The Twenty-Nine Minute Adventure

If asked I would have stated with utmost certainty that the events which took place on the 8.23 Reading to Paddington train on the 18th of October 1897 had already been satisfactorily set before the public. It was with utter disbelief therefore that, when I recently came across my hastily scribbled notes of that now distant day in the battered cedar chest with the crimson lining, I should be struck by an equally firm notion that they had not. I present them now lest my old age deprive the world one of the most singular cases upon which I had the privilege to accompany my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes. I say accompany rather than assist for reasons which shall, in due course, become apparent.

Much has rightly been made of my friend's immense intellectual abilities: his recall for one: I once saw him absorb the criminal records for New South Wales in their entirety to memory inside a day. It is this as much as his deductive 'engine', as I came to think of it, that enabled his almost supernatural abilities. His uncanny knack for simultaneously considering multiple possibilities, for systematically gathering facts based upon an iterative algorithm, constantly updating and checking each option versus the facts, then whittling the options down based upon odds and observation until just one option – no matter how improbable that option was – remained. He was also lest it not be forgotten a fine sportsman, as talented with a pistol or indeed his fists when the need arose. All these skills have been documented at length. And yet I find upon recalling the events of that cold October evening one of the few cases which hinged solely upon his – how best I say it? – psychological powers. So often Holmes' methods appeared logical and explainable only in retrospect, and he himself complained that in the explanation so the magic was lost. And yet, even now, as I look back across these many years I confess in this case to still not wholly understanding how the 'trick' was performed.

We were returning from Ellingford Manor in Somerset where, as the reader will doubtless recall, Holmes had successfully unmasked the notorious Jennings gang, leaving them to a fate somewhat worse than the gallows: in the process re-uniting the honourable Marcus Quimby with Lord Draycott's niece Martha, and in so doing identified the cause of his lordship's alopecia. We boarded the express at 8.21 on the understanding it would get us into Paddington just after nine and thence by cab back to Baker Street by half-past for a well-earned supper. As always Holmes was in reflective mood, involved as I knew him to be in filing and cross-refencing his mental records of the case (his recall was famously prodigious, but I alone knew the time and effort he put into developing it). I detected an occasional smile as he came across some particular aspect that pleased him.

An upturned applecart on the station approach combined with the war-wound in my leg made our arrival closer to the time of departure than we would ideally have wished. It was thus with a sense of triumph and not a little relief that we finally took our seats to the sound of the guard's whistle closely followed by that of a fine Castle-Class steam locomotive taking the strain. I turned to see him scribbling some note.

'Another success, Holmes!' I exclaimed, and looking up I saw his face not a little elated.

'Time is that most scarce commodity, not to be wasted!' he replied enigmatically, handing what I took to be a bank note to the guard who had presumably held the train.

'Energy too', I added, breathless from the rush and regretting having availed myself of Lord Draycott's appreciative hospitality. Holmes himself seemed unperturbed, the only sign of physical exertion a slight flaring of the nostrils. I went to remove my coat.

'Oh tush, Watson: it's a short journey, keep it on!' he exclaimed and, a little puzzled, I did. We were not the sole occupants of our compartment for in the corner sat a wide, bullfrog of a man in an olive-checked suit beneath a grey woollen cloak. He wore a brown bowler and leant four-square upon a knarled cane placed upon the floor between large brown boots. These last were muddy and I already imagined the fun my companion would have extracting the man's life story from the slightest visual clues. Upon my gaze he tipped his hat.

'Lonsdale Cadoe, sirs – Lonny to my friends. Delighted to make your acquaintance.'

'Yours too, sir,' I responded by reflex. 'John Watson: Doctor,' I smiled, quite ready to engage in whatever pleasant conversation this gentleman had in mind for the forty-three minute non-stop journey to Paddington. Instead, however, he turned his attention to the carriage window. I glanced at Holmes who hinted an ambivalent grimace in response.

