would not tell your sister the truth.”

“I could not.” She hung her head. “If Mary had known, she could not have kept silent and seen her only sister die to protect her dead husband and her child.”

I felt I had to interject.

“I think it would be a good idea to let her know as much of the truth now as you wish her to know, Mrs. Liebert,” I advised her gently. “She was – probably still is, even with your exoneration and release – very concerned about you.”

She looked up at me. “I will, Doctor Watson. You are right. I have put her through so much, the least I owe her is an explanation for my behaviour.”

Holmes now took up the narrative, reseating himself and leaning back in his chair.

“The scrap of the letter found in the dead hand of Mr. Liebert was taken, quite erroneously, of course, by the police as having been signed Frances. It was therefore believed to be a love letter, or part of one. This was true: it was. But not from a man to a woman, rather from a man to a man. The signature looks like Frances, but the killer had not closed his letters properly, you see?” He produced the fragment again and presented it to me, pointing at the name which was written at the bottom. “Not Frances, with an "e", but Francis, with an "i". The male, not female version of the name. Francis. Francis Deschamps.”

“Extraordinary!” I breathed, handing the paper back.

“For once, I absolve both you and the police, Watson. I would normally declare such an oversight as poor observation, but not this time. Indeed, I had no clue myself – other than that the letter was, if it purported to be from Mrs. Liebert, a clear forgery, as you never sign your name thus, madam?”

She shook her head. “I detest that contraction,” she muttered. “It always sounds to me like the name of a scullery-maid.”

“Quite.” Holmes smiled tightly. “The true importance of the letter only became clear when our good and brave friend Miss Penny went above and beyond the call of duty that night. She had been asked merely to speak to the men coming out of the club, to try to ascertain its nature. In this she failed, as men who are not interested in women are not to be beguiled by one. She even received a blow from the tough-handed Yukon Terror for her pains, for which I mean to ensure she is adequately compensated. When I consider, in the light of our knowledge now of the true identity of that man, what might have happened...”

He was silent for a moment, reflecting, his eyes narrow, his hand trembling just a touch. It balled into a fist, relaxed.

“But our intrepid lady of the night was in fact more successful in helping me crack the case than I could have ever imagined,” he went on, the dark mood lifting and a triumphant smile coming to his lips. “She relieved him of a paper which she perceived protruding from his pocket and – my word! I had not realised! But of course!” He sat like a man thunderstruck, and there was open admiration in his eyes. “She goaded the man! Watson! She saw the paper, reasoned it might be something important, something I would value – a list of members, perhaps, or some itinerary, or secret communication – and pushed him into striking her so as to get close enough to thieve the thing from him. Well! It appears I have greatly underestimated the courage and guile of that young lady!”

He sat for a moment, shaking his head and chuckling, while both Mrs. Liebert and I watched him in some astonishment. At length, his mirth subsided, and he reached into his coat.

“This is the full letter,” he declared, waving it in the air. “It speaks of the love Baudelaire, in his guise as Deschamps, professed for Peter Liebert. Its language is flowery, but one must expect that I suppose of our transatlantic cousins, to say nothing of his French origins. Reading it, I could see how things lay, and that both Lestrade and I had been on completely the wrong track. Once I knew that it had been a lovers' quarrel between two men, and with Mrs. Liebert still alive, the only possible reason for her not being also murdered had to be to throw off suspicion from the killer and thrust it upon the lady. It was almost a perfect crime. Who, after all, would even think to look in the dirty, musty corners of male love to uncover the real story behind this crime? Who would anticipate such a thing, and who would be brave enough to investigate it? ”

He sighed, his eyes darting to his pipe, as if eager for the lady to leave that he might indulge himself without endangering her. He rose.

“And now the tale is told, Mrs. Liebert. The police have their story, which exonerates you completely without any chance of scandal, and we have ours, the truth, which will, as I have sworn to you, go no further than this room. I think we can, in the main, consider the case closed.”

“Thank you again, Mr. Holmes.” She rose, almost a stately figure now, if one did not look too closely into those haunted eyes. “You have paid me a great service. If ever I can be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.”

