One evening I was backing out of my surgery, key in hand, when I felt something cold at my neck.
"Inside, Dr. Watson," came a voice so furious that I obeyed without thinking.
The figure slipped in behind me and my eyes were on the knife, which indicated I should lock the door.
My first thought was not that this was a repercussion from one of Holmes' pursuits, as it would have been in previous years. No, I reverted to my frequent obsession: I was sure that this visitor had something to do with my link to the unwholesome Mr. Treacher. It could only be someone who wasn't pleased with being used as leverage in one of the fixer's schemes. I was so busy berating myself for having ever given information to Treacher that I didn't realize the assailant had put away his knife and was staring at me.
"Dr. Watson, you really should be more careful of who you allow to point a knife. Next time it might not be a friend."
For a moment I glimpsed the former Father Bruno's pure smile before me and heard an echo of that gentle voice. Then the Bruno of today closed over that spark. I saw the tense, muscular form dressed in the slim, dark suit of a foreign tough.
"Where is he?" The low, angry voice was the final aspect of the Bruno I had encountered on his visits with Holmes.
"I don't know. I had thought he might be with you." The adrenaline usually caused by a sharp object to the throat had subsided. In its place annoyance rushed through me, and I sat in a chair in my sitting room without inviting my visitor to do so.
"I had hoped to find him." Bruno sank into a chair next to mine. "I must see him," he added more forcefully. "Where else might he be?"
I gestured tiredly. "You should know by now, Bruno, that I never ask Holmes anything. What he chooses to tell me or ask of me, I might or might not share with you, but in this case, there's nothing to tell."
The other man sat there, scanning my face with his penetrating eyes, which, now gray, were so like, yet so unlike, those of his lover.
"If that will be all, I've had a rather tiring day." I made to stand up and a powerful arm shot out to pin me down.
"What does he say about me?" Bruno demanded.
I sighed. "Again, Holmes tells me little, and I don't ask. If you must know, since you left him," here my voice took on its own harsh note, "Holmes has seldom spoken of you. He only desires to keep your relations discreet and to avoid interfering in your business, whatever that may be. Though somehow I doubt that the pope has empowered you to accost tired English doctors at knifepoint."
"Never speak of that which you do not understand!" Bruno snarled. "I came to London expressly to see Sherlock. How long has he been away?"
"I've not seen Mr. Holmes in a week and a half. Since he managed to see you while he was on a case in Trieste and then Bordeaux, not too long ago, I had thought it might be another of his dual-purpose voyages."
"I know that he finished the case involving Lord St. Clair. What has he been working on since?" Bruno pressed. I was surprised he knew of this closely held involvement. "Yes, I make it my business to know what Sherlock does, especially when it is a secret affair having to do with a very handsome, very rich member of the nobility."
The lord in question might be handsome, though I'd never thought of it and was sure the detective hadn't either. What irked me was this ridiculous jealousy. "Holmes has pledged himself to you, and he always does things very thoroughly. You only make yourself unworthy of him by questioning his honor, Bruno."
"One mustn't question the great Sherlock Holmes, is that it? Should I follow your example and treat him as something greater than a man? And I suppose I am to follow him around like you, being his nurse, cataloguing his intake of food and intoxicants, throwing myself in front of attackers and then writing the chronicle of your devotion for all the world to read?"
His total mischaracterization of my relation with Holmes was risible. I laughed for some time while his eyes blazed.
"You think I do not see it when you are hanging on every word of that director you are so besotted with! You look at this 'Mackie' exactly as you do my Sherlock."
This was a step too far. "You may have some legitimate reason for inquiring into Holmes's habits, but you certainly have no claim upon my privacy. You will not speak the name of Dougan MacLeod in one of these tawdry displays. I really must ask you to leave, Bruno. I can do nothing for you." I stood.
The hand that then reached my sleeve was different, imploring rather than commanding. A tear slid down the Italian's face. I took my seat once more and watched helplessly as the inscrutable man wept in silence with a little of the openness he once had.
There was no way I could eject him now that my pity had been activated, so I merely sat there in silence for some time. "Would you like to tell me about it?" The close-cropped dark head shook back and forth. "Is there someone I can contact-the Utrimque perhaps?" He gave a futile shrug at the mention of the gentlest of his secret societies and then a sob and buried his face in his hands.
