Stave IV

The Third

Holmes sat for a long time staring at the photograph of Mary Watson. She had been a beautiful woman. Holmes knew from the first that his old friend had been attracted to her and he had been both pleased and apprehensive when Watson had proposed marriage to the young governess. Pleased for his old friend and apprehensive for himself. Now that she was gone, Holmes had sometimes considered inviting Watson to return to the old rooms at Baker Street but there seemed never to be a good time. Watson's practice was very busy of late and he himself had had one case after another.

While Holmes sat, there came the clicking of strange foot falls upon the floor outside the office. For an instant he expected Moriarty to show up again but the sound was very different from that of the ghost of his old nemesis. This was a much softer sound and had the cadence of something on four feet rather than two. Holmes rose from the chair and strode to the door. He slid it open and, standing there in the darkened hall, was the darker form of a massive hound with glowing eyes and jowls. It was the size of a calf and Holmes had last seen this creature upon the moor near Grimpen. He drew back from the great beast but did not cry out. He knew that this must be his next guide. The creature moved into the room and stood with burning eyes before the detective.

"You must be the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come," Holmes said.

The beast made no reply.

"You are to show me Christmases that have not yet come to pass?"

Again the beast made no reply.

"Your time is short, I am sure," Holmes said screwing up his nerve. "Best if we begin, Spirit. Take me where you will."

The Ghost regarded Holmes for a moment then turned to the door and walked out. Holmes squared his shoulders and followed. Instead of entering the hallway, Holmes found himself in the narrow aisle between the cells of a prison. Low voices emanated from one of the cells at the far end. Before him stood the hound.

"Why are we here, Spirit?" Holmes asked.

The great beast that was his guide looked back at him and then down the aisle towards the occupied cell. Holmes took this to mean that he should approach. He walked past the beast and down to the cell door and looked through the small grate. Inside were several men dressed in old clothing covered in broad arrow patterns. Convicts then.

"So what is it for you?" asked one.

"Same as you, mate," said a familiar voice. "Transportation."

"Aye?" said the first man. His voice was unfamiliar.

"Judge said there was some doubt 'bout it bein' murder and since I 'ad helped the 'Great Detective' in the past there might be some 'ope for me if I could be placed far from the influences of this city."

"You're lucky, mate," said the first voice again. "Australia's better than the noose."

"Aye," said the familiar voice.

"Name's Beartram," said the second voice.

"Wiggins," said the familiar voice.

"Wiggins?" Holmes said in some surprise. "How can this be? He's a good lad. Some mischief in him but a good lad."

Holmes felt the eyes of the hound upon him and he turned to see it standing as a darker shadow among shadows. Its eyes and jowls still glowed. The beast turned its head and then walked back the way they had come. Holmes followed it. They emerged onto a street he was familiar with. Baker Street was quiet except for Mrs. Hudson speaking with one of the neighbors on the front steps, with a broom in her hand.

"I don't mind saying that I'm almost glad he's gone," said the landlady. "More trouble to me than he was worth this last year."

"And all of his things are still up there?" asked the neighbor.

"All but a few articles that the police museum was wanting." Mrs. Hudson shook her head. "Left the place in an awful state, he did. Wouldn't let me clean or so much as step into the room for the last six months. I tell you that it may well be six months before I can have it fit to live in."

"I heard the explosion the other night," said the neighbor.

"I told him more than once that his chemical experiments were getting out of hand," said Mrs. Hudson. "Vile smelling and sulfurous. The ceiling is stained from them and his tobacco smoke both. I shall have to have it re-painted. I suppose I might not have the bullet holes filled in. Some lodger may just be attracted to living in the old rooms of the man."

"An indicator of my death, Spirit?" Holmes asked the beast at his side.

There was something knowing in the look the great hound gave to Holmes then. The Spirit moved on down the street with Holmes following close on his tail. Somehow they walked from Baker Street into the sitting room of his brother's flat. As Holmes had feared and expected there were dust covers thrown over the furniture and the place looked as if it had not been lived in for many months. Holmes walked about the place but found no sign of his brother or his butler. The servant's room was completely empty save for the furniture. His brother's room had been neatly put away and closed up as if the master might return. Yet, Holmes knew what this meant. His brother was gone.

"So, Mycroft is dead, then." Holmes stood gazing out of the window into the afternoon light. The street outside was as busy as it ever was and the houses all about were decorated for the sake of the day but these rooms were devoid of any life or gayety. "Take me somewhere else, Spirit. I have learned all I care to from this dismal place."

Again Holmes followed the hound and they emerged into the office of Inspector Lestrade. He was still the thin, rat-faced man Holmes remembered but his eyes seemed sunken and his colour was not good. He sat gazing at nothing with his hand upon the desk clutching a bromo-seltzer.

