Chapter 3: The Unfortunate Constable Oskinner

"A criminal!" Fairholm gave an incredulous chuckle. "Don't you think that's a rather hasty judgement to be making?"

Sunlight slanted through the windows of the consulting-room, edging everything in gold as it proclaimed the lateness of the hour. The day had run long due to some pandemonium involving a young Pyrophoric's spontaneous manifestation in the middle of Berkley Square, which had left Fairholm and Watson to deal with a number of burns, as well as some broken bones and contusions from the flailing hooves of spooked horses. The two doctors had been engaged in cleaning the consulting-room after when Watson brought up his flatmate's return and the suspicions plaguing his mind.

"It would be," Watson agreed soberly, "if it were made in haste."

Fairholm stopped and turned fully toward Watson, bulldog forceps forgotten in his hand. "This... isn't merely a hypothetical scenario, is it?"

Watson hesitated. "No, I'm afraid it isn't.

"Oh, my." Fairholm tugged at the copious beard with which he offset his glabrous scalp. "Oh, my." He glanced at the forceps as if he didn't recognize it, then threw it into the autoclave with the other instruments. "Watson," he said, "you know that, in general, I trust your judgement, but surely-"

"This is not a conclusion I come to lightly, Fairholm," Watson interrupted. "I rather like the man, myself – and I think you might, too, if you were to meet him. But it's the only option that fits the facts." He briefly reiterated the signs he had collected through his month of observation. At the end, he let out a shaky sigh and said, "I don't think he's just some cat-burglar or cut-purse. No, he's first-rate. An... an assassin, perhaps."

"Oh, my," Fairholm repeated. He tugged his beard again.

"I'm sorry. It's unfair to burden you with this."

"No, it's all right," said Fairholm, holding up a hand. "A man shouldn't be expected to carry everything on his own shoulders, after all. What do you plan to do? Have you gone to the police?"

"With what? I haven't got any evidence, just suspicions. It would be my word against his, and I'm willing to bet my pension that he'd have a fast answer for all of it. If they questioned him at all, that is, and didn't just laugh me out of the station - and even then, I feel that he'd know I'd been there. The urchins cannot be the extent of his contacts."

"Yes, yes, I see," Fairholm murmured. He tugged his beard, and then met Watson's eyes, his brow creased with concern. "Perhaps, then, it would be best if you found new lodgings. Elizabeth and I have a small guest room in our home, we would be happy to have you."

A smile flickered on Watson's face, but he shook his head. "Thank you, truly, but no. My suddenly moving out would just make him suspicious, and I would never forgive myself for endangering your family."

"Even so, it would be safer-"

"Fairholm, I can take care of myself. I was in the military, you know." Watson smiled, the levity in his voice more than a little forced.

Fairholm sighed, but nodded. "Very well. You are a stubborn lout, I hope you know."

They finished cleaning up in silence, and a few minutes later found Watson shrugging on his coat and hiding a wince.

"Watson," called Fairholm from his desk. Watson glanced over his shoulder. "Take care, all right? And my offer still stands."

Watson smiled. "Of course, Fairholm. Thank you."

Purple fingers of dusk stained the sky as he stepped out of the practice, a stiff breeze choosing that moment to whip past and, unsatisfied with its collection of crackling golden leaves, snatch at his coat and hat on the way. He kept ahold of both, however, and turned his collar up against the cold. His cane tapped rhythmically upon the pavement as he walked towards Baker Street.

The streets were clearing, but there was still a steady stream of people going to and fro here on New Bond Street. Sellers bundled up their wares while couples hailed cabs to take them to the theatre, mothers herded children home as men stepped out from their work intent their clubs or homes. A solitary lamp-lighter whistled his way from street-lamp to street-lamp. The stream thinned a little as Watson passed down Oxford Street, and he expected the trend to continue when he turned the corner to Baker Street. Therefore, he was surprised to find that a small crowd seemed to have gathered halfway down. As he drew closer, the crowd began to dissipate, allowing him a look at whatever commotion had attracted their attention.