The cold that had grown up between us in the last two years was beginning to melt.
"Where is he?" he burst out once with more desperation than dominance.
"Bruno, you know Holmes' erratic habits. Our friend could be anywhere, but he will return. I'm sure that if he'd known to expect you he would have made different plans."
There was a hint of reproach in my voice, because after all, who was Bruno to expect his paramour to sit around waiting for one of his visits? My guest did not rise to the bait, however, and merely sipped the glass of water I brought hm.
"I have already asked that so-called Madame Yvette and his other madams if they have seen him with anyone, but they do not tell me anything, the wretches," he said. "They would hear if he had taken anyone to receive the chit from Treacher, or purchased company within their domain. I now put nothing past men, or women either. The world is a terrible place, Dr. Watson."
The other man set down his glass and his eyes probed mine. "I used to think that treating sick people helped you understand better than most, Doctor, certainly better than Sherlock, who sees the type of tobacco-ash on a plate but misses all the important things going on around him. He ignores so much. There are men throwing themselves at him all the time and he claims not to see."
"Perhaps for your sake it is better that he remains unaware that there may be more respectful men out there," I could not resist saying. "Now, Bruno, I implore you. Come back to Baker Street if you must, but allow me to have my after-work whiskey and cigar. Mrs. Hudson will be livid if I am very late for dinner."
"Ah, Mrs. Hudson and the English cooking," he said with nostalgia. "No! I cannot go to Baker Street! Do you have no care for your own wellbeing?"
He looked around my waiting room as if it were a cage he'd been backed into.
I am a doctor and he'd caught me at my surgery, so Bruno should not have been surprised that I searched for some way to alleviate his upset. One of the lessons from his first sojourn in London came back to me.
"Come with me, Bruno. If we hurry we'll get there before the last old lady hobbles in." He gave a look of incomprehension. "I like to hear the music to be found in Roman prayers from time to time, though you will have to supply the beads for the two of us."
The other man rose to watch me turning off the lamps and then followed me out. I hailed a cab and we slid into the pews right in time for evening rosary at St. Etheldreda's.
Bruno had taken me several times before he left London. No one seemed to mind that I sat quietly, listening to the age-old rhythm and trying to understand why it had such a balsamic effect upon my friend.
He had his black beads clacking along with the group and the Latin syllables attained a regular rhythm. Soon my patient—for how could I see a man about to become undone in any other way?—was calmed by the call and response. Bruno took deep breaths as if he had been held in an airless place for too long. He had also told me that he was very affected by the particular smells and sights to be found in holy places, which he always claimed as his true home on earth.
"The church, she is everywhere. I can go to a chapel in a land where I do not know the language and soon I am in her heart," he said to me once.
After the meeting broke up, some of the elderly ladies who made up the majority of the participants waited for a blessing from the old priest. I stood in the back while my friend knelt and prayed for some minutes before the large statue of the Virgin. Then he stood and dropped a contribution in a box that gave him the right to light a candle. I watched him gazing at his devotion blazing along with all the others, and for a moment I saw him as the young boy praying for his shoes to find each other, for a wholeness he had rightly intuited would be difficult to find in life.
When the man came to retrieve me he looked very much calmer than before. "Thank you, Doctor. You understood exactly what I needed. The pope, too, finds a great solace in the rosary. I have attended, several times, a meeting such as this led by His Holiness Leo."
He took my elbow and we walked into the dark streets. "You have not told me very much about your activities. Do you see the pope often?" I inquired.
"More than most people ever do, although he is an extremely busy man, and my group is only one of the many arms by which he reaches the international arena. I have told you of his reverence for science, have I not?" I assented. Holmes had more than once spoken of this very modern pope who made Bruno's activities seem more comprehensible to his eyes. "Our Pope Leo is the very man to lead the church back to its proper place. He is interested in everything, as the church should be."
This speech, which had started off in great reverence, trailed off into a murmur.
I stopped our aimless walk to lay a hand on his arm. "Bruno, I used to think we were friends, and I'd be a friend to you now if you'd let me. Once before I offered to be a listening ear. Then, as now, I had no idea what might really be weighing on your heart, but a true ally does not need to know everything. Please consider confiding in me, because a doctor, much like a priest, knows when someone is at the limit of their stamina."