We travelled the first miles in silence, Holmes in distant thought, our companion gazing silently out of the window, pocket-watch in hand as if in a hurry to be somewhere else. For myself my thoughts were wholly upon the pheasant and pickle supper awaiting our return in Baker Street as I watched us pass through Twyford and Taplow in our illuminated cylinder as it cut through the darkening Berkshire countryside.

It was a shock when our companion spoke again.

'Ten minutes,' he announced and, my reverie broken, I rudely stared.

'You are in a hurry?' I asked.

'No sir, I think you will find the hurry is all yours,' and he drew a hand from beneath his cloak. A glint of metal confirmed my worst fears and stayed my hand, for a snub-nosed revolver peered out from a brown-gloved fist. I looked upon it attempting to derive its type, but it was like none I had seen, and for a second I could not even understand it's form. I saw the side of a short, copper-coloured barrel, but I was also looking down the muzzle. How could this be?

'A Twin-Barrelled Derringer,' announced Holmes, calmly. 'A dangerous device.'

'You are familiar with my little toy, Mr Holmes?'

'I make a study of all that is new in armaments. I have heard tell of this device but have not had the good fortune to look upon one until now'.

'Not sure I share your enthusiasm, Holmes,' I replied, intending to go further but before I had a chance there was a loud crack! and I felt a sharp stab in my chest. It tightened and my body froze. Holmes started but Cadoe gestured with the gun.

'Sit down, Mr Holmes. The left barrel contained tranquiliser: both now contain bullets – point four-five calibre. They can fire simultaneously and I am a good shot. Do not test me.'

I heard the words, but it was very strange: I remained conscious but had no control over my body – it had simply frozen. Pendextro-morphine? Some permutation of hydroxyl? At least I could breathe and, with some difficulty, move my eyes.

'A neat party piece. I presume this to be no mere robbery since you know my name?'

'Indeed I do and indeed it is not,' replied Lonny Cadoe. 'Allow me to elucidate.

'I have a problem for you, Mr Holmes. You are famed for your abilities to solve crimes that have baffled the regular police: the so-called consulting detective. Much have I enjoyed Dr Watson's accounts of your running around London, claiming clues, seeing details others have missed. And, of course, of deducing information from the comfort of your armchair. I want to see it for myself: to see you in action. But I am solely interested in that singular mind of yours. I want to place it and you under the microscope. I wish to see you solve my conundrum from the confines of this very carriage and before we reach our destination. The journey time was scheduled to be forty-three minutes but I think a man of your capabilities should only require - what shall we say?' Cadoe checked his watch, 'Twenty-nine? Yes – I like twenty-nine.' He grinned, never letting his eyes drop from where Holmes sat, calm as I ever saw him. For myself I was panic stricken: never had I felt so helpless, yet as always Holmes appeared to take it all in his stride.

'And what is this conundrum you should like my help with?' he asked.

'Oh now that's the clever part,' the man grinned revealing a set of stained, uneven teeth and one silver crown. 'You see Mr Holmes I am not asking you to name the criminal – I will tell you here and now that I am the criminal. The problem that you must solve before we reach Paddington – and you must solve it, let me make that quite clear – is this: just what crime am I guilty of? You have exactly twenty-nine minutes,' he snapped the pocket watch shut, 'starting now.'

My mind reeled: here we were at the mercy of an obviously dangerous man, I immobile, Holmes covered with a pistol. I mentally measured distance, estimated speed: Cadoe was big but muscular beneath his suit. He could obviously pack a punch but surely his reflexes were not the equal of a champion pugilist such as Holmes? I watched my companion's face knowing that beneath the mask he too was performing the same calculations. What did he conclude? He did not move, eyes fixed upon Cadoe. Was he building up to making a move, the calm before the storm? No – I knew that look: he was taking the challenge, already his mind was compiling the clues.

'Are questions permitted?'

'Oh positively encouraged, my dear fellow!' the scoundrel enthused, 'Whether I choose to answer is very much up to me though.'

