His Ardor: A Meitantei Holmes Fanfiction Part 2

by hopefultexts

(yes, read them in order, please ;)) Romantic entanglements with Hound, Irene Adler, Mrs Hudson, and Moriarty. Here Hound and Watson receive an offer of detente that they never expected.

His Ardor:

A Sherlock Hound/Meitantei Holmes Fanfiction

Part Two

By Amber C.S. ("ProfessorA")

A shorter disclaimer this time (read the disclaimer form Part One, for heaven's sake! ** I SWEAR I OWN NOTHING!** )

This work is a hodgepodge of various canonical and alternate universe sources:  The Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (most specifically "The Sign of Four," "A Study In Scarlet," "A Scandal In Bohemia," and "The Final Problem"), the Basil Rathbone film "Terror By Night," the Hayao Miyazaki television series "Sherlock Hound," the Hallmark/Artisan Entertainment Sherlock Holmes miniseries, and especially the Steven Spielberg film "Young Sherlock Holmes."

The character "Lola" and the Blue Raven Tavern are creations of webmaster and fan author "Capper/HoBS" and are used with her permission. 

All characters aside the historically infamous figure "Jack the Ripper" and my fancharacter "Katherine Farrell" (who is copyrighted to ME) are copyright Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; in the case of Dr. Waxflatter and Elizabeth Hardy, and the Rhamme Tep, Steven Spielberg; or, in the case of Polly, Todd and Smiley, Hayao Miyazaki.

~*~

January 1904

Professor Moriarty had long dimmed English streetlights with the chilly shadow of his malevolence. For decades his name was infamous—indeed, for at least as long as Sherlock Holomes and I reunited after my wounding and honorable discharging from the Royal Army in Afghanistan, and for much longer under his false name, "James Rathe."

 The Professor's innumerable organizations extended, as Holmes put it, like the threads of a spider's web, as invisible and yet as effectual as gossamer—through both sexes and all classes of British society.  My companion's wicked former mentor sat shamelessly at the center of this web, spinning and scheming, ordering thefts, forgeries, blackmails, counterfeits, sabotages, kidnappings and even, at rare occasions when pressed, murders—salivating at the thought of becoming the god of all that was the antithesis of decency and honor.  Moriarty, nee "Ethar," was the bastard son of a married Irish nobleman and an Egyptian, conceived in secrecy while his father was abroad on military duty; the man abandoned him as a young boy and died of cardiac arrest a few years later.  A riot and massacre begun by entrepreneurs building a hotel on sacred ground in the boy's home orphaned him of his mother as well. He was sent to his father's parents in Ireland—apparently the scoundrel at least had the decency to provide his illegitimate offspring a small inheritance—but Moriarty's living kin, including his grandparents and the woman who was not his mother but who did bear his two half-brothers, received him coldly.  Moriarty was, Holmes once told me, often abused during his schooling by spiteful English peers who disdained all that was foreign. For Moriarty, unlike other men of his high education and economic situation, Great Britain was a herald of only misfortune and pain.  There was, then, little about the criminal's person that motivated him to a loyal life in the Isles; his loneliness and resentment slowly smoldered into the black contempt that was responsible for his cruelty and deceit towards the innocent among British society. He was a bitter, darkened man. 

But Moriarty was also a genius—the "Napoleon of Crime," my flat-mate deemed the Irish-Egyptian. A genius, to be certain—with no short supply of Holmes's admiration. 

Or his hatred. 

For London crime had been the Professor's monopoly alone. Holmes and I had faced his formidable deeds so frequently in the years that I lived with the detective that our opinion of his character was quite decisive.  He was vile, and, despite bouts of conceit, melodrama, and a deceptive curtain of urbane bearing, deadly.

But lately the Professor had been slipping—emerging from behind the veil of his crime bosses to do the dirty work himself, his countless associates dwindling to three known fellow Irishmen: Colonel Sebastian Moran, Mr. Todd O'Toole, and Mr. Smiley Marrow. Indeed, Moriarty himself, during his increasingly desperate attempts at grand-scale crime, was nearly caught by the persistent but foolish Inspector Lestrade, a man so far below the "private consulting" criminal's intellectual level as to make these events absurd.

 Moriarty's attempts at real profit from his crimes turned suddenly to outright attacks on Hound and myself, with little regard for the consequences to his own person.   He kidnapped our exquisitely charitable and beautiful landlady, a young widow named Marie Hudson, and bribed Holmes and myself for an original DaVinci in the British National Gallery. His efforts failed miserably, and left him curiously gentler, more tender, with her than with past hostages.  Very curiously, such that she herself behaved differently—more listlessly, dreamily perhaps—after Scotland Yard rescued her from his clutches.  This was an unsettling aspect of a truly frightful event, but the crux of the matter was his crashing loss of competence, this time, while facing Holmes's skills.

Twenty-two other cases of equally frantic, and, though admirably grandscale,  fruitless, spite followed in rapid succession—among them an attempt to filch the Rosetta Stone, to sell painting forgeries of Poussin landscapes, to steal the newly developed British Royal Naval submarine, and even the nearly successful theft of the bell of Big Ben.