Chapter VII: Revelations, Reflections and Ruminations


Holmes would speak no more of the case, yet I felt there was something still troubling him, something he would not give voice to. I knew him better than to force him, though; if he wished to speak of it he would, in his own good time.

It was several days later when I chanced to call in at St. Margaret's. I had a mind to light a candle for the late Mr. Liebert, and the door banged behind me as I entered, the bright sunshine cut off abruptly as I plunged into the half-gloom of the chapel. There was one other person in the pews, up near the front, but he did not turn at the sound, though he seemed, unless I was imagining it, to be marking my footsteps as I advanced up the aisle. As I drew level, I nodded to him, only to find myself looking with astonishment into the eyes of my friend.

“Holmes!” I hissed, as one does not raise one's voice in church. “What the dev – ah, what the blazes are you doing here?”

He gave me a look I found a little too cold for my liking.

“Is not the house of God open to all men?” he asked, something bitter in his tone. I had the distinct impression he was less than pleased to see me.

“Well, yes, of course,” I blustered. “I didn't mean to – it's just that, well, I never saw you in church before.”

His eyes were even harder, the many winters which had pressed down upon him showing in their brittle gaze.

“You and I, Watson,” he snapped, “are not joined at the hip. I go where I will, and I defy any man to tell me I cannot. Just because you have not met me in church does not mean I have never stepped foot inside one.”

I wondered if I should walk on and take a pew on the other side. He did not seem to be in a very good mood, and my own, which had not been all that pleasant before I walked into the church, was turning black too.

“I meant no offence,” I snapped back. “I merely asked because -”

Suddenly, like the sun coming out from behind clouds, a thin smile played over his face and the cold look left his eyes, which now twinkled in a way which reminded me much more of my old friend.

“Do excuse me, Watson,” he apologised. “I was not expecting to meet you. I thought you had surgery today?”

“Wednesday, Holmes,” I reminded him. “Half day closing.”

He nodded.

“Ah yes, of course. I have been so intent on my own thoughts that I forgot. Well, now that you're here you may as well take a seat.” I did so. “Do forgive me, my good fellow,” he offered a second apology. “I did not mean to be so sharp with you. I just – well!” He stifled a laugh, out of respect for where we were. “I would not have you thinking your old friend had gone soft in his advancing age.”

I grinned back. “That is never something which would occur to me, Holmes,” I assured him. “But do you mean to say you are a frequent attendee?”

He shook his head.

“Hardly that, Watson. No, you are correct in your observation that I seldom have need of the church, but I find myself somewhat at a crossroads after our recent adventure, and so I turn to the highest power I can.”

“As you did before.”

Holmes looked at me in mild shock.

“Oh come now, old fellow!” I laughed. “There is no harm in seeking assistance from the Almighty when all other avenues have proven fruitless.”

Holmes frowned, then smiled in understanding.

“Of course. You saw me that morning, the day I went to see Mrs. Liebert in prison.” He stopped, covered his mouth for a moment, bowed his head. I realised with some small annoyance that he was laughing. “Oh my dear chap!” he chortled quietly. “The Good Lord gave me this incisive and analytical brain; it would be poor use of it indeed were I to seek his intercession the moment a case became difficult! A fine return that would be. Oh, do excuse me, Watson,” he gasped as the fit took him again, and he slapped the runner in front of him. “I do not mean to make fun of you, but you have quite misunderstood my reason for visiting here that day.”

I was not amused. “Then pray explain it to me,” I invited him, rather coldly. Hearing the tone in my voice, he gained control of his laughter, wiping his eyes.

“You remember the curate?” he asked. I looked blank, believing he was avoiding the question. “The newspaper article?” he pressed. “About Lord Bailey's accidental death?”

“I recall,” I said, still stiffly, “something about a priest giving him the last rites.” I could not see how this bore upon the matter.

“Oh my dear Watson!” Holmes wagged a finger at me in admonishment. “When will you learn to take notice of trifles? Have we not spent enough time together, have I not shown you enough times how important the smaller things may be?”

My ire was rising a little now. I really felt he was making fun of me.

“The curate's name was recorded in the article,” he went on. “As was his parish, this one. I therefore came here to speak to him.”

I was still mystified. “But why?”