A group of five men seemed to be the centre of the spectacle. Two of them were uniformed police constables. A large, plain-clothed man boomed orders for the crowd to disperse. The fourth man was lying on his stomach on the ground, hands fastened behind him and eyes flashing with Light. The fifth Watson recognized from the periodicals: the masked Sir Mise, resembling a spectre in his head-to-toe black, who hung back from the others and seemed to flicker with impatient energy. All five looked rather the worse for wear, with one constable staunching blood from a scalp wound, and more blood visible on the other constable and the plain-clothed man,

Watson approached the plain-clothes, presuming him to be the leader. "Excuse me." The detective looked down at him. "I'm a doctor, and you-"

He didn't get any further, as the detective let out a not-quite-derisive chuckle and waved dismissively. "That's quite all right, there's been a Healer already sent for, for the lads. He's nearby, should be here in fifteen minutes." He said something else, but Watson found himself distracted by another sound entirely.

The constable without the scalp wound had been bracing against the fence and trying to catch his breath when Watson had arrived, but now he leant his whole weight upon it. His breathing was rapid and shallow, nearly gasping. Watson took in the bulging veins in his neck, the tone of his skin, and the movement of his chest, and had already started toward him when the detective blocked his path. "Sir, I told you-"

"How long has it been since the attack?"

"Sir, move-"

"How long?" Watson demanded.

"Three to five minutes, approximately," answered a different voice. Sir Mise had stolen over to them.

The detective turned and glowered at Mise. "Now listen, you, don't encourage-"

"You listen, Inspector," Watson snapped. The detective looked back to him, surprise evident even as his face began to purple from outrage. Watson continued unfazed. "Your man there has a punctured lung leaking air into his pleural cavity at an alarming rate. If something isn't done in the next few minutes, he will suffocate. If you want him to live, get out of my way."

For a very long moment, nothing moved. Even the wind seemed to pause in anticipation. Watson stared up at the detective's scowling face, his unwavering vehemence more than making up for the four inches of height and sixty pounds of muscle mass that the detective had on him. Then the detective blinked. Watson didn't wait for him to move, just brushed past and went straight to the constable. By that time, the constable had slid down the wall, his hand pressed to his left side as he struggled for breath. There was a bluish tinge to his lips, and as Watson got close, he could hear the distinct soft sound of grating bone.

Watson knelt beside him, tugging his hand away. The constable's eyes snapped open. "Who-?" he mouthed, confusion and fear mingling in his expression.

"I'm a doctor. I'm here to help you," Watson assured him. "Stay calm and let me have a look." He opened the man's coat and shirt, and sure enough, the left side of the chest beneath was fully expanded, the right side labouring to make up the difference. Watson pressed two fingers against the swelling, which crackled at his touch.

The constable was progressing fast into hyperventilation. Watson lay him down on the pavement and dove into his medical bag. There was a protest from one or more of the other men as he withdrew a catlin, but Watson paid it no heed, his free hand finding the swelling again and feeling out the nearest ribs. Watson took a moment to position the knife, and then plunged it in, sliding neatly between the ribs. The constable let out a cry, and then promptly lost consciousness when Watson applied pressure to the wound.

As the trapped air hissed out and the man's breathing returned to normal, Watson looked up at the detective, who looked more than a little discomposed. "He'll be all right now. See that your Healer checks for internal bleeding before he does anything else." Watson wiped the catlin clean and replaced it. "I'll be on my way, then."

He was just gathering his cane when a ratty child appeared around the corner and called out, "S'no good, guv, Doc Ionson's out!"

"Your Healer?" asked Watson. The detective's scowl returned. Watson sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. "It's not ideal, but my flat's just up the street there, and it's better than leaving him in the cold."

The detective nodded in grudging concession. "Mise, watch Wilson. Morris, you get Oskinner's legs, I'll take his arms. Lead the way, doctor."

"Just a moment - it's 221b, right up there. Here, boy!" The child darted over to Watson. "Take a message to 113 New Bond Street, for Doctor Fairholm. Tell him that Watson requires his aid. Quickly, now!"