After a failed attempt to gain an invaluable emerald for smuggling a reluctant bride to her true lover, Moriarty simply vanished. We had not heard of him, of any crime great or small, for the following six months. I even began to doubt his vitality for a short time, but Holmes assured me that he felt the dark professor's presence—that he sensed Moriarty, and that the great criminal, however wounded, was very much alive.

 It was, however, obvious that the Professor felt cornered at last, and would do anything to rid himself of the one arch-nemesis who could match his wit and out-play his hand at any turn.  Indeed, the entire time that I have known him, Holmes has chased Moriarty like a ghost that haunts the deepest essence of being, the proverbial thorn in his side.  For they are like twins, the one evil and the other pure, the one destructive and the other constructive—but both strikingly similar in manner, physical appearance, and obsessive interests in the obscure and the sensational parts of scholarship.  On top of all that, a long history—longer even than the one which I share with Holmes—of mentorship and teaching delivered from professor to detective when Holmes was only a schoolboy, seasoned and complicated the already peculiar, and often uncanny, relationship between the two men with feelings not altogether contemptuous.  I often remarked morbidly, to Holmes, that were Moriarty a good man, then he, rather than myself, would shortly become the detective's flat-mate and boon companion, and I would be scattered to the winds of memory.  Holmes made no accord with this remark.  But neither did he deny it. 

Quite often lately, Holmes confided one night, Moriarty appeared as anxious, spent, and starved as he was malicious. Something strange was afoot.  And we were, to my great chagrin, soon to discover precisely what it was.

~*~

"It irks me beyond measure, Watson!" 

On the afternoon of January 17, the lanky figure of my peculiar acquaintance roared his discontent, flung a sodden, muddy London Times against the rain-streaked window, and tossed his resigned spirit into the sitting room couch.  While I strove to hide my mirth at his spouts of dramatic melancholy, he shoved off his boots, revealing patched socks and several inches of bare ankle where his pants failed to cover his long legs.  At last he seized his forlorn violin from the redwood coffee table, gnawed hard on his ever-present pipe, and scratched a most desolate tune.  Again I tried not to laugh outright. My efforts were transparently shrouded in a cackling snort, veiled by a feigned sneeze.  

"You find my confounded wits entertaining, doctor?" my friend snapped, catching my amusement with the sharpness of an electrotelegraph.  He fixed peevish, narrowed eyes upon my face as I scrambled for sobriety.  "Do you enjoy the fact that I cannot grasp at the location of this nefarious new force?" One gangling foot slammed hard against the arm of the couch as he spoke.

"You speak of this 'Jack the Ripper' fellow?"  Merely mentioning the sinister new being who stalked the murky alleys of the London pubs, business establishments, and brothels, preying on women of poor and sterling moral conduct, murdering them, mutilating their bodies, spilling their life, in order to satiate some twisted sense of vindication, rendered me as somber as a coffin nail. 

"I do."  Holmes's voice had obtained a gravelly texture, as the tone of a man exhausted to the brink of breaking. He ran his hands through his untamed shock of hair, covering his face.

 "Well . . ." I paused, forcing back down my throat the nausea and bile of recalling the crime scene that Holmes and I had been called, by Inspector Lestrade, to visit: In a brothel bedroom, there was blood, blood everywhere, spattered on the walls and across the floor, twisted in the sheets alongside the fishnet hose and the stained red satin dress of the cut-up . . . the . . .  Dear Lord, more blood than I had ever seen on the fields of battle in India and Afghanistan.  As if one corpse of an English woman carried tens of thousands of gallons more of that thick red liquid than ever a whole regiment of British soldiers could.  From the large footprints made in the blood spilled from each unspeakably hideous crime scene, Scotland Yard had detected only that the perpetrator was a man, and that by his usual target of women of ill repute, some mad variant of a sense of moral justice had seized his intentions.  At each murder scene a new gold pocketwatch had been discovered, pointed at midnight, heralding each slaughtered woman's doom. 

Four murders later, my brilliant companion had deduced little more than the bumbling Lestrade.  And with his own sense of morality fully intact, his conscience weighed heavily upon his shoulders with each new victim, as if he believed he were fully capable of unraveling an impossible ingenious plot, and by some sort of mental laziness he had failed to see the one thread of conclusive evidence that could save England's ladies from certain peril.  My friend, I became more aware than ever before, took far too much on his own shoulders.  "Well, Holmes," I finally mustered, "you know what I told you the very first time we worked together. During our 'Study in Scarlet,' eh?"

"Populus me silibat, at mihi plaudo, Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca," my friend  recited wearily.  " 'The people hiss at me, but I applaud myself alone at home when I gaze on my coins in the strongbox.'  By the poet Horace.  And what of it, Watson?  It's not about my own pride against Scotland Yard this time.  It's about protecting the decency of the innocent.  It's about giving the guilty among these victims, too, a chance to reform their ways and gain salvation—not to punish with the earthly hand as if that hand is godly. No man has the right to judge another in so brutish and malevolent a manner as this, and yet my hands are tied, Watson!  My hands are tied, what can I do?  How shall I unravel this?"  He sighed like a man on his deathbed, great bags beginning to collect under his eyelids.

I swallowed hard, and stood from my armchair, striding cautiously to the window, picking up the paper Holmes had thrown to the ground. All over the front page were plastered images of policemen staring in consternation at a new crime scene, and the glaring headlines "Ripper strikes again!" 