"Merry Christmas, Lestrade," said Gregson from his doorway.

"Hhmm?" Lestrade said coming out of his malaise. "Oh! Merry Christmas, Gregson."

"Still working the Hartford case, then?" Gregson asked not unkindly.

"A devil of a conundrum for me," Lestrade acknowledged.

"I don't envy you that one," Gregson replied. "I can only imagine what sort of political pressure is on you, old man."

"I hate to admit it, but I wish I could consult Holmes on this one," Lestrade said taking a long drink from the seltzer glass.

"A right pain he could be, but there were none better at cases such as that one." Gregson gestured to the stack of folders upon Lestrade's desk.

"I don't know what I'll do next," Lestrade said glumly. "Can't give up."

Holmes felt the hound brush the backs of his legs and he turned to follow it out of the room. They walked only a few steps and were suddenly in front of the church yard of St. James Church. Snow lay heavy all about the stones but here and there were bright hothouse flowers or ribbons or some other oddment of decoration set upon the marble markers. The Spirit went to the gate in the low wall and sat down gazing intently through the bars. Holmes followed the line of its gaze and saw a stone not tended to, with a layer of frost and snow thickly upon it.

"I see," said Holmes and began to turn away. His movement was checked by the baring of the hound's teeth. It made no sound but the message was clear. Holmes opened the gate and strode through the snow to the untended grave with its wintry layer.

"I need not read the words upon this marker to know that this is a portent of my own fate, Spirit." Holmes felt strangely reluctant to read the name and dates upon the marble. "Your fellow Spirits have already told me that fate can be altered. A life can be changed and so such an outcome as this might not come to pass. I do not need to read these words."

Holmes looked back to the grim, black form at the gate and saw its eyes narrowed and again it bared its teeth. Taking in a deep breath of the cold air Holmes resigned himself to the task and bent to brush the stone clear of the winter accumulation. As his hand passed over the surface the name became clear but it was not his nor was it his brother's.

"Doctor John H. Watson?" Holmes read aloud with growing apprehension. "Beloved husband of Mary and Loving Uncle."

Holmes rounded on the beast at the gate and cried, "Watson! Watson has died?"

The beast stood suddenly as if expecting an attack but it did not otherwise move. Its eyes stayed leveled on Holmes.

"Watson is in good health!" Holmes advanced on the Spirit. "Yet, this date is not a year hence. What could have over taken my friend?'

And then he knew for to his mind came the memory of the vial and syringe. Watson was in great pain and he had had no one to turn to.

"Why was I not there for him, Spirit?" Holmes begged to know. "Am I not also dead?"

The hound cocked his head and his ears rose slightly. He turned and took a step waiting for Holmes to follow before leading him down the street. They arrived in a clean, well lit hall with many doors to either side. A short way off one door stood ajar. A soft voice came from within. Holmes approached. He peered in through the open door and saw Lestrade sitting in a hard wooden chair next to a soft bed. Under the covers with a night cap on his head sat a slightly older but much more drawn looking Holmes. His hair had been shorn close to his scalp and his eyes were red rimmed with dark circles beneath them.

"Mr. Holmes, did you hear me?" Lestrade said. "I need your help, sir."

The Holmes in the bed did not reply. He only looked out of the small, barred window.

"I can't figure this one out, Mr. Holmes," Lestrade went on. "I've looked at it from every direction and gathered in as many clues as I can find. I just don't understand them. Please, Mr. Holmes, won't you even try?"

"Go away," murmured the Holmes in the bed.

"I can get you out of here for a few days if that is what you need," Lestrade persisted.

"My deductions would not help the likes of you, Lestrade," snarled Holmes his eyes flashing. "Fools! All of you. You plod along and do not see. Will not see. Clues? Ha!"

"Mr. Holmes, the doctors think it would be good for you to get your mind on a problem again," Lestrade told him. "Give yourself something to work on."

"It is all pointless," Holmes said tiredly. "How many have I caught over the years? All the clever ones are gone and you and the other Yarders can't even find the poor specimens. There is no need for Sherlock Holmes anymore. Go tell it to Watson. Even with his limited skills he could solve your case for you, I'm sure."

"Mr. Holmes," Lestrade began again but a glare from the man in the bed stopped him. The inspector rose and walked to the door. He looked back with a touch of anger mixed with sadness. "If you change your mind, sir, tell the doctor to send for me."

"Can you not leave me alone?" the man in the bed sighed. "That is really all I want. Everyone. Leave me alone."