His changeable eyes had gone very green, and their large, dark centres scanned mine as if swimming from his depths directly to my own. For a moment, he was the gifted priest looking at me from some vantage point far beyond the terrestrial, yet at the same time, right from the warm, liquid center of that same earth.
"I will take that under advisement, Dr. Watson. Thank you. But I would rather take you out for dinner as a way to make up for pointing my knife at you. I have not had very much of an appetite of late, but your tending to my spiritual needs makes me realize I am hungry."
He helped me into the cab, mindful, as he used to be, of my injury. This has happened several times before, the return of the solicitous Bruno, for he would occasionally seek out my company and take me to a museum or on a walk as if we were still close. This time we talked of London along the way until the carriage let us off in a section of town largely taken over by Italian immigrants. Ever solicitous, Bruno helped me down and then put his arm around my shoulders to steer me around a beggar stretching out his cup from the sidewalk.
We walked a little ways until Bruno finally stopped at a small Italian restaurant. They seemed to know him well, and he became truly relaxed while conversing in Italian with the servers and eventually the proprietor who appeared from the kitchen.
At first conversation was difficult for us, as I was afraid to ask him anything about his various societies, and I wished not to remind him about the absent Holmes. We turned our eyes to the past, then, and relived some of the cases the three of us had solved in those easy days while he lived with his paramour in the artist's den.
"I had thought you would never forgive me for being a thief, Doctor," Bruno confided as we finished a glass of wine. "You are my confessor of sorts, since Holmes' morality is completely unpredictable," his brow lowered. "But you, you didn't forget my redirection of that necklace until it all had been resolved. I saw it in your eyes for over a year before you forgave me."
My opinion of Holmes' irritable lover had been steadily declining in the three years since he'd been gone, but I had no wish to say this aloud. "Whatever could you mean? How were the Pope's Medallions 'resolved' if you never managed to recover them?"
Bruno uttered some phrase in Italian. "Perhaps my Holmes is faithful, after all," he said. "I am amazed that he did not tell you that a well-known businessman bequeathed a historical artifact to the Vatican over a year ago. A Catholic giving something to the pope is not very remarkable, and thus the act was never mentioned in your English papers."
"A historical artifact? You mean you found who bought the necklace and he was convinced to return it to the Vatican." For a moment it felt like a triumph after all our work, and then hurt crept into my voice. "This happened some time ago?"
My companion smiled proudly. "I did not tell Sherlock to keep this news from you. Rather, I expected him to tell you because it was our first and most significant case together of sorts. And I am quite sure we would not have had such an easy line of provenance without your research, Doctor. But it seems my lover was very faithfully heeding my instruction to that he not mention certain details of my work."
"Holmes is absolutely faithful, Bruno, you worry me when you say otherwise," I said once more, but my companion was savoring this proof of his lover's obedience.
The waiter had come up to us to inquire about more wine or a pastry, but then he and Bruno began talking in their language in low voices. I had time to wonder why Bruno wanted to see Holmes so urgently, and what sort of succor he hoped for from the great detective.
"This is a restaurant you frequent?" I asked when the waiter left us once more.
"I have discovered it only recently," Bruno said with a peaceful smile, placing money on the table. "Working men are my teachers, as they know much about bearing burdens. I assured him that I walk with him in his."
"You are still a priest, there is no doubt," I said before remembering that this was another taboo subject. We walked outside.
"It has been very nice to see you, Bruno," I said, turning my collar up at a slight chill. He was beginning to blend into his rakish suit and become the sort of foreign man you would expect to carry a knife and go on jealous rants about his lover. There was some truth to this disguise, but for right now I could imagine the warmth we had shared over the last several hours was the real Bruno. "I wish you good luck in your struggle."
He gave me a bitter look. "Which one?" His embrace surprised me, and he whispered "thank you" into my ear. But before I could seek out his face, his fragile strength had slipped off into the night.
I used to trust Bruno to carry his own contradictions easily, but this time was long gone.