'You have rules then as to what you shall and shall not divulge?'

'I do.'

'But these too you will not divulge.'

Cadoe grinned. Holmes stared impassively back, for all the world as if he were playing bridge.

'Are lives at risk?'

Again Cadoe smiled.

'I shall take that as a yes. And you will not tell me what the crime is if I ask directly?'

'No,' Cadoe drawled. Was he masking a West Country accent?

'Just thought I would ask,' replied Holmes and now I saw the cogs begin to whirr as I had so many times before. Outside the winter evening had drawn in leaving us bathed in the dim yellow glow of the new-fangled electric lights above our heads.

'So in twenty-nine – twenty-eight minutes - lives may be taken, but if I solve the riddle they are spared.' Cadoe shrugged. 'They are spared?' pressed Holmes.

'Yes.'

'But if I fail they die anyway. And I assume these deaths happen independent of your being there, so even were I to capture or kill you here and now they would anyway go ahead?'

Again that grin.

'Good: then there are our parameters.' I tried to move: how long would the paralysis last? I assumed the full half-hour at least – maybe more. In fact how did I know it would wear off? Suddenly I was possessed of the notion that Cadoe had drugged me with something slow-acting but fatal – that shortly my chest would tighten or my breathing start to constrict. A thousand chemical deaths flitted through my mind and I recognised the early signs of shock. Unable to check my own watch I began to imagine time ticking along: a minute - two? I had begun to sweat. Across the carriage Cadoe sank into his seat as relaxed as could be, pistol never wavering from its dual aims. He adjusted one of the barrels.

'Lonny Cadoe is an alias I assume?'

'Of course.'

In my head the clock ticked louder.

'Well then,' began Holmes then paused. For a split second I thought I saw something I had not seen before – a flicker of uncertainty. His eyes darted suddenly across the carriage, then back. Had I imagined it?

'Well then…' he repeated.

'Twenty-six minutes left, Mr Holmes,' said Cadoe checking his watch. 'You've wasted ten percent of your time! If I'd thought you could solve this knotty problem in twenty-six minutes that is all I should have given you.'

I tried to throw myself upon the bounder but of course my muscles refused and I remained useless and limp in the corner.

'Time is never wasted, isn't that right Watson?' and I saw Holmes' nose twitch. Was this a message? 'You are a country gent…'

'Obviously.'

'The tweed of the suit, the mud on the trousers…'

'…the wear on the cuffs. Come on – time is wasting!'

Holmes smiled indulgently and not for the first time I admired his composure. Was he already theorising? Or planning on throwing himself upon his aggressor trusting to a physical fight? But that would do no good! My mind span.

'Then let us examine the evidence and see where it leads us shall we?' Holmes unhurriedly took out his clay pipe. I continued to sweat.

'Country gent,' Holmes began and Cadoe smiled, 'I think not.' Cadoe's face fell. 'Cheap boots and a bad shave – a gentleman would never choose either. Money certainly: the watchchain could have been stolen, the silver tooth certainly not.

'You chose Lonsdale – 'Lonny' - Cadoe as a pseudonym – what does that tell us? A superficial name with no background, limited knowledge of the important families. You wanted it to sound important – in other words you wanted me to think you important, as you yourself do. How am I doing?'

'Twenty-two minutes. And I want to see your workings, remember.'

'Quite so,' replied Holmes. 'Your suit is good – an excellent worsted tweed – and in good condition, yet paradoxically your boots are worn in several places. Evidence of machine operation, animal hairs, and a habit of kicking the heels together when idle. Set them aside: they may be a deliberate attempt to mislead.'

I could only watch the contest: the eyes of each adversary never left the other. The crime! I wished to shout – what about the crime! But of course I was rendered mute.

'The crime,' said Holmes as if reading my mind, 'let us turn our attention to it. Ego plays its part, no doubt. The name, the suit, your dramatic confrontation with myself suggests nothing less. Death and destruction will undoubtedly play a part. The train itself is most obvious: a derailment, a bomb perhaps, placed upon or beside the track. Yet you would then have to remove yourself before the denouement, and thus deprive yourself of watching me fail, so defeating your own rules. So no, not this train. What then?