Watson preceded the police-men up the stairs to the sitting room, grabbing a waterproof from the coatrack and calling for hot water and linens from Mrs. Hudson as he passed. He lay the waterproof across the settee. "Set him here on the sofa. Holmes! Are you here? Holmes!" When there came no answer, Watson let out a breath that was most certainly not a sigh of relief and turned back to his 'guests'. "You'd best let me have a look at the two of you, while you're here."

"I don't need a doctor to deal with a few small cuts," the detective replied curtly. Watson eyed the blood on his coat and opened his mouth to protest. "Good day, Doctor." He swept out without another word. Constable Morris looked between Watson and the door a few times, fidgeting with his handkerchief.

"I - I, uhm - he's a Regenerator, sir."

"Say no more. Take a seat, Constable, I'll be with you in a moment."

Morris made to sit, but leapt back to his feet as Mrs. Hudson bustled in, a steaming basin in hand. "I must say, Doctor, it's an interesting change to have you bellowing for me."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. Let me take that," said Watson, relieving her of the basin with the thought of sparing her sensibilities from the bloody scene. He needn't have worried, as she followed him in anyhow and hardly batted an eyelash.

"Oh, you poor dear, do sit down," she told Morris, who sank gratefully back into the basket-chair. "Here's some wash-rags, doctor, straight from the laundry – don't worry about blood on them, they've had worse over the years. I'll bring up some tea and hold off dinner until you're done."

"Thank you," Watson repeated, "that's very much appreciated. I'm expecting a Dr. Fairholm shortly, could you send him straight up?"

"Of course. Do call if there's anything else you need." She bustled back to the door. A gasp from the landlady prompted Watson to look up from where he was mixing disinfectant into the hot water. "Oh! You're that man from the news!"

Indeed, Sir Mise loomed over her in the doorway. He touched his hat-brim with a gloved hand. "Good evening, madam."

"It's all right, Mrs. Hudson, let him in."

Mrs. Hudson cast Watson a dubious look, but let the spectre pass and continued on her own way. Watson shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, eying Mise. "Can I help you?"

"Actually, I was going to ask the same of you."

"You want to help?"

"If I can."

Scepticism or not, Watson knew better than to turn away a second pair of hands. "Take off your gloves, then, and wash your hands. Soak and wring out one of those rags and bring it over. Constable Morris, if you could tilt your head back..."

In about ten minutes, the blood had been cleaned away from Morris' scalp and the laceration proved to be a small impact-cut only requirous of three stitches, with no sign of concussion. Morris flinched at each pass of the needle, but remained silent and otherwise still during the procedure. Mise had refused to remove his gloves, but had scrubbed his hands anyway, gloves and all, so Watson let it pass.

"That should do it," said Watson, securing the last stitch. "Is there anything else – even a scrape – that ought be tended to?" Morris replied in the negative. "Then I'd say you were fit to return to your duties, Constable."

Morris nodded and excused himself. The front bell rang a moment later. Footsteps flew up the steps, and Fairholm burst through the sitting-room door, looking worried. "Watson! You're all right?"

"I'm fine. This poor chap may not be doing so well, though."

Fairholm's relief was quickly replaced by professional sobriety, and he crossed to the settee with hardly a glance at Mise.

"Pulmonary pneumothorax," Watson informed the other doctor. "I had to do an emergency puncture. There may be internal bleeding."

"I'll need to get a look in. Is Holmes...?"

"He's not here," Watson replied, avoiding the subtextual second question. He was fairly sure Holmes had nothing to do with this little incident – but it was a bit too close to home, all the same. "I'll clear off the dining table, that'll give us room to work. Mise, could you help move him?"

Between the three of them, Oskinner was laid out on the dining table. Watson flashed a grateful smile.

"Sir Mise, thank you, but-"

"But my services are no longer needed," the masked man interrupted genially. "Good evening, doctors." Mise swept out in a swirl of caped long-coat.

Watson watched the last flash of coat disappear, then turned back to Fairholm.

-x-X-x-

Fairholm was gone and the clock long past nine by the time Holmes returned. He showed no particular surprise at having a bandaged constable unconscious on their settee. "Surgery on the dining table?" he did comment, despite the table having been scrubbed of all signs. "And you say my habits are strange. No, no, don't apologize, I understand that it was an emergency. Why don't you tell