Holmes reappeared two days later, full of tales from some case he'd been pursuing in the Outer Hebrides. He deposited a princely bottle of Scotch whiskey on the parlor table and said, "I thank you for receiving Bruno while he was here. He left me a coded letter—you would not believe how complicated his ciphers have gotten!—and told me you had been very good company."
"He has many burdens," I said to avoid mentioning the knife. "I understand him less than ever, Holmes. At least he can be truthful with you."
"Not at all, Watson, you know we endeavor to shut out the world when we're together. What little I know of Bruno's activities makes less sense, and yet he unburdens himself with me more completely than with anyone. That I do offer," he said with a small smile. "But I need not question or doubt him, because I am sure."
This was nothing like Bruno's jealousy. "But he—" I began.
Holmes raised his hand. "Allow me to dust myself off from my journey and we will speak, now that Bruno has given me leave to."
The detective also began talking about Scotland and the murderer he'd helped to expose. He was the owner of a rival distillery who over a period of years engineered the deaths of several members of an old whiskey-making family in hopes of stealing the recipe for their famous spirits.
We made good use of that fantastically old bottle that Holmes had asked for as payment. Our spirits were running high when we turned to the much more complicated case of Bruno, Vatican operative, former priest, passionate lover, and perhaps many more things besides. I related a version of the evening we had spent together.
"Somehow you managed to reassure Bruno that you are not constantly telling me he's no good," Holmes said, waving his cigar. "Since you have your ways of communicating disapproval, Watson, he had good reason to fear it."
"At times I do not like him, or how he speaks about you. Why would he seek out the city's madams for proof that you had stolen off to some brothel? I know you maintain relations in most dark corners of the city, but the implication of what you were to have been doing there is most insulting."
"It's disconcerting, I grant you, when my man slips into these fears, for fears they are," Holmes admitted with a touch of pride. "Here is what I've been able to piece together. By retrieving the Pope's Medallions and a few other accomplishments, Bruno's one indiscretion with a lad back in Spain has been forgotten. After all, there must be many ordained men who indulged in more than a kiss, and were not punished so severely. Our Bruno was privy to the Vatican's most intimate secrets and breaching that trust was taken very ill. But the Vatican did not wish to banish him from the ranks entirely."
"This I know already—" I began.
The detective waved me off. "But still, my friend has to work hard at appearing like an ordinary man. Apparently laymen in service of the Vatican are held to high standards when it comes to physical training and morality, but that morality is expected to have exceptions. To prove he is like everyone else, Bruno is forced to visit houses of ill fame occasionally."
He anticipated my noise of disgust. "Where he lays not a hand on any of the ladies, nor, needless to say, the men. Bruno has resorted to bribery to ensure that an uneventful half an hour was filled with the right kind of cries. He tells the women that he has taken a vow, but he does not say this vow is to me. Other times, the girls who knew him to be a former priest share their tales of woe. As you know, no pure or holy thing usually ever reaches a brothel, and Bruno is so popular his secret is safe."
"I can well imagine a man who still sees himself as a priest hearing a kind of confession at Madam Yvette's," I admitted.
"My Bruno, he knows how to handle himself, but he is still a stranger in society," Holmes said fondly. "You and I have both lived in the world, Watson—you through the army and your practice, I with my activities. Bruno was plunged into the world with little preparation. Many of these soldiers for the Vatican are the coarsest of men, and he has seen a vile side of both sexes that he never had to confront before. His job is mostly diplomacy, much as it was before with the Curia, but it is as though, without his cassock in between, he sees the pettiness of these people whose favor he seeks for the papal cause."
This reminded me of my conversation with the Italian, who seemed beset with sorrow over everything he was learning about the world beyond the church. "I think that his great reverence for the pope has helped sustain him," I said, recalling the warmth and defensiveness with which he had spoken of the pontiff on our last meeting.
"The regard goes both ways, I think," Holmes replied. "The pope himself gave him Communion with his own hand, and has done everything possible to establish that Bruno is an integral part of his secret circle. He sounds like a very intelligent leader, and he could scarcely ignore such a talented young person. It is easier to surrender my companion to this cause, knowing that Pope Leo has some idea of Bruno's value."
Our mood had been roused by the drink, and we entered into vehement speculation about the cryptic message from Mycroft that had been awaiting the detective's return. "Sherlock, consult me about a matter of politics. Bring the doctor," was all it said.