“Watson, he took the man's last Confession. If a man believes, at the last, that he has sinned against the Church and against God, he can be expected to hedge his bets, even if he is not a believer. No man wishes to go into the Great Unknown with a black stain on his soul, whether he credits the existence of one or no. So he will attempt to gain absolution, which is why almost everyone wants a priest present before they pass on. His Lordship would surely have been no different. Knowing he had sinned, he would confess to the priest, in the hope the man would then intercede for him with his maker.”

I scoffed at the idea, which really was not worthy of my friend.

“But Holmes,” I reminded him a little sharply, “you know as well as I do that the Confession is a sacred trust which no priest could or would break, any more than I could reveal the private details of one of my patients, or a lawyer the intimate contents of a client's case!”

“Of course not.” He looked affronted at the suggestion. “I would never expect a man of God to break the sacred seal. But you may recall, Watson, that on more than one occasion I have been, shall we say, able to follow your train of thought without you uttering a word. That time, for instance, when you sat thinking about the Civil War, just before we investigated the curious case of the severed ears. Or when you had decided not to invest in South African mines. A man's expressions, the movement of his eyes, his very breathing can speak in the loudest voice to the man who has the talent to be able to listen and understand the language.”

I remembered well Holmes' almost supernatural power of being able to work out what I was thinking without my so much as moving from my chair, and how it has astonished me. I believe I may have remarked at one point that, had he displayed such acuity a hundred years or more ago, he might very well have been burned at the stake for practicing black magic.

“And what did your powers of observation tell you about the curate?” I was still stinging from the merriment he had had at my expense, but I confess I was fascinated now.

“Not very much, really.” Holmes waved his hand. “Though of course he would not, could not tell me what Lord Bailey's final confession was, nor did I presume to ask, I was able to divine that it had shocked him to his core. The way he crossed himself when I mentioned Lord Bailey – it was more than a priest making the sign of his god. This was a man actively trying to ward off evil. I also noted his hands, red from scrubbing, as if he had desperately tried to wash away the contamination he felt he had picked up when touching the man. The whole episode had sorely tested his faith, and he saw it, I believe, as such a test. His eyes flicked as we spoke in the direction of the cross, and the look told me that he was wondering how our Saviour could have died for such men, too? Then those eyes moved down to the floor, where some stray confetti still adhered to the carpeting, left over from a rather too exuberant wedding in which someone obviously could not wait until the wedding party was outside to signal their favour. This told me that he was thinking of the sanctity of marriage.”

I shrugged, still reluctant to let my bad mood go. But I could feel it would be harder to hold on to the more Holmes explained himself.

“Everyone knows Lord Bailey was married.”

“Yes, but not everyone knows that the marriage was a sham,” Holmes pointed out. “I did not know. Well, I do not interest myself in such things. What are they to me, but useless clutter? What should I care whose marriage is happy and whose is not? Unless it impinges upon a case. In this instance, of course, it did. If Lord Bailey's marriage was not a happy one, why was that? Many reasons, certainly: the man was hardly a paragon. But chiefly, perhaps, the lack of children, as supported by Father Dwyer toying with a bracelet of daisies his youngest daughter had surely made for him.”

“How could you...?”

“Watson, when a father touches something his child has lovingly made for him, especially something he wears, it is a hard man indeed who does not smile. The curate's face was a picture of sadness, therefore he could only be thinking of Lady Bailey's misfortune, that she had no daughters, or sons, to comfort her in her old age.”

I had to admit this made perfect sense.

“So you had the idea Lord Bailey was not faithful to his wife?”

“Not quite. While Father Dwyer may be a priest, he has been so for many years and has been here at St. Margaret's for ten; he is well used to the ups and downs of the marriages of his parishioners, of all classes. He is not a naive man. He knows people stray, fall out of love, cheat. He does not of course endorse such behaviour, be he has become, shall we say, immune to it, to a certain degree. The idea of a peer of the realm seeking solace in the arms of another would not be so trying to him that he would raise his eyes to the Lord in such a pathetic plea. No, Watson. There was obviously far more going on there.”

“But still,” I insisted, perversely determined to pour cold water on his efforts, “none of that surely told you what you needed to know?”

