The girl on the skates is overwhelmed, so full of joy it's like she doesn't exist except to be a vessel for her ear to ear grin, for the laugh that bursts out of her whenever she can't hold it anymore, for her heart swelling up and tunelessly singing his name like praise to angels, forever and ever amen. She lets her route take her down across Primrose Hill, pushing off her wheels at the top and screaming as she descends, nothing but animal noises at first but resolving, wisping up like smoke signals, words forming, "Holmes is alive! I knew it, alleluia, Holmes is alive!"
And people hear her too. She makes sure of it, and makes sure they see her glittering eyes and don't just drop or turn their heads. She grabs strangers in the streets around the park and whispers to them the great secret she would gladly scream to the nation if she only knew how, and dreams that maybe they will go and whisper too, and start it like a river that flows and flows and dam it as you may it will never really stop. She tells them all, but they don't understand. They think the light in her face is just the love of the angel returning, like Jesus gone to harrow out hell and rising up again. Stupid people, but then she shouldn't be surprised. So very vast a majority of people are stupid.
That's not why she's happy.
She's happy because she knows she will very soon be happier. Because if Holmes lives, and he does, and because she's had so much work to do these last days, she knows what's coming. A cautious person would hold back, dream about it, keep their passions secret until they had some proof, but she is not a cautious person. She has faith. She has always had faith and never lost it. A believer? The believers worship the facts about a man they believe to be dead. That's not faith, that's science. Faith is knowing in your heart that you have not been abandoned, even when all seems lost.
Science knows the answer before it begins. Faith can be rewarded.
Molly Hooper was not her first port of call. Three days ago, the faithful one found herself in possession of gifts, and instructions. Holmes was to be given the cards and the phone and the knife, the hotel too, and she was to make herself known. 'Known,' the instructions say, 'and not forgotten. Use your imagination.' She wonders, tonight, if she's done enough to fulfil the second part, hopes so. But before all that, there was more, much more.
She made four other visits, delivering four other jokers, and there she was not to be seen. It was difficult, it was dangerous, but that's what a true believer does, after all. What did it matter to her that the instructions were typed, and unsigned, that there was nothing at all like proof? She doesn't need proof. She knows in her heart that this is the time. She has waited and been so patient and so true and this is the time.
As a matter of fact, it is all too literally the time. Those other four jokers each had an address written on them, and they all said eight o'clock, tonight. She's late. Spent too much time celebrating and dancing in the streets and swollen with righteous joy. That's forgivable, surely, she thinks as she takes off again, flying across London fast as the pigeons do. Of all the sins she might commit against her god, joy must be forgivable.
The other jokers, meanwhile, have all followed orders. They, unlike the faithful messenger, are cautious, logical people, have had to be so as to survive in their chosen professions. But without so much as their playing card invitations to go on, each of them has come. And though they might want to sit here and argue the odds, have a full and intelligent conversation first, this too is a kind of faith.
Moran arrived first. Naturally; he's learned the hard way about mysterious invites. He was here first and waiting in the dark, armed, for whoever might walk through the door. And the location itself, a private room over a better class of bar, well set-out, comfortable, didn't put his fears to rest. He doesn't work with or for this kind of person anymore. He used to, but not anymore. When the door finally opened again, the muzzle of another handgun came first. He almost shot right away, right through the door, gauging headshot-height from the height of the gun, had it lined up and ready. But the hand that crept in to switch the lights on was familiar. A man's hand, but feminine, delicate, lily-white. Wearing the best and newest watch and a titanium ring.
"Charlie?"
Milverton jumped before he managed anything else, one delicate hand balling up to thump his chest. He never did like surprises. And when he flashed the joker he found in his in-tray and Moran flashed one back, he liked that even less. That meant somebody else, somewhere else, was in control. That's his game. He doesn't like finding himself on the other side of it all of a sudden.
And now that the lights were on and the dark reaches of the room were bright, these first two could see the board between the windows. Like a picture frame, curlicues and burnished mahogany, but there was no painting in the frame. Just a background of green baize with four playing cards tacked to it. They approached, passing an open bar on the way. Moran stood, arms folded and gun still in hand, staring at the cards. Milverton stopped to pour drinks and, feeling a little safer in the company of the hitter, tucked his weapon in behind the drip tray. All the better to be kept as a surprise. Just in case.
He carried drinks to the board, stood next to Moran. "Do you know something I don't?"
Bluntly, honestly, "No. You know what it feels like, though?"
"Yes. Of course, you realize the massive logical flaw with that, don't you?"
"Give me a minute, Charlie. I'm still stuck at realizing I don't put it past him."
"What do you want to do?"
"Wait 'til the rest get here."
"How do you know there's a rest?"
Moran held up the playing card between his fingers in line with the first one on the board, motioned Milverton to do the same. "And there's four cards up there. So I'm thinking we're probably only half the party."
And a right little reunion it's turned out to be. Morgan arrived at eight, bang on, and with no gun or other outward sign of protection. But Morgan is three-hundred-and-fifty pounds of Highland muscle, well on the far side of six feet and all of it topped with a head so frequently scarred his hair grows only in patches like jigsaw pieces. Morgan doesn't often come with outward signs of protection. So far, he's brought a much brighter attitude to the whole event, but then, he's easily distracted. Morgan saw old associated and forgot entirely that he does not know why he was brought here, and who he can't help but suspect is responsible.
Still, that essential question hangs over them. "Not to spoil the good humour, lads," Moran interrupts, "but we're still one down. Who do we think we're waiting on?"
Milverton points up at the board, with Morgan jolting like he's only just noticed it. He snarls, "Well, there's a queen up there. Is that you, Sebastian?"
"Be a black queen if it was me, y'prick."