"You know," I ventured, "Moriarty always had a fit when another criminal took his spot on the front page headlines.  A bloody fit, Holmes.  How long, again, since we've heard tell of his activities?"

"Watson, what are you getting at?"  A bit of the weight in my friend's voice had lifted to give way for his ample curiosity.

"He'd hate to know another man might kick him off the Hall of Infamy as the Napoleon of Crime.  He'd do anything to put that other man out of the way. And he's a genius like yourself, no?"

"Are you suggesting . . . ?"

"No, not really. Silliness, actually.  To think he would offer to help us."

"I am glad you realize that, old boy.  Moriarty engages in thefts, counterfeits, grand scale jewel robberies.  His aim is never explicitly or solely murder.  He acts on profit as revenge against British society—but, understand, not on any revenge that will offer him no personal gain. You see, if he harms another person, it is only when that person gets in the way of his crooked goals—a speed bump, per se.  He acts on a turf as different from this Jack the Ripper's as a flaming bonfire from hell itself—wicked, when this man, who cares nothing for his own profit except to harm another person, is purely diabolical.  No, Moriarty does not feel threatened by the Ripper.  Not on a 'professional' level, at least."

I shrugged.  "Only a thought, old chap."

"Quite right.  No crime in that.  Ah.  Well, here comes a guest to lighten our spirits now."  The sarcasm in the detective's voice was staggering.  I soon discovered why.

"Oh, my . . . ah, Mr. Holmes?"  A familiar young female voice, delicate but possessing an unspoken undertone of endurance, of gentle determination—it was our landlady.  Mrs. Hudson, a slender, graceful creature—doubtless the subject of every man on Baker Street's covetous fancy—bustled into the drawing room, her seraphim face, always a combination of intelligence, alertness, and youthful wonder, now perplexed.  Even in her harried manner, with her apron, arms and cheeks dusted in flour and spilled tea, she was a breathtaking creature, a widow of 24 years.  As she entered, tiny boots clicking on the wooden floorboards, she struggled to straighten her hair in its bun with a free hand, while balancing a tray of biscuits in another.  "It seems you have a visitor, your . . . charming brother."

"I'll take that, Mrs. Hudson," I offered, leaping to what my eager heart would like to consider her rescue, grabbing the topsy turvy tray. 

Holmes rose from his seat and strode nonchalantly to his chemistry set.  He ignited his Bunsen Burner and initiated what appeared to be an experiment that would involve hours of concentration.  "I'm busy," he grunted.  "Tell him to go away." 

I was stunned, but not altogether disappointed.  The Holmes were not known for familial solidarity.  Rather, the wars of the gods of Greek mythology shrank from competition with the altercations enacted between Sherlock and his older, allegedly smarter, brother Mycroft, a man of substantial money and connections to Her Majesty's Secret Service. 

Connections that he never hesitated to flaunt: with the ostentation of a peacock. 

Mrs. Hudson blinked.  "Well, Mr. Holmes, I . . . I'm afraid he says it's rather urgent.  Shall I persuade him to go, all the same?"

"No," my companion groaned.  "I might as well get it over with."  Angrily he snapped open a bottle of liquid and poured it into a long heated tube, gnawing irritably on the end of his pipe.

"Very well, then, I'll fetch him."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."

Moments later, an enormous man entered.  He was extremely tall like Sherlock Holmes, but portly, with eyes the same gray as my companion's, but beadier, more vermin-like, and the same jutting nose, only curled in a perpetual expression of disdain.  His was a presence accustomed to reverence and respect.  "What is that dreadful odor?" the man, Mycroft Holmes, grunted, flaunting his discomfort by covering his wrinkling nose. 

"Cyanide, or perhaps arsenic," Sherlock Holmes accosted him thinly, "if you choose to stay any longer than you must."  He did not bother to look up from his test tubes.

The older Holmes's meaty brow rose in mock indignation.  "Come now, dear brother, surely you aren't insinuating that your own kin is not welcome.  Particularly when I am here to warn you in a manner that can only benefit your safety."

Holmes, twirling some cloudy, steaming liquid about in a pipette, did not stir; I, however, rose from my seat and fervently shook his brother's hand.  'You are most welcome, Mycroft.  Do have a seat!"

"Don't," Sherlock Holmes snapped, finally tossing the glass tube aside. "Tell me what I know you're going to say now, and be snappy about it.  And for heaven's sake, don't bother our landlady to fix tea and crumpets when your startling arrival caused her to upset and break her favorite pot."  His nostrils flared, belying his icily aloof expression.

Mrs. Hudson, presently seated at the window, let out a small gasp.  Her clear aquamarine eyes widened.  "How did you—" she began.

"Elementary," my companion expelled his tireless credo, forgetting his brother's vexing company during his gleeful explanation.  As he spoke, however, it only seemed to irk Mycroft more. "The stain on your apron seems to become smaller from the bottom of the skirt up, suggesting that you dropped some sort of vessel full of liquid and that it shattered—and splattered—upon impact with the floor, ascending to splash you.  From the distress in your voice, it must have been a scalding liquid, and from the distinct odor of chamomile about your lovely person—well, there you have it, madam."