Lestrade turned from the room and went away down the long hall. Holmes stepped through the door and sat in the chair next to his likeness in the bed. He now noticed the restraints upon his wrists that bound him to the iron rails of the bed itself.

"Moriarty was right," Holmes murmured to himself. "No sane man would want this. I will not have this. Watson dead? Mycroft dead? Wiggins transported? NO!"

He rose from the chair and looked upon the hound now sitting in the doorway. With an effort he controlled his passion lest he offend the Spirit.

"This is not my fate!" Holmes stated with force. "I am not meant to end my days strapped to a bed in some damned asylum. If there were no way to alter this fate then there would be no reason to show me this. I will not allow myself, my brother nor any of my friends and least of all Watson to end as you have shown me. Speak if you can! Tell me how I might alter this future! I defy this ending and I, Sherlock Holmes, say I will not allow it!"

The massive hound rose and took a step into the room with its teeth bared. In a sudden rush it was on Holmes who threw up a hand to guard his throat even as he fell backward. Everything went dark and Holmes rolled upon the floor lashing out with his arms and legs to drive the thing from him. He struggled thusly for a moment before he realized the hound had not landed upon him and that he was no longer in the stark room of the asylum. Holmes lay on the small rug in his bedroom back at Backer Street. The dawn light had already passed into that of early morning and he could hear church bells ringing. He pushed himself to his feet and went out into the sitting room, which looked as he had left it. He crossed to the front window and, spying a constable on patrol across the street, he threw up the sash and called to the man.

"I say there, constable!"

The man looked about and then up to where Holmes leaned from his window.

"Trouble, sir?" the constable called back.

"Good man!" Holmes chuckled. "No trouble. Can you tell me what day it is?"

The constable frowned fearing that he was being confronted with a lunatic.

"It's just, you see, that I have been rather involved lately and I've lost track of the days," Holmes explained.

"Yes. I see, sir," the constable said warily. "Today is Christmas day."

"So they did do it all in one night," Holmes said to himself. "Naturally. It stands to reason. They are Spirits after all."

"Is there anything else, sir?" the constable called from below.

"Yes," Holmes called back. "Do you know a young man by name of Wiggins?"

"Wiggins, sir?" the constable advanced across the street with a gate that said he was now in his official capacity. "I should say I do. Took him in just two nights ago. Has he been causing you trouble?"

"Good man! Clever man!" Holmes beamed down. "No he has not. I have a particular interest in that lad, is all. He runs errands for me now and again. Will you do me a service?"

"If I can, sir, and it doesn't interfere with my duties."

"Pray then, come up to my rooms. Just ring the bell and the landlady will admit you. I shan't be a moment."

Holmes ducked back into his rooms and off to his bedroom he shot. By the time Mrs. Hudson had conducted the constable up the stairs Holmes had donned his clothes and was scribbling on a pad. He answered the door and drew the constable in with a shake of the hand.

"I wish you to take this note to your superior and present him with my card." Holmes handed over the paper and card. "This afternoon, if you would be so good, I wish that you would conduct the young Mr. Wiggins to this flat. If not you, then one of the other constables, but you have thus far proven such a help that I would rather it were you. I have included a line to that effect and a commendation about you to your superior from me. I would be in your debt, constable, if you would so oblige me."

Taken quite aback by this unexpected turn the constable glanced at the card and his eyes widened. A commendation from Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a feather in his cap and might be the difference when he next came up for promotion.

"I shall see to it personally, Mr. Holmes," said he as Holmes shook his hand again and ushered him out of the door.

Mrs. Hudson still stood on the landing with curious eyes and watched as the constable left the house.

"Mrs. Hudson," Holmes said taking her by the hand and drawing her into his embrace. The elderly little woman stiffened in shock at so familiar a gesture from her lodger. "Merry Christmas, my dear woman! Merry Christmas!"

"Um... Merry Christmas, Mr. Holmes," she said in a state of confusion.

"I have something for you as well," Holmes produced a small note and handed it to her. "Give this to your sister and have her present it to Mr. Thompson of Thompson and Cohan Musical Instruments, West Thames Street."

"But why, Mr. Holmes?" she asked bewildered.

"Her piano is out of tune and he has the best ear in the whole of London for that sort of thing." Holmes smiled down on her. "I shall tend to the bill myself, Mrs. Hudson."

"But, Mr. Holmes..." she began.

"Not another word, my dear lady," Holmes cut her off. "It is the least I can do for your having to tolerate my eccentricities all of these years. Now go and finish your preparations for this afternoon and enjoy yourself. I shall see you tomorrow. Have a very merry Christmas, Mrs. Hudson!"

He bustled her out of the door and turned once more to his bedroom where he donned his best frock coat before he ventured out into the chill of an early Christmas day.