'I believe you wish me to see your crime, Mr Cadoe: to witness my failure and your triumph before you take my life also. The timing coincides with our arrival at Paddington – what may we witness? Another train blown up? The station itself?' Holmes paused, looking for a reaction. I saw none. 'No: that is not it. Where is the imagination, the grandeur? You're the kind of man who goes for scale, statement – you have vision.' I sensed him fanning Cadoe's ego, but to what end? For once it would buy him no more time. 'You want this crime talked about. Not only do you wish to defeat me but you wish your name to be known – publicised.

'Aha! You wish your name to be known! To be across all media here and abroad. A crime so notable that it will not be forgotten. You are afraid of being forgotten, Mr Lonny Cadoe. You have lived a life of unfulfilled ambitions. A dominant father? A more able brother?' Was there a twitch in Cadoe's face? 'Both, I see.' I thought the man might crack but the smile remained.

'Nineteen minutes.'

Come on! I silently implored, sweat covering my brow. What devious plot had this man concocted? Pain shot from my shoulder where the Jezail bullet had done its damage in the Afghan war.

Holmes brooded. Cadoe sat in rapt attention, studying Holmes minutely. In his hand the pocket watch ticked loudly as the carriage swayed. A minute elapsed.

'Eighteen.'

Again I strained to move without success: the silent immobility agonising. Cadoe leant forward, eyes wide.

'Beaten, Mr Holmes?' he asked mischievously. His eyes sparkled.

The engine whistled loudly and we plunged into the Danbrough tunnel. For an instant I was sure the lights would fail but life refused the melodrama and we sat in the yellow glow for some seconds before emerging into the twilight.

'Seventeen,' announced Cadoe. Still Holmes sat, finger on lips, legs crossed. His eyes never left Cadoe's face: where was the familiar search for clues - the piece of fluff, the telling stain?

'Fifteen minutes Mr Holmes. I want to hear your workings: I want to hear you stumped!'

Needless to say, I did not!

From the corner of an eye I sensed the familiar glow of the metropolis. What awaited us when we got there?

'Half your time is up. I have to say I was…'

'Silence you bounder!' barked Holmes. Cadoe was stunned and out of reflex raised his gun. Holmes' eyes blazed. 'I know it!' he announced. 'And you will not succeed.'

Cadoe looked shocked, his cheeks flushed.

'Then out with it sir, if you are so singularly confident! What exactly do you think you know?'

Holmes smiled. 'Singularly: indeed,' he murmured.

'What do I know? You travelled to the far-east as a seaman aboard a tea clipper – possibly the Romana Jane – where you developed an all-consuming fondness for opium.' He paused – for breath or dramatic effect I could never tell. 'Hands – sunburn – faded tattoo – pupils,' he said by way of explanation, I fancied, for my benefit. 'The drug followed you home when you returned after – five years? – preventing prolonged employment. You took up teaching – mathematics I believe – as well as sports where you now referee Rugby Football on a part time basis. The boots – a liking for prime numbers, twenty-nine in particular – and a predilection for setting and sticking to rules. You will confirm if I am correct so far?'

'Twelve minutes'. The smile had faded.

'I will take that as a yes, you would not wish me upon the wrong track.'

Did I sense disquiet in those pupils which, now Holmes mentioned it, did show the unmistakable signs of addiction?

'So: your dress tells me you are a man pretending to be something he is not; your scheme that you are unhinged; it's manner of delivery that your ego is substantial. You like numbers, rules and have a dislike for educational establishments. Am I getting warm?'

'You'll need to do better than that, Holmes,' the Mister now discarded, 'much better.' But he was close – I felt it! I also felt something else: my arm – could it be…?