It turned out to be a matter of some importance. A Member of Parliament was suspected to be under the influence of a slow-acting poison that was causing him to act erratically—including throwing in support for some measures that no one could believe he would champion if in his right mind. Alternatively, he could be the target of blackmail.
It was the sort of case that had both of us entirely engaged on parallel investigations for several weeks. I spent my share of it trying to find how a toxin might have been introduced into the man's body, only for us both to be proved wrong. It was a congenital early dementia, but someone who knew the family well had caught on to the early signs of it and exploited it for his purposes.
After that I returned to my practice for two months, almost three. When Holmes requires few favors from me I sometimes help at the police morgue. It was after one of these complex dissections that I returned home, too distracted to notice the unusual silence reigning in the house.
The last thing I expected to see was a young priest sitting in a chair, eyes closed, his rosary running through his fingers.
"Excuse me, Father," I said, and he opened his eyes. "You are of the Utrimque, are you not?"
"Yes, Doctor, I am," the somewhat-familiar fair-haired man said, stowing the beads away.
I had been planning on having some refreshment so I poured us both a glass of sherry. "I don't think anyone from your group has been here before," I said tentatively, searching for a reason for the visit. "Are your wife and children quite well?"
He reddened, "I am not married, though I hope to be someday." He really was very young, I suddenly realized, probably just out of seminary. "Father Enoch sent me. He thought I might be of some service—"
Here Holmes burst in the room, panting as if he'd taken the steps three at a time. "What's happened to him?" he demanded, looking straight at our visitor as if he, for one, had heard Mrs. Hudson's clergy-induced silence. "I've been patient but this is the longest gap in our correspondence—"
"I was just telling the doctor that Father Enoch sent me to help with Bruno," the young man said with the pacific air that Bruno used to wear.
The acknowledgement that there was some trouble made Holmes sink into the nearest chair. I handed him a drink and a cigarette, which he lit with a trembling hand.
"We don't know that there is anything to worry about yet, Mr. Holmes. I'm Father Emil, by the way. I've seen Dr. Watson once in passing at the Utrimque meeting house, but I know you by reputation."
"Emil is a German name, and you have distinctly Germanic features though not the accent. It can only mean he was last known to be in Germany," Holmes said in a controlled voice.
"Yes, that was where he was seen, in my home town of Bremen. My parents brought me up in London but they moved back to Germany recently. Since I am only an assistant pastor, Father Enoch said I could easily take some time away to accompany you and see my sick grandmother at the same time."
Holmes made as if to bolt out of his chair and I restrained him. "Let's listen to Father Emil before we act."
The visitor set aside his untouched glass. "Father Enoch keeps in touch via telegram with other sympathetic groups in Europe and even America. He wishes only to share news about the growth of the movement, rumors of a Vatican crackdown, that sort of thing. Some people are aware of Bruno, though people who have never encountered his pure heart don't know exactly what to think of him." The detective scowled. "It was a priest of the German Utrimque who let Father Enoch know that Father Bruno had gone missing."
While I thought about our visitor still considering Bruno to be a priest, Holmes barked out, "So he's not just gone, he's missing?"
I gestured for our guest to continue.
"Knowing Bruno, he could have simply decided to follow another path, another master, though he had been staying with a Utrimque family and left most of his belongings behind. He is a very complicated person, Mr. Holmes, though I trust him, as do the others in my sect."
"He did refer to multiple battles, the last time I saw him," I recalled.
The detective got up and began pacing. "Foolish, I have been very foolish."
"When was he last seen?" I inquired.
"A week ago." Father Emil smiled at Holmes. "Due to the secrecy in our circles, it's been impossible to ask all the sympathizers in the area if they have seen him, or are perhaps hiding him, because it is known that he had a parting of ways with his Vatican soldiers."
My dear friend bit back an exclamation. I was sure he was as surprised by the news as I was, but didn't like to admit being left in the dark by his lover.
Father Emil continued, "I'm sure you both know that Father Bruno has been unquiet for some time. Perhaps he has taken a prayerful retreat."
"Nonsense. He would have left me word." Holmes halted before the young man. "I have been content to play the supportive role for too long, but I am not some wife to be put off with platitudes! What are you holding back? Those Vatican warriors have no feeling for anyone or anything except their mission!"