Holmes shrugged. “It helped confirm my suspicions. I have heard, through certain contacts, about the Adonis Club for some time now, Watson, but never knew of its location. Through the auspices of the good Father Dwyer, who had no reason to protect its secret – and, from his face, every reason to assist in its exposure – I learned the name of the street the club is in. At least, he told me where the accident had occurred, a fact which had been redacted by the newspapers, no doubt on the instructions of the powers that be. Once I knew where to look, I was able to put my plan into action, and now my theory has been borne out.”

I considered carefully before asking the next question, but it seemed important.

“What do you think about the whole thing, Holmes?”

He looked at me, his expression unreadable, almost blank.

“For myself,” he said, “I favour neither man nor woman, as you know. My mind is too highly-trained that I should allow it to be distracted by the, ah, pleasures of the flesh. But it seems to me, Watson,” and here he turned serious, his face pensive, “that no man should be able to tell another man whom he can love, and certainly, when the authorities get involved, when such behaviour deemed deviant or aberrant is criminalised, I fear for our poor world. There are places, of course, as you no doubt know, where the relationship between two men is not only allowed but smiled upon, and others where it is barely remarked upon. England has,” he sighed, “a long way to go.”

His remarks had, I had to admit, somewhat surprised me.

“So you would not expose this – this – den of homosexuals? Even though it is illegal?”

Holmes gave me a level look, which seemed to be equal parts scorn and pity.

“Many things are legal, Watson,” said he, “which I think you'd agree should not be. For instance, would have a man hanged over a theft of a few shillings? Of course not. But then you would have a man imprisoned for daring to choose who he gives his affection to? How can that be fair?”

“But the case...”

“The Adonis Club played no part in the case,” Holmes insisted rather severely, “other than as a hunting ground for Baudelaire. Here he no doubt met, or at any rate saw, Lord Bailey, and heard of the man's history with the Lieberts, choosing him as a far better bet to sentence Mrs. Liebert to death. Here, too, he more than likely poisoned Sir Robert, ensuring that Lord Bailey would take his place on the bench. It's possible – though I would doubt it – that he received some shelter from the, ah, homosexual community at that club, but I could not see any of them, especially the more eminent members, shielding a murderer.”

I thought about this.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “he was blackmailing them. Surely none of the higher class members would wish their connection with the Adonis Club to become generally known?”

Holmes considered this. “It is possible,” he allowed. “Lord Bailey may even have been induced to replace Sir Robert as the judge on the Liebert Case, under the threat of his secrets being revealed, perhaps sold to the highest bidder? Having heard how Baudelaire maintained a reign of terror over the circus, it is perhaps not unreasonable to think that he might have similarly cowed the members of the Adonis Club, forced them to do as he said. Of course, many of them are powerful men, and surely his removal could have been arranged. So perhaps we are on the wrong track there. We will, of course, never know. Even getting one of them to admit to the existence of the club, let alone being a member, would take more guile and determination than even I possess.”

“So we just leave it?”

“What harm has been done?” Holmes looked surprised at my question. “If we take away Baudelaire's involvement with the club, would you still desire it closed? Or exposed?”

“Well...” I was determined to stick to my guns, even if it seemed a little bloody-minded to do so. “If it is against the law, then surely we have a duty to report it?”

Holmes sighed, shook his head.

“Watson, who a man loves should be between him and God. No man has the right, in my view, to question that, and certainly not to forbid it. However, prejudice is a terrible evil in our society, the worse when supported by law. I fear that even when homosexuality is decriminalised, as it surely must some day be, if some of the names of the members of the Adonis Club are indicative of those who support it, there will still be those who will take the law into their own hands, threatening, harassing and even hurting those who are different. There has been prejudice practiced for most of man's history against his brother – the Jew, the negro, the Irishman, the Chinaman. Can you imagine a world where state-sanctioned violence against, say, Jews existed? What horror would be unleashed then? It does not bear thinking on.”

I nodded, both my hands on the knob of my cane, my chin resting on them.

“We have already seen,” I pointed out morosely, “how that has worked out for the black man across the water.”