"Sherlock," Mycroft hissed, wavering there, still unseated, in the doorway, "it is this precise 'deductive impulse' of yours that I mean to control.  You must drop the matter, you know.  You really must.  You know that of which I speak.  Your life depends on it."

"Tut, brother," Holmes chuckled, pacing slow, menacing circles around his kin.  I shuddered—for it never forebode a pleasant transaction when my friend became tenacious. He continued with a smirk, "You're beginning to sound startlingly like my arch nemesis, you know." 

"You would dare associate me with James Moriarty?"  Mycroft fumed, his chubby face gone florid. His hands inadvertently became fists at his sides.

The smirk broadened.  "I don't have to, if your own behavior demonstrates the similarity for me.  Now . . . what was it you wanted to warn me about?  Haven't got all day."

"The thanks I get," the eldest Holmes frothed, "the thanks I get watching out for the bohemian misanthrope of a brother, the only brother that father could never tolerate—being the only kin that can even stomach your intolerable, antisocial arrogance. . . bloody hell, Sherlock!"  He paused for a deep breath.  "Just . . . consider my words, please.  It is the Ripper case.  You must leave him be, brother."

"What? And let you have all the fun?"  Sherlock Holmes withdrew to his sitting chair, slinging his legs up defiantly on the footstool.

"Heed me!" Mycroft pressed.  "Jack the Ripper had no motives, no ambitions, no feeling but to kill.  He is of a level of cunning and wickedness that even your 'arch nemesis,' that infernal, devilish scum Moriarty, can't fathom."

"Must you constantly refer to the Professor in such a manner?"  Mrs. Hudson blurted. 

All of our eyes flew to her form. 

As quickly as she spoke, she regretted it; her cheeks flushed scarlet and a hand flew to her mouth. 

 Mycroft's eyes probed her.  "What is it to you, my dear?" he purred, seducing a confession from her.  His words oozed condescendence.

She clung coolly to her veil of discretion.  "I embrace Humanist principles, and do not appreciate it when a gentleman speaks of anyone else, be he a saint or a criminal, so harshly," she retorted, though something in her tone, however confident and enlightened, seemed evasive.  Perhaps it was how her eyes wandered as she spoke.  It reminded me of the way she had behaved for several days after Moriarty had released her from her kidnapping the previous year.  I tried not to feel disturbed by the association. 

Holmes, too, watched her long after her response, scowling deeply.  It seemed to satisfy Mycroft, however, for his verbal sparring resumed.  "You can pretend to have control over everything that goes on in this city, Sherlock," he growled, "but we both know that you are not bullet proof.  Your flesh can shred as easily as that of those women, and God help me, I'm fond enough of you to care for your well being.  Her Majesty's Secret Service has sent me to explicitly order this of you. If you do not get ripped to a pulp for your meddling, then you'll most certainly dangle from the gallows!  So, try not to let your hubris kill you, and drop the case!"

"You mark me, brother!"  Sherlock Holmes tore across the room and loomed in his brother's face.  One index finger stabbed the air with his passion.  "I never drop a case."

Mycroft's meaty lips quivered with curses that he struggled to mute.  "Jove, Sherlock . . . Fine.  Be it your grave, it won't be on my head."

"Get out, Mycroft." Sherlock Holmes's voice was a steel hiss. " Go congratulate yourself again.  Go tell your wife and our father you've done the noble thing again.  Yes, tell father what a 'disgrace' his eccentric son still is.  I know he's still waiting, but I can't apologize for finding out that he substituted someone else for mother that week when I was fourteen—oh, yes, Mycroft, you know what I mean—you remember his 'business trip' to Devonshire, too."  The younger Holmes scoffed.  "Father can go ahead and hate me for becoming a detective after that night when I realized there was more than there seemed to all facets of reality.  I can't apologize for such an epiphany, and you know it.  Well, what are you waiting for, dear brother?  You spoke your piece, did you not?"

Mycroft snarled.  "I do not deserve this slander.  I warned you, Sherlock, with all good intention—"

"Oh, for the love of God!" My flat mate roared, shoving his brother out the door. "How transparent must you be? Get out!" He slammed the heavy oak barrier in Mycroft's face, groaned, and hobbled back to his chemistry set.  He simply languished there and brooded at the rug. 

Mrs. Hudson and I exchanged looks of bewilderment.  I cleared my throat.  "You . . . alright, old chap?"

"Fine," he snapped, as convincingly as a storm cloud.  Then, his countenance warming from one end of the thermometer to the other, he glanced in our landlady's direction. "Mrs. Hudson, I'm terribly sorry you had to endure that . . . ah . . .conversation." 

"Quite alright," she chirped, smiling her pardon.  She giggled, picking up her embroidery needle.  "I have two sisters and a very opinionated mother who temporarily disowned me when I married Jim Hudson instead of the richer, older suitor that they liked." She shook her head and shrugged.  " I understand, Mr. Holmes."

            He grinned for the first time in hours.  "Thank you, milady."

            There came a hearty rapping at the door, and immediately my friend's expression went rancid.  He ground his teeth.  "Mycroft, so help me, if you dare—"

"Telegram for Mr. 'Olmes!"  A voice wholly unlike Mycroft's, high pitched, interrupted.  It was a male voice, shrill as if deliberately to mask a truly deeper pitch. 