That seemed an impolitic thing to say to a priest. "You must know something else, Father, if you came here with the intention of taking us to Germany," I said, having just seen the traveling case in the corner.
"Father Enoch told me when I joined the group that the way out of my doubts and despair was to embrace both sides of myself—the priest who brings the love of God to earth, and the husband who brings love to his wife and children." The priest gave a glance to the pained detective. "What is important is that the priest reaches out to someone with love. That is the Utrimque way, and Father Bruno has been an excellent example of this dedication, Mr. Holmes. You are not the problem, in Father Enoch's eyes."
"Evidently I am not enough to keep Bruno in one place," Holmes said with bitterness in his voice.
"Father Enoch thinks if Father Bruno could be with you more often, it would be like the other priests with their relations—which bring forth calm and comfort to both sides. But then, they are still officially priests, while Bruno has lost something never to be regained unless something very big changes in Rome. And his life must always be secret. This left Father Bruno suffering, neither fully a priest nor able to fully be someone's mate."
"What are you trying to say, Father Emil?" I asked, sensing the sleuth's impatience.
"I don't know, Doctor," he spread his hands out helplessly. "Father Enoch does, but he can't say."
Holmes let out what might have been a gasp or a sob. "Of course, that is why Father Enoch did not receive me personally—he knew I would have been able to discern something from his face, his clothing, his manner of speech and thought that tantamount to breaking the confessional seal."
He scanned Father Emil's face. "It must be something very important for him to even hint at what Bruno might have discussed in one of his penances. I've sometimes thought that his real motivation for coming to London wasn't me at all, but the chance to unburden himself in front of the one confessor he could trust."
I set a tumbler of strong spirit in front of my friend, who never allowed himself to voice doubts like this. He drank it like an automaton.
The priest spoke. "The Utrimque consider you Father Bruno's lawful spouse, and we all take it as our duty to help each other's family."
Holmes looked moved, then he stood up. "It was very kind of you to relay the news that my Bruno is missing, but I believe I know where best to take my investigation, and there I will not need a German translator." He took in our dumb expressions. "Rome. That hotbed of conspiracies that that use up the vigor and good will of men like Bruno."
"I do not recommend taking Rome by storm, but if you insist, you will certainly need a translator," Father Emil objected.
Holmes unleashed a stream of vehement Italian. I knew he had been trying to learn, but was surprised at how fluent he was. "And Watson is my Latin expert," he finished in English. Together we will get to the bottom of this shadowy world quite well, I think."
"What I mean by translator, Mr. Holmes, is that you could never understand the inner workings of the church, not least because you are not a believer," our visitor said. "Bruno is one who has existed in the inner circle, and he has a hard time putting words to what he saw." The young man paused. "I do not think I am the right person to part those veils for you, and you would not be welcome in any case, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson."
I thought it an opportune moment to intervene. "Holmes, Father Enoch is the best of men and he has given what small push he could in the direction of Germany. Let us trust him, and if nothing bears fruit in that realm, then I will book our passage to Italy myself."
The detective strode out of the room and I feared the worst until he called back impatiently. "Do you wish for me to pack your baggage for you, Watson? I'd probably make a faster and better job of it, and we must hurry to make the most opportune connection to the German line."
In no time at all I had made arrangements for colleagues to care for my patients. Then we were, the three of us, hailing a cab to take us to the station to make our way by ferry to Calais. Once in France we reached the station in time to have just made the train leaving to Germany, but after consulting with the ticket agent Holmes held us back.
"We must have a private compartment the entire way to Hamburg," he said while booking our passage on the next train.
"But Holmes, isn't that an unnecessary expense?" I protested.
When the tickets were purchased, my friend thrust mine at me. "You forget, Doctor, that in this case, I am the client. I determine what expenses are necessary, and it is up to you to exactly follow the directions of the consulting detective in my employ."
He stalked over to a bench and abandoned himself to the contemplation of the ceiling.
That confusing comment sent the priest to hide behind his breviary until the next train. I spent the time watching the people milling around the station. There were the usual janitors, porters, shoeshine boys and vagrants selling matches, and they exuded a kind of contagious boredom that helped me nod off for a while.