“Precisely.” Holmes was looking straight ahead now, up at the altar, as if appealing to the crucified Christ, or perhaps, like his curate friend, asking was this what our Lord died for, to allow such hatred and inequality? “Men have fought a bloody war over the right to keep others of their race as slaves, for the right to treat them as less than human. Thank God the side of right prevailed in that conflict. But who is to say what waits in the future?”

I shook my head. “You paint a gloomy picture of our prospects, my friend.”

A smile suddenly broke out upon his face and he clapped me on the shoulder.

“As I say, Watson, who knows what awaits us in the future? For myself, I retain the hope that some day, long in the future likely, all men – and women - will stand equal, shoulder to shoulder, as brothers and sisters, and nobody will care one jot who loves who. Everyone will be free to follow his own heart, without fear of reprisal from the law, or indeed outside forces. Sadly though, I think you and I will both long be dust ere such a day dawns.”

We sat in silence for some time, each thinking our own private thoughts. For my part, I was reflecting on the case we had just solved, how tragically it had come to an end – despite being a murderer, it gave me no pleasure to see a man torn apart by a lion, something I had seen more than once when in service in India – and how it had been certainly the most singular I had ever been involved in. A thought struck me, and I hissed to Holmes.

“That explains why you were here, but not why you are here now. Surely this curate can be of no further use to you, now that the case is closed?”

Holmes did not meet my eyes immediately; it was possibly the first time I had seen him be in a state of what I could only call discomfort. He looked like he had something to say, but was not sure if he could say it, or if he wanted to. At length he responded in a low voice.

“When one's perfect world of logic and science no longer makes sense, Watson, it is perhaps no surprise that one seeks out such a place.”

I understood. “You're thinking about the ghost.”

He sighed. “I have built my career, my very life around disproving the supernatural, Watson,” he told me, as if I needed to be told. “I have never believed in it, and even when it seemed there was such an agency involved, I have proven it to be of earthly origin. But this last case has forced me to re-evaluate how I think about such things.”

I nodded, leaning on my stick, staring ahead at the great cross which hung like a massive judgement over the altar. Not a breeze stirred the row of lit candles before it; the very sound of our voices, hushed and sepulchral, seemed to be swallowed up in the all-pervading silence.

“I feel the same way, Holmes,” I admitted, shaking my head. “There is no doubting we were both witness to something, well, inexplicable in Mrs. Fraser's house. I can think of no way that writing could have appeared on the wall before our very eyes, and yet I, too, like you, am a man of science, and prone to dismiss such things. It is proving most difficult though to retain that innate skepticism and scorn with which I usually greet such occurrences.”

Returning to more familiar ground, Holmes began to analyse the issue.

“The first point, the most important, Watson, I think you'll agree, is the question: do ghosts exist? A few days ago as rational, thinking, logical and intelligent men I have no doubt you and I would both have said no, quite obviously they don't. However what we saw brooks no rational or logical explanation, and as we both saw it – along with Mrs. Fraser – it cannot be dismissed as hysteria or some trick. Believe me, Watson, I have spent many hours in the past few days going over every possibility, not only to determine if such an effect could be produced by human means, but also, if it could, to what end? We can discount the killer, who most certainly would not have wished to have put us on his trail, something that only really happened after we read that ghostly message. Mrs. Liebert, of course, wrongly accused, could have motive, but she was locked away in Pentonville Prison, and of her only other living relatives, one was away at boarding school and too young to be able to even conceive, never mind execute such a trick, and the other was standing in the room with us. Could Mrs. Fraser have somehow manipulated some device to make us think that what we saw was a message from beyond the grave? Doubtful. Remember, she fainted when she saw the words begin to appear, and with her agreement I returned to her house the day before yesterday and made a thorough search for any machinery, magic lanterns, or any other chicanery. I must admit I found none.”

I shook my head. “I cannot believe that Mrs. Fraser was responsible,” I declared. “For one thing, even had she been somehow able to communicate such information, from what source could she have had it?”

Holmes seemed to agree. “It was certainly news to me, and badly delivered too, resulting in my mistaking one word for three. And then there was the larger writing which appeared on the ceiling. I should mention also, Watson, in case the thought had occurred to you, that no, the writing is not still there. Mrs. Fraser told me it was gone soon after we left, therefore we can reasonably assume the message was for us alone.”