"Then I think we all know who's yet to put in an appearance, don't we?"
Just then, a fourth voice joins them from the door, "I think that's my entrance cue."
Mies enters on four inch heels, tossing a mass of black curls back over her shoulder. Milverton eyes her with disgust and she winks in reply. "You're late," he tells her.
"I was scoping the place out. Never know what you're walking into. Place could be a den of thieves and murderers. Evening Sebastian, Angus." She seats herself by Moran on the old low Chesterfield, crosses her legs pointedly in Milverton's direction. Morgan gets up to fix her a drink. "Oh, bless you, you great brute," she purrs after him. "Anyway, what's the score? We all look most serious. Somebody died?"
Moran takes her under his arm and turns her towards the board. "Very good question, girl." In seconds, she's on her feet again, standing in front of the cards. The edge of her joker is just visible, creeping out of her back pocket. Mies is a thief, and has instincts the others don't. She checks the edges of the frame for tripwires, all the carvings and coils for cameras or microphones, behind the whole thing for a safe or something hidden. Announces that it's 'clean' before anyone had thought it might be dirty.
Milverton shakes his head. Whether to emphasize his point, or because he's watching Morgan fetch and carry for the woman he prefers to refer to as the Bitch, it's hard to say. "You're all missing a rather inescapable fact here."
"Inescapable is a very strong word, Charlie."
"Moran, you saw it. You watched it with your own eyes. I heard it from you; you saw him dead."
"I saw him swallow a bullet on a roof, this is true, but I also saw Holmes jump off it, so-"
"Wait, you all don't think this is Jim, do ye?" Morgan bursts.
Moran and Milverton roll their eyes. Mies, without taking her eyes off the board, snaps, "Wake up, Angus. Has to be."
"I'm with her," Moran announces. "If it's not him it's someone doing a bloody good impression of him. It's too bleeding weird to be anybody else."
"Who else knows to bring us four back together?" Mies says, spinning on her heel. "Who else would know we'd come without an explanation? Charlie, you must have thought about it, even for a second, or you wouldn't be here."
She's right. And Milverton hates the fact that she's the one who said it. He goes quiet for a second, but swallows down on his drink and comes back strong, "Then what the hell is it? It's cards. It's no instructions, nothing clear, nothing certain."
"You're very negative, Charlie." Mies settles again next to Moran, takes the joker from his fingers very briefly before handing it back to him. He reads what she's starting to say, studies the card back and front and lets the thought crystallize.
"The cards are invitations. The rest comes later. Is that what you're thinking, Dani?"
"Just about. Angus?"
"Honest? I'm not following this at all. Last I heard dead people didn't come back and play games."
"But if he did," Mies says, looking him dead in the eye. "Just for the sake of argument, if Jim magically appeared and asked you to, would you play?"
"Yes."
There's something almost heartbreaking in how quickly he says it, how earnest and deeply felt the answer is. The Bitch smiles, leans forward and puts her hand on his knee. "Well, that settles that, then. Faith comes first, belief comes after. You can be our doubting Thomas."
"This is the most insane thing I've ever heard."
"...If Charlie doesn't beat you to the title. What's your problem now?"
"Where to begin..."
"No." It's Moran who said that. Said it firmly and severely, heaving himself up from the sofa. He has been quiet and lethargic, willing to hear out the argument, but that's done with now. Now he stands straight, the Colonel living up to his title and goes on in a voice that dares them to disagree, "No more talk. There's no need. Nothing else to discuss." Positioning himself in front of the board he points at the cards. "Dani's spot on about this. This is just to accept or decline. RSVP. The only real question remaining is who set it up. The first theory is the one that's causing all the tension. The other theory is that it's not that person. Either way, the only chance we have of finding the person that's gone to all this trouble to bring us together or set us up, is to play."
"Well said, Sebastian." With a single heel click, Mies is first to the board, swapping the joker, hot and curved from her pocket, for the queen. She steps away, feeling both Morgan and Milverton watch her, baffled and disgusted. Stops dead. "Sorry, nobody else wanted the queen of hearts, did they?"
"I don't think anyone's going to take it from you, love," Moran says kindly, stepping behind her, taking on the ace of spades.
Milverton eyes him; "Is it the racial slur or the Motorhead reference you're reacting to?"
"It's the death card, Charlie boy, so just you watch yourself, alright?"
Running out of options and hating the idea of the common jack, Milverton grabs for the king of diamonds. Morgan is left with the clubs and no idea what he's really doing. Mies puts a hand on his arm and explains kindly, "Don't worry. If we're right about what this is, you'll have a job to do very soon, and much clearer than all this."
"I still honestly think this is insane," Milverton mutters. Points between Mies and Moran, "And I think you two have lost your minds."
Moran claps a great shovel of a hand between Milverton's skinny shoulders. "Long may that sunny disposition serve you, your Lordship."
Four jokers are left on the board. Three faces and an ace are uncertainly held or trustingly tucked away.
And if that's all there is, then what are they standing here for? And yet none of them is going anywhere. It doesn't quite feel like they're finished here. And it's Morgan again, the great hulk, that leans down and picks up his drink. Stumbles over his words like he doesn't quite know what to say. "Shouldn't we... I mean, since it's the four of us, together and since we're never..."
"But what do we toast, mate?" Moran grins, interrupting to help him. "May he rest in peace? Or to his health?"
And so they leave one by one, and leave the drinks untouched. Last in is the last to leave; Mies stretches a long white finger and flicks the lights off. Looks in and sees the glasses standing gleaming in the dark, protesting all the things they don't know yet, all the things they'll lie and cheat and steal and kill to find out.
"Tell you what," she calls ahead to the others on the stairs, "if it's not him, I'm going to slaughter whatever bastard thinks he can mess us about..."