'You have no bag: you travelled from close-by. You set up the crime in London immediately before catching the earlier train out to Reading to meet us. The stains on the bottom of your trouser legs suggests candle wax. But why in such a strange place?'

'Eleven minutes.' Did the voice tremble?

'Again the rules: if I was wrong you would feel compelled to tell me,' replied Holmes. 'I therefore reason thus.' I had seen this kind of psychological shepherding employed before, but never with such high stakes.

'Finally knowledge of modern electrical devices: multiple minute punctures to your fingertips attest to the manipulation of fine copper-core wire, as does the slight green discoloration.

'Thus I deduce that you have planted a bomb; a crowd of people; a visible target from Paddington station which must detonate as we reach it: not a moment before or after. Thus an electronic trigger – you did this alone, there would be no accomplice to share the blame or the glory. An electronic trigger upon the tracks, your eye for detail would have us roll across it just as we reach – no! - just before we reach the platform.' Cadoe unmistakably twitched: Holmes had him!

'You wish me to see it. And in the ensuing melee myself and Dr Watson are shot – there is no silencer on your pistol – and you walk away, knowing you have had vengeance upon the educational establishment that rejected you and beaten one of London's foremost detectives in the process. The headlines will be yours!

'How many minutes to spare?' asked Holmes.

Cadoe looked down at his watch.

'Nine,' replied Cadoe, whose face had taken on a dark countenance. Shadows encircled the once sparkling eyes, and in the deepening gloom I saw the merest flicker of gaslight. The train rattled on.

Then my heart missed a beat: Holmes may have solved the case – but what if Cadoe just shot us anyway? Or else just waited and sacrificed himself. The train was heading towards this electric trigger no matter what, and there was nothing Holmes much less I could do about it! I tried my arm: there was a tremor but that was all.

There was a loud clap: Cadoe was applauding, slowly.

'Oh very good, very good! You know I really didn't believe the hype, but now I do. It's funny: you can read the stories, but part of me always thought Dr Watson here was exaggerating, or embellishing. Putting all the important turns and twists in the hands of your mighty deductive powers. After all – he'd sell no stories if it was a team effort, now would he? But hats off,' and he reached one hand up to remove his hat, keeping the pistol firmly trained on us both with the other. He tipped it, first to Holmes, and then to myself. 'It's been enthralling but,' he replaced his hat and checked the watch, snapping it shut after doing so, 'eight minutes to go, I really must be going. I have a show to see.' I wanted to grab him, shake him!

'I always assumed you would renege upon your own agreement,' said Holmes calmly.

'Oh as you rightly said, Mr Holmes: I make the rules. Make, and also break. I told you from the start I was not an honest man: I never pretended. To you the intellectual spoils, Mr Holmes. But know only that in this tale you have been bettered by a greater man, all things told.'

'You intend to shoot us?'

'Why yes, yes I believe I do. It's a compartment train – no one to pass by, Mr Holmes, not until we reach Paddington. And by then there will be other distractions.'

'Then I shall keep my final deductions to myself,' said Holmes simply. His pipe still burned: a cloud of smoke suddenly erupted as the bowl glowed a fiery red.

Cadoe hesitated. Did Holmes really have a final card up his sleeve, could it yet prevent our deaths? And even if so, the clock was ticking for the people in London – for the bomb at the University.

'And what,' said Cadoe slowly, 'might that be?'

This time it was Holmes who took his time, who gazed implacably back across the compartment.

'You wished to see my workings. Very well: in this case they may help you come to terms with what you may find an unpalatable conclusion.'

Holmes seemed to be playing a last desperate gamble but I, like Cadoe, was now in rapt attention.

'As Dr Watson here would tell you were he able I am a student of many things, but only those which may help me in my work. I study chemistry and biology, I practice hand-to-hand combat; I am a veritable encyclopaedia when it comes to crime but more than anything, Mr Lonny Cadoe, I study people. I study how they dress, how they groom themselves, their habits, their speech and, from their behaviour, the way they think. All behaviour is communication: from every action we may learn something new.'