A creaking sound behind us caused us both to turn at once, as a lance of bright sunlight pierced the cloaking darkness of the church, but it was only some old woman, come to practice her devotions. She sat at the back of the church; nevertheless, we both found ourselves lowering our voices further, and Holmes motioned towards the altar.

“I had hoped to gain some insight into the existence of the spirit world here, Watson, but it seems the Almighty is silent on the subject. Perhaps, at the last, it is a question which even our maker cannot answer.” He sighed, crossed himself, something I had never seen him do, and rose. “Let us light a candle for the late Peter Liebert, Watson,” he suggested, “and be on our way.”



The sunlight was almost blinding as we emerged from the gloom, the sounds of the street welcome after the funereal stillness of the church. As we walked back to Baker Street, Holmes talked some more, his voice now at its normal level and pitch.

“I believe we are forced to accept the unacceptable, Watson, and countenance the existence of ghosts. Or at least,” he smiled tightly, tipping his hat as we passed two ladies, “one ghost.” He turned to me suddenly, pointing with his walking stick at my chest. “Assuming they do exist then, Watson,” he asked me, “why do you believe they remain here?”

I thought about it. Talk of ghosts and the spirit world and spectral messages suddenly seemed rather foolish out in the light of the sun, yet I could not deny that we had both witnessed something neither of us could explain.

“The clairvoyants, the fakirs and the mesmerists would have us believe,” I said, “that a ghost remains on or returns to this – what do they call it? Spiritual plane?” Holmes nodded in agreement as we walked on. “Well, they return to this plane due to unfinished business, something that they had to do before they died, or something they must put right now that they are no longer living.”

Holmes looked up at the sky. The yellow orb of the sun blazed brightly in a clear blue, with a few small clouds seeming to scatter from its burning power. The ground was warm underfoot. All seemed right with the world. Yet there was a troubled look on my friend's face.

“Can we, then, Watson, have been aided by a ghost? The very spirit, surely, of the murdered man, determined to have justice for his killing and save his wife?”

“Save her!” I breathed. Holmes waved a hand impatiently.

“Well of course, once the rather enormous hurdle of belief in ghosts is cleared,” he said, “the meaning becomes clear at once. Who else, after all, would a ghost – the ghost, if we are to stretch credibility to its limit, as we must, of Mr. Liebert – wish us to save? There was no question it was his wife he referred to. I find myself, though, pondering on the death of Lord Bailey.”

“It is true he was the judge in the case,” I pointed out.

“Exactly so.” Again, Holmes looked reluctant to voice his theory, given his usual dismissal of the supernatural. However, he forged ahead, his eyes hooded. “Might it not be too much of a leap to assume a ghost, seeing his wife treated thus by his old enemy, and certainly, it must be said, taking his revenge on her, should contrive to scare him so that he would inadvertently step out into the road and be run over?”

I clicked my fingers.

“Like Baudelaire was lured to the lion's cage at the circus!”

“Quite likely. There is, of course, no proof for any of this, nor any way to test it. Lord Bailey may merely have had one too many and stumbled into the path of the approaching carriage. However I am, as you know, no believer in coincidences, and they pile up in this case, and especially in the matter of His Lordship. Baudelaire, surely, as a circus employee for some years, must have known the danger of backing up against the cage of a hungry lion. These beasts may be trained and somewhat domesticated, but they are still creatures of the jungle, and their predatory blood runs in even the smallest house cat. The smell of a human within reach, to say nothing of the stench of his fear – something it is said animals can sense – would surely have caused the lion to attack him.”

I shook my head, tapped my stick on the ground in front of me.

“So Peter Liebert had his revenge from beyond the grave?”

Holmes smiled, looked up at the sun. It all seemed so far-fetched and so much nonsense, out here in the brilliant sunlight, with all life teeming about. I began to wonder how unlikely it might seem back home, when I extinguished the lamp and turned to bed. Alone in the dark, would I still smile at the idea of a ghost seeking its vengeance among the living?

“We will never know for certain, of course,” Holmes admitted. “However, for my part I feel we might both do well to harken to the words of the Bard: there may, after all, be more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamed in both our philosophies, Watson.”