c. December 1893
He had no comprehension what there was with tea that made it so...palatable. Was it the heat? The momentary burn and then the numbness that followed? Was it the faint flavour? Strains of something old and familiar boiled out of remnants?
He took another sip and frowned slightly when he drained the teacup. It was certainly useful for busying oneself – the cups barely held anything.
He nearly dropped the bone china together on the tray as he stood to answer the knock on the door, nearly sliding down the stairs.
"Dr Doyle, what a-"
"I did it!" He stepped past him into the small anteroom, waving a stack of papers in his hand. "I finally did it, Vernet!"
"Yes. Of course you may come in." He shut the door and slowly turned to face his guest, steepling his hands before him.
"Aren't you going to ask me what I've done?"
"Hm – I did not believe that you would need the prompting." He reached out and took the man's hat and bag, dropping them on a side table and stepping towards the stairs. "I would rather not carry my things down, Arthur – please come up."
The man carefully hung up his coat and followed him up, sitting across from him and absently accepting a glass of water. He spoke as he came, and Vernet listened with a faint smile on his face.
"...never serious – only a matter of passing time. Now that I've other things to do..." He gestured vaguely, and then held up the papers again. "I've killed Sherlock Holmes!"
Vernet stared at him for a moment and then slowly unlaced his fingers and leant forward. "I beg your pardon."
"I've even surprised you! I killed Holmes – he will not detract from me any longer."
"I see..."
The doctor frowned at the papers and dropped them onto the tray. "But I've written it several times and it just will not end." He noticed the water in his other hand and took a drink. "Thank you, Vernet."
"And you come to me for?"
"Your assistance." He leaned back.
"I am not Holmes, Arthur, no matter what you may write – nor is your amateur detective omniscient." He poured himself another cup of tea and curled his legs up onto his chair. "And I am certain that you will find it much harder to kill Holmes than a few scratches of ink on paper."
"I created him – may I not kill him as well?"
"Some things are not that simple – I think that you have outdone yourself in creating such a being."
"He is dead. I will write him no more." He leaned forward again. "But this ending! You read them, I know – how may I do this?"
He glanced toward his bookcase with a grimace. "I read them as it is a waste to burn such well-bound volumes. But I take no pleasure in having my private life and mannerisms-" he ignored the doctor's attempted protests, "written out in The Strand for the entertainment of others. As to accomplishing this, c'est ne pas possible."
"It is."
Vernet shrugged. "Very well – as you like it." He set his cup down, undrunk from; and picked up the papers idly turning through them. "These are horrid."
"Vernet..."
"The writing is as good as ever, Dr. Doyle," He waved a paper consolingly in the other's direction. "It is merely the topic that does the pen an ill turn." He dropped the papers carelessly back to the table. "I fear it is a lost cause – you may be great at many things, Arthur, but at killing Holmes..." He lifted his teacup again and his amusement was bitterly tinged. "That would take a miraculous pen indeed."
"You know him – what would you do in such a situation? What would escape your notice long enough to kill you?"
Vernet coughed the tea back into the cup and dropped it to the tray, glaring at the other. "You presume to much."
"I presume that you want a problem? I give you one: can you write a story worthy of killing Holmes?"
"Non."
"Vernet..."
He sighed. "It will not work, Arthur – they will only demand him back."
"What does it matter? They may read another's fiction."
He studied the doctor for a moment, and then stretched backwards over his chair to pull a sheaf of papers and a pen towards him. After he settled again in his seat, he realised that he had no ink, and stretched back again to carefully pull the inkwell toward him too. Pulling his knees up to support the paper as he wrote, he dipped the nib in the ink and began scribbling – the scratching of the pen the only sound in the room.
He was an absorbed writer. The rest of the world seemed to drop away as he filled the pages, several times nearly oversetting his inkwell. There was an energy about him, a vibration in the usually calmly held and controlled form. It was barely visible, but it was an aura that signalled when he was focusing on something – an energy often present when he worked in the morgue or in the lab, puzzling over some mystery. He wrote quickly, but just as often tore up papers – throwing them over his shoulder to the disastrous desk that held his other writings of science or whatever they were.
There was no simple way to write this. This was to be an end – an end he did not delude himself into believing would be half expected or ever willing accepted. - and it could not be couched in a simple case. It would not be right to kill the consulting detective with an accident – and yet, if it were a criminal that killed the man, then it would leave a fearsome enemy for the force to contend with after his passing. It could not be something forgotten, but neither could it be something ostentatious. Neither were in character with the legend that Doyle had created.
As he wrote, he realised that he had ceased seeing Holmes and Watson and had begun to see...shades.
'In over a thousand cases...' The biographer was writing this case. He was looking back on this story – remembering it from a softening distance that did nothing to soften the agonising pain the scenes still inflicted. With every dip and drag of the pen he tasted the bitterly sweet taste of the smiles and tears that this story evoked.
And so he wrote of his death. He wrote of a death that was to be permanent. He wrote of something that was ever out of his reach, of something that all others feared and fled but that he stood to meet in familiarity. He wrote of something he remembered: of the sweet silence that always followed for a moment, and then the heart-wrenching loss when he took in breath again; when that treasure slipped from his fingers again.
'It is with a heavy heart that I take up this pen...' He was writing of his own death. Literally and figuratively. It was no – closed – secret between the two of them that Sherlock Holmes was inspired by him, and here he had been tasked to write Holmes' death. And so he is pursued by the shadow – but the man hinted at in the cases, the man controlling underground London. A thing painted to be as intelligent as Holmes and certainly enough to control more should he wish to. And if he were Holmes – or Holmes were he – then what could stand against him? What was out of his reach, his equal?
Nothing but death – he frowned as the nib stabbed through the paper into his trousers.
'Never learn it at all...' And yet he struggled with the man – slipping on the edge of a chasm, falling into the endless waters. He couldn't escape, couldn't slip from the man's grasp – he would never be free of the hold. He struggled with Life. He would always return to stand before him, to slip from the rest of Death. The only way to end it was to end them both – to cease to struggle with Life and only take him down as well.
And he would return nonetheless. Perhaps the author meant for this watery grave to be permanent, but Vernet did not doubt that one day he would return. One day, Holmes would walk away from Death with as much carelessness and energy as he ever did, and the consulting detective would be there to shadow his movements once more – never free to sleep in Death.
Vernet finished the sentence with an angry jerk of the pen and dropped the stack in Doyle's hands as he stood. It seemed that to be immortal was a curse that all of him were burdened with. "Leave."
The doctor stood. "Thank you."
Vernet held his breathe for a moment, covering his face with his hand. "He will not remain at rest, Arthur."
"I very much intend for him to."
"Au revoir."
AN: What? Me? Like tea? No... It probably doesn't help that I don't know of the etiquette surrounding other liquids drunk in private, while tea and water are familiar and known to me. So if you wish me to vary it – teach me! And yes, Vernet has returned. Henry refuses to write, but Vernet is fun. Besides, I wanted Vernet's opinion on the fictions. The title obviously comes from the story itself – but I use 'one' in place of 'a' as in 'one of many'. And it seems I follow again in the footsteps of others by revealing Holmes' survival before the sequel comes. All quotes are from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 3-16-2016