'So you are an expert in me are you?'

'I believe so. And you are most definitely not what you seem.'

'Go on then,' he sat back down resolutely upon the grey and blue woven seat cushion. He took out and re-opened his watch. 'You have six minutes, Sherlock Holmes: three-hundred and sixty seconds.' I saw a deadly fire in his eyes.

'Let us examine the facts. You challenge me to a duel where the weapons are our minds. You set the drama in a confined space. You tell me lives are at risk and let me guess how and why. You seem in earnest and yet there are strands which do not fit together. Inconsistencies which, for want of a better word, make me smell a rat.'

So engrossed was I that I did not realise the significance of the fact that I could now move the fingers of my right hand.

'Your speech for one: the patterns and inflections, some of the idioms you use – they are strange, and unlike any dialect in this country or any English-speaking one I can recall. You are not an anachronism: you are the opposite: you do not exist: yet.' I was perplexed. 'More especially I do not believe you are the mastermind of this crime – I believe a greater power to be at work.'

A certain name suddenly sprang to my mind, but surely…?

'Then let us look at our environment and immediately some things seem odd. We are in a compartment train and yet there was a guard…'

'Five minutes!'

'I am also intimately familiar with train timetables yet there is not normally an 8.23 non-stop from Reading to Paddington…'

'Well there is today for we are upon it!' shouted Cadoe, cheeks reddening. My fingers successfully curled.

'…and a forty-three minute journey time, even non-stop, is not possible in the year 1897. The seat cover is check where all GWR coaches are plain. And the lighting: that is what really alerted me.'

'What about the damned lighting?' Now Cadoe was sweating.

'Electric – there is no-such equipped rolling-stock yet in existence.'

'Maybe it is old rolling stock!' cried Cadoe and suddenly I wished Holmes would stop goading him – soon I would be able to move my arm, but would it be too late?

'Then there is the repeated use of the word singular, a singular theme do you not agree, Watson?' I was stunned; whatever did he mean? I knew it was a word I possibly over-used but that was in my stories. 'We each have used it multiple times yet it was not such a common word, only in Watson's excellent accounts. Why should we all use it?

I feared Holmes had lost his mind. If only I could reach a little further…

'And then there is the matter of the Jezail bullet. Watson gamely limped along the platform but winced earlier from the pain in his shoulder: which is it?' I was suddenly short of breath. Cadoe only stared blankly.

'I…'

'No, you don't understand. It's a challenging conclusion, I would admit. But when you have eliminated all the other possibilities, then what remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth. And the truth, Mr Lonsdale Cadoe, is that you, myself, this railway carriage and everything around us is not real: we are but characters in someone else's story.'

My mind reeled: what game was Holmes playing? If he aimed to unbalance Cadoe it was certainly working, but if anything I now rather feared he was all the more likely to shoot us and we less likely to be able to stop whatever cataclysm awaited at Paddington.

'No. No no. I'm in control now, Holmes…!'

'You flatter yourself. You are but a puppet.'

'Puppet? Three minutes…Who's puppet?' Cadoe' seemed unsure where to look. His right eye gave a twitch.

'Someone clever but not as clever as they wish to believe. We are mere fictions but they – they are real. Speech patterns: alien, not of this or any previous age thus I conclude they are from some time in the future. How far into it I cannot say, but future nonetheless. Thus they are looking back, using what writings exist of us in their past to construct this tale. And getting some of the detail wrong in the process'

My hand! I could flex it – I felt the fingers wriggle, the wrist rotate! If I could turn it towards my pocket…What was there in my pocket?

'What rot! It is too late for you to confuse me, Holmes: I…'

'You…?'

'I…'

'Cannot speak? Feel a constriction in your throat?' Cadoe made a gagging noise. 'I have taken over the narrative, Mr Cadoe. Now I am in control. You never were, but our author – our omniscient author, just received something of a shock. There he or she sits, pen or future writing machine in hand and he or she is trying to prove a point. They are trying to show me their greater intellect…'

'Two,' muttered Cadoe, 'min…'

My fingers curled inside the fabric…

'…but I have wrested control. You are unable to move, Lonny Cadoe. You are the avatar of one who would play God but has failed. A failed god: how apposite.'