Holmes frowned, darted to the door and opened it.  "Here now, old codger!" he accosted the stooped over old man of silver flecked black fur, stinking of beer and garlic, and bearing an eyepatch and threadbare workman's clothing, as he stood in our doorway.  "What's the meaning of this, barging in here without asking the landlady's permission?"  

"Oh, beggin' yer pardon, gov!"  The aged creature tipped his tattered hat, producing the telegram that he heralded.  " But a gentleman just came ramblin' out the front door and left it ajar, so I just took the liberty, sir, an' stepped inside." 

Holmes allowed moderate amusement to pass over his features, at the thought of his disgruntled brother, before regaining his sobriety.  "Ah, yes, I see.  Well, be quick about it, sir.  Hand me the document."

"Aha! Ha, yes!  Very good, sir, sez I,"  the old Cockney chortled.  "You're of a manner much like the gentleman what told me to take this to ye straight away! 'Tis urgent, man, 'e  sez, and the like.  Yes . . . indeed, good milord.  Tall and dark, 'e was.  Kind o' . . . jumpy too.  Much like yourself.  Only a bit . . . odder." 

I watched Holmes's ears prick at this exclamation, and somehow, in that moment, the eyes of the old mailman seemed to acquire a shrewder, more youthful brilliance.  Almost as if he were baiting my friend.  I gulped back my anxiety, and, out of the side of my mouth, bade Mrs. Hudson dismissal.  She left readily, equally unnerved by our visitor.

"Please do elaborate, my good man," Holmes prodded, keeping his own voice carefully calm.

"Oh, bloody 'ell, sir, I don't rightly recall . . . just a bit skinny and tall, and he had a moustache and a monocle, and a fine cloak an' top 'at . . . white, I think they were, and he spoke rather acidly of you . . . "  The mailman, whom it was becoming clearer every minute was no such thing, began to laugh slowly, menacingly, at Holmes's realization.  "Got yeh," our visitor breathed, voice deepening and shedding its working class cadence.  His grin grew young and demonic.

My friend only smirked back at him.  "Ah, so we meet again.  The Professor hired a good actor when he found a friend in you. . .  eh, Colonel Moran?"

My breath caught in my throat, and I scrambled over books and pipe racks for my revolver.  But Holmes motioned me to hold still. 

Or perhaps it was the sting of bittersweet memory that froze me.

Colonel Sebastian Moran, a dark mirror image of myself as much as Professor Moriarty was of Holmes, had served on my regiment in India while in Her Majesty's Service.  I had known Sebastian, and had grown tragically fond of him—indeed, nearly so fond as I am of Hound—under one of his many pseudonyms:  that of "Major Duncan Bleak."  But after I was transferred from our common unit in India to Afghanistan, Sebastian alias Duncan returned to England wounded by a tiger attack.  He undertook a chemistry and mathematics teaching position at Kings College—despite his professed Catholicism and his disdain for working alongside "right-footer" Scottish and English Protestants like myself.

I had, thus, not seen Moriarty's right-hand man since Hound unveiled his sordid criminal associations during a recent murder case aboard a train—placing the man in ruin in all but the most crooked of social circles.  I can't say, having mentioned my previous affection for Colonel Moran, that I was entirely triumphant following the outcome of that case.  But Sebastian was here now, sneering, authorities be damned, despite the unspeakable trials of a tragic life upon which I will not, for the time being, expound.

" . . . Maybe so, Mr. Holmes," the dangerous man in the haggard disguise purred.  "But garnering praise is not my intention at the moment.  Do read the letter.  It's perfectly harmless, I assure you.  My employer would have my hide if I hurt you now."

"Oh, really? That's rather peculiar coming from a master criminal's chief assassin," Holmes countered.  "But I suppose I have no choice but to believe you."  He took the pristinely folded letter and opened it. 

" 'My dear semi-worthy opponent,' " he began reading the contents, while Sebastian Moran and I locked predatory glares.  Soft, animalistic grunts, at once savage and amused, blew periodically from between the disguised assassin's lips. " 'It has come to my attention that Fate has been cruel to us both, and flung us together in a common ailment.' Hul-lo! 'You are, I am certain, vigorously enthralled in solving the case of this new scum whom the police call Jack the Ripper. I have done my best to sidestep his activities, and have managed well in my passivity for several months, but I am grieved to say that yesterday evening, the heinous crimes of which that man is responsible became personal.  At midnight last, the Ripper found the home of my young employee Smiley Marrow's mother, a new residence here in London, and killed her in cold blood.  The boy has been brutally wronged, sir, and on account of ME, because, according to the note found at the crime scene, the Ripper seems to have found MY presence on his 'turf' threatening. Apparently he is more than a misogynist—he is a bigot, as well, and takes poorly to the fact of my Egyptian blood. 

" "He is a madman, Mr. Holmes: Of that I believe you and I, in all our discord, can at least agree. My honor and my employee's have been egregiously violated.  It calls for hasty vengeance.  I am a scholar, sir, as you know, so I believe that no problem is too great to solve when one is equipped with the correct resources. I find that, much to my chagrin, I can seek no greater resource in solving this matter than YOURSELF.  I propose a truce between us, to be annulled only when we find and destroy the monster that has wronged us both."

"My word!" I mumbled, jaw ajar.

Moran chuckled; for a moment, the growling in his throat abated.  "Keep going, boys.  It gets stranger." 

Holmes cast me a look of equal incredulity, ignoring the assassin's taunts. "Seems you had a good conjecture going this afternoon after all, old boy.  Listen to this, now, here's the crux:  ' Meet my friend and associate, the man who has delivered this message to you, at the Blue Raven Tavern, tomorrow evening at 6 o'clock sharp.  You will find the spot in the Whitechapel District.  He will discuss the particulars of a further dialogue between us then.  And until we meet, good sir, I am, as ever, most sincerely yours,

Professor Moriarty.' "

Holmes and I blinked at each other for a moment.  "What now, old boy?" I wheezed.

"Have we a choice, my dear Watson?"  Holmes shrugged. "We must at least hear the man out."  He turned to address our disguised guest with his final answer.

But Sebastian was already gone—vanished, as if he had never come.  No foot prints, no sound, nothing disturbed anywhere from our room, down the steps, or out the door that still hung ajar.

My fur rose prickly.  This was to be the beginning of an incredible case, indeed.

~*~

The Blue Raven Tavern reeked of whiskey and grease, shrouded in foggy pipe smoke.  It was raucous with the laughter of swarthy mates, the clinking of silver against glass, the spontaneous rise of bagpipes and harmonicas and fiddles to whining or voices to song.  Holmes and I entered the place, observing it from the top step of the entryway, at precisely 6 pm, when the sun had just barely dipped below the horizon of Whitechapel District.

"I do say," I ventured, my throat scratchy with all the odors, "it's a bit unthinkable that Moriarty had his roots in these kinds of rough Irish pubs, what with his pristine ways."

"Ah, Watson!" Holmes murmured, voice quivering with wryness, though his eyes remained cast ahead of us.  "The most fiendish of men are those whose outward presentation masks that which is their most innate substance."  He drew a long huff on his pipe, blew it out in a jet cloud of gray.  "And in any case, it is only half of our dear professor's blood that has seen British soil at all."

"You speak as if I were not already acutely aware of that fact, Holmes."  I gave a sniff that signaled my indignation, following my gangly compatriot around a stack of wooden chairs and past the bar.  Behind it stood a tall, buxom woman clad in a shameless red gown—an Irish wolf maiden with shrewd brown eyes.  She stiffened as we passed, removing and toying with her black lace gloves.  There was something in that seductive stare that I found unnerving.

Holmes tipped his hat congenially at her and spouted a chipper "Evening, Lola," and a look of terrified shock and verified recognition filled her face.  The tip of her feathered hat trembled and she murmured a tense return greeting.  "Lookin' for Bobby again, are you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"  she growled softly.

I started violently, not expecting Holmes to be acquainted with seedy female bartenders.  Foolishly and naively, of course. 

My companion seemed far less interested in the fact that this "Lola" knew his name than he had been when he had first saluted her.  He appraised her coldly, as one would a tarnished diamond.  Then he shrugged, but his voice seethed quiet contempt.  "No, madam.  Just a chat with his hired help this evening.  About a common quandary.  Now, if you'll kindly retract your claws . . . "

"You can't blame me for my suspicion, gov'nor. Got to look out for Bobby's family," she snapped back, planting her hands on her hips.  "Keep them safe of loafin' freaks like you wi' nothing better to do than meddle in private lives." 

Holmes's eyes narrowed to dagger slits.   But he was smiling.

A younger lady approached the bar from behind the nearby stage curtain.  She had creamy canary yellow fur and black-rimmed emerald eyes, dressed barely more demurely and bearing features so sly and delicate that they were nearly feline.  "Trouble, Miss Lola?" she breathed in the ear of the Tavern proprietress, flashing a gaze at Holmes and me.

 "Kat," Lola addressed the appropriately named girl, "you take tonight's show.  I want to keep a watch on our more troublesome customers."  Here she fixed a glare upon my companion that would have sent Goliath cowering.  "Come to find the right hand man, then?"

"The very one," Holmes smirked.

"Over with the sods in the west side o' the room," Lola snarled.  "An' I pray to God he guts ye if you try anything elaborate!" 

"Indeed," the girl mumbled, acquiring a demeanor equating the haughtiness of her employer as she sidled her long fishnet legs past the three of us.  She mounted the stage and began to sing a peppy drinking tune, accompanied by a penny whistle player and by her own shimmying hindside.

Holmes chuckled disdainfully after her and motioned me on. "Peace, milady," he tossed over his shoulder at Lola.  "Professor Moriarty and I have come to a détente of sorts.  Colonel Moran hardly means to kill me on the spot!" 

I did not witness the proprietress's reaction to this snide putdown, for I was too horrified by the realization that "Bobby" was James Robert Moriarty.  "My word!"  I hissed between gasps of fear.  "That woman works f-for . . ."

Holmes's curt smile did not waver.  "Keep watch, old boy," he said.  "I told you that the Professor's connections in London are pervasive.  Hul-lo.  I do believe I've found our target."

My eyes followed Holmes's into the most obscure of corners in the room—the west corner.  There, reclined in his seat, not far enough into the shadows to seem suspiciously sinister, nor far enough into the light to draw attention, was a firm-built, sleek man, his coat the richest of warm midnight black, his tousled mop of hair belying the peculiar high breeding of his dress:  the golden pocket watch tucked into his belt, the stack of fat books piled atop his table.  His short, comely muzzle was buried in a text dissertation of mathematical theorems, but his eyes, markedly yellow-flecked and cunning, soaked in the entire pub in one sweeping stare.  Seeking gain and observing adversaries.  And then he saw us.  But he only winked at me, smugly, and returned to his studies.

I recognized my fellow veteran immediately now, without the mask of disguise.  "Yes.  Yes, I daresay that's Duncan."

Holmes's hand rested on my shoulders.  "No, Watson. That's Sebastian.  You must accept it now—that your friend is in fact the infamous Colonel Moran."

I was a stalwart fellow; still, the peculiar knot in my throat threatened to be released through the salty wetness growing behind my eyes.  "Perhaps we should speak to him now," I croaked, letting Holmes lead, hanging back deliberately.  I composed myself as we reached my former friend's table.  Moran now had his muzzle buried in an advanced chemistry book, a pencil doodling wildly scrawled notes and diagrams in the margins.  He did not look up as he greeted us.  "John.  Such a pleasant surprise.  The last time I saw you and your new boon companion here . . .ha, well, perhaps not counting our little recent exchange . . . you had me carried off a train in shackles."  The voice was a rich tenor, made deceptively charming by an Irish trill.  When I could find no response caustic or sincere enough for the demeaning salutation, the silence provoked him to continue.  "Please, sit.  I trust that this transaction of ours has everything to do with James's proposition?"

I could not help but start, as Holmes and I eased gingerly into the Tavern chairs, at the sound of Moriarty's first name so casually uttered.

"Yes," Holmes slid into the conversation with seamless sangfroid, as though he and Moran were chance conversationalists awaiting a brougham at a street corner.  He smiled—dry, subtly threatening.  "And I wager the Professor has informed you of the import of your honesty in all matters.  I'll thank you to oblige him."

"Or?"

"Or you'll have to deal with me."

Here Sebastian threw back his handsome head and trumpeted a laugh.  "Are you always so cocky with the men who negotiate your safety, Mr. Holmes?" he lilted, condescendingly resetting his spectacles on his muzzle.  "I tend to remember you as a more cautious man."

Behind us, the sultry music of Miss Kat dwindled to a halt. 

Holmes clicked his tongue, dipping his voice lower.  "Tsk, drawing conclusions already, are we?  My degree of caution or recklessness depends on the timing of your recollection, Moran.  I only do what is necessary at the time that it is most appropriate to do it."

  "By God's Nostrils!" the Colonel cackled, smacking shut his books and shoving them aside. The abruptness of it made me jump with fright.  "And old Bobby just said that very same thing the other day! Lord, but you and that ingenious old blighter are freakishly alike sometimes!"

The thought made me squirm; I averted my eyes as Holmes drummed his fingers on the tabletop.  "Making comparisons between myself and my grudging new ally are hardly essential at the moment," my friend snapped, suddenly impatient. 

Sebastian's face fled behind its deadpan mask yet again. "Oh, come now.  Don't you mean your grudging old ally?"

"Reminiscing is not important, either."  Holmes gave no quarter.  "Now, let's talk business, Colonel.  I propose a meeting tomorrow night, if not earlier, between the Professor and me.  No more substitutes—James Moriarty himself.  You must forgive my pickiness in the matter." 

"Oh, quite."  Sebastian's lip quirked, but he gave no other visual indication of the amusement that rippled in his voice.  He tossed his plentiful mop of hair.  "I suppose that means you'd be a bit cross if I sent his older half-brother, one James William Moriarty, in his stead?"  His eyes, behind his spectacles, danced in a jolly way that was not wholly unappealing—a revelation that terrified me even more.

Holmes, however, gave no signs of being beguiled by Sebastian Moran's charm.  "I would be, indeed." 

"Oh, relax, old sod.  Just playing with ye."  The Colonel produced a cigarette from his pocket. "Got a light?"

Holmes leaned forward, eyes drilling holes into our messenger every moment, and puffed a few cinders onto Sebastian's cigarette.  It smoked to life and he dragged on it, long, slow, and cool.  With a gust of gray, he exhaled, "Tomorrow night.  No specific time—the Professor won't be jigging right into some police trap you've set with that idiot Lestrade, you hear?  Just have the evening free—he'll come.  And don't expect him to be alone.  Three men covering him at all times—Marrow, O'Toole, and me.  And just the two of you to keep him company.  Those are the conditions." 

"And they are acceptable," Holmes nodded.  Now was his turn to flash a smug grin. 

I swallowed, shifting weight in my seat.

"Are you that uncomfortable around me, old friend?"  Moriarty's assassin now addressed me, and I wanted so dreadfully to feel that the sadness on his face was genuine. 

Holmes laid a hand on my arm, and I understood the necessity for restraint.  In a carefully flat voice, I retorted, "Time doesn't heal every wound, 'old friend.' Not a wound made by deception, at least."  Eyes stinging again, I looked towards the empty stage.  The Colonel, to my astonishment, did not try to best me this time.  He merely sighed.

"Oh, Sebastian, me darlin', who are you swindlin' now?"  A recently acquainted female voice scolded, making us all start from the tense moment, and the singer named Kat swooped over us, arms and half-bared chest locking around Colonel Moran's shoulders. 

He smiled, for the first time all night, in a manner that did not make my skin crawl. I almost recognized him for the dear friend I once knew as he turned around to kiss the bar sparrow unabashedly on the lips.  And all at once, I understood how Holmes must feel towards Moriarty.  "Just the famous detective Sherlock Holmes," Sebastian drawled, "and my old army buddy John Watson, Kathy-love." 

The woman went taut, seeming to see us there across the table for the first time, her eyes great green pools of alarm.  She shot upright.  "Oh . . .oh dear," she gulped.  "This puts me in somethin' of a quandary."

"Don't bother to introduce us, Colonel," Holmes injected, relaxing for the first time all night—I would be relieved, but my friend was as much prone to bluffing his self-confidence as he was to actually having it.  Nevertheless Holmes slid back in his seat and kicked his feet up on the table, pointedly in Moran's face.  The assassin jerked back and growled that freakish noise low in his throat as the detective recited, "Your name is Katherine Ferrell, evidently alias 'Kat.'  You feel rather conflicted at the moment because your lover, the Colonel here, and your employer, Elena Smith alias 'Lola,' hate me with every fiber of their being, and yet you are dear old friends with my landlady, Marie Hudson.  You have looked after each other through thick and thin, however you have not visited her since you discovered that the man to whom you are engaged . . ." Here my friend nodded at the glistening diamond about the singer's left handed ring finger . . . "as well as your other best friend, Miss Smith, work for the man that is my sworn enemy.  And you are afraid of getting the two of them in trouble should I employ Scotland Yard to trace them to Moriarty.  Am I not correct?"
            The girl averted her eyes in shame.

Holmes whetted his lips.  He puffed on his pipe for a moment before prodding, "Or is there more, Miss Ferrell?"

Attempting to smooth over the extremely awkward moment (the likes of which my friend was excellent at producing), I ventured meekly, "It's a pleasure, Miss, ah . . . Ferrell."

Still the bar singer's eyes were cast at the floorboards.  " . . . I ought to pay Marie a visit sometime soon," she finally mumbled.

"That's it, now," Sebastian cut in, scowling, still grunting deep in his throat.  "Cunning devil, stop interrogating my fiancée.  We've done our business here, and I'll thank you to keep the ladies out of it." 

"Don't insult me like that, Sabby!"  Suddenly the girl turned on her lover harshly.  "I am strong enough to know every detail of this new business between you and Mr. Holmes."  Now she fixed those livid eyes on Holmes and myself.  "And I'm not afraid of either of you.  Tell Mrs. Hudson to expect me to drop by for tea sometime very soon."

"Kat," the Colonel began.

But she slapped his hand away, tidying her hair and jewelry indignantly.  "No.  I am not afraid."  With this she turned on her heel and stalked over to the bar, where she began to gesture and banter into the vigilant Lola's ears. 

Sourly, Sebastian Moran rose to follow her.  Over his shoulder, he tossed, "Oh, before I forget, Mr. Holmes, James had one particular thing for me to tell you—something imperative.  He said you would understand."

Involuntarily, Holmes's chest gave a sharp heave as his breath caught.  "Go on, Colonel."

"He wants you, Mr. Holmes, to make sure that you don't let 'Marie' out of your sight after dark.  Hum.  Interesting.  Isn't that the name, you just mentioned, of your landlady?"

Holmes glowered.  "The very one, Colonel."

An eyebrow rose on Sebastian's mysterious face, making his thoughts momentarily transparent.  "Oh," he said, and gave a low whistle.  "Oh, now I see."  He hooted a short laugh.  "Now I see, indeed!"

            I bristled, and let loose a growl of my own.  "Here, now! What do you mean by that?"

            Now my former friend seemed truly shocked.  He turned fully back to face us.  "You mean . . . you mean to tell me that with all your wit, Mr. Holmes, you two don't . . . know?"

            "Know?"  Holmes hissed.  "Know what?"

            "About . . . well, hell, gentlemen, about them." 

            "Who?" Holmes and I exclaimed together.  But there was a rage in Holmes's voice that made it clear that he already knew precisely what Sebastian intimated.  I wished that I were so swift.  For the Colonel was turning around, shrugging and chuckling low in his throat. 

            "Peace, boys," he cackled, "I'll not have my throat slit for telling his secrets.  You'll find out soon enough how blind you've been, Mr. Holmes.  Ha, a genius you are, eh? Don't know much about the heart, though.  Not a jot."  And with that, and a final puff on his cigarette before dropping the butt contemptuously into Holmes's lap, he left us there to wonder, swaggering and skulking over to the bar and to the two ladies that had earlier accosted us. 

            Holmes's grin returned.  "Mm," he sniffed.  "And so 'the plot thickens,' eh, old boy?"

~*~

TRUST ME, YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THE NEXT INSTALLMENT, COMING SOON!  THANKS FOR READING! ^_^