'Sixty….sec…onds,' Cadoe spluttered. I watched in horrified fascination as his forefinger tightened on not one but two triggers!

'It's too late! Too late…!' screamed Cadoe, free hand now clawing at his throat. 'They're all…going to…die!'

'I think not, whoever you are out there. Watson! Brace yourself!'

There was a sudden jolt and I shot forward, just as my fingers removed the cold cylinder from my pocket. A pained screeching met my ears and for a moment I thought it came from the man into whom I had just plunged my beloved Mont Blanc fountain pen. The full weight of my still-drugged body forced it deep into his chest and, my face inches from his I realised the breeze I felt was the life leaving Mr Lonsdale Cadoe.

'Bravo, Watson!' cried Holmes who had managed to brace himself against the opposite seat and now stood over me as the train came to an abrupt halt. Seconds later the carriage door flew open and the familiar figure of Inspector Gregson leapt from the darkness brandishing an electric torch.

'Everyone safe?' he asked.

As the carriage wheels rattled over the cobbles half an hour later I was still struggling to take it all in.

'So you knew? You knew before we even set off?'

'Observation, Watson: that's all. I observe where others merely see.'

My body ached. Most of the movement had returned but sensation in the extremities was somehow distant. It was most odd.

'But we were running for the train – we were on the last minute. How…?'

'Time is precious, Watson: don't let what is urgent distract you from what is important.'

'Which in this case was…?'

'A furtive gentleman witnessing our approach and deliberately entering the compartment we were headed for but from the track-side of the carriage. Suspicious in the extreme.'

'But you surely could not know why?'

'It is not a matter of knowing – it's a matter of probabilities. God does not play dice.'

'What on earth made you instruct the guard before we even started the journey to execute an emergency halt just before we reached Paddington?'

'That's not exactly what my note said. I merely instructed that he should perform one should he not receive a contrary signal from me in the meantime.'

'But why, Holmes, I don't see?' I pressed. I was sore, not least because of the loss of my favourite pen.

Holmes seemed to hesitate as if uncertain. For a second I thought he would not tell me: that on this occasion he would keep the solution to himself. Then:-

'I saw him leap from the incoming train also, and as he did he fell. He dropped a case, spilling its contents, and yet he did not return for them. I saw electrical wire, possibly some phials – nothing more – but it was enough to put me at my guard. To what end could a man be carrying such material on a railway that he should be so in a rush to meet myself that he would forgo it? No salesman or inventor would do such a thing. No: he had been engaged in such an endeavour that was now done and would be done only once. His objective was now to retrace his steps with myself – and you also, of course my dear friend – in tow. From here my logic was as I retraced once inside the carriage: a device or trigger upon the tracks. Where? Well he had just alighted from the incoming non-stop from Paddington thus…'

'…it must be on the tracks at Paddington!'

'Just so.'

'Ah: then I feel somewhat reassured.' Although in reality I was still hazy: something about carriage lighting nagged in some corner of my brain.

Holmes just grinned.

'You hypnotised him, Holmes – that was really quite remarkable. And what about all that being characters in a story business: where did that come from?'

'Oh that? Just my own little fiction, Watson: a ruse to put him off balance. And it worked a treat, did it not?'

The streetlighting flashed beams through the window and across my dear friend's face, throwing his countenance into alternating shadow. Briefly I caught his eye and I would have to say that it was one of the few times I saw Sherlock Holmes unguarded. For an instant I believe – and I say this now that he is long since gone, the days where he occupied the public eye so fully never to return – I saw the real man, and it shocked me. For what I saw was a fearful child: distant, vulnerable and lost, not knowing its place in a big wide world.

'Just a fiction,' he murmured.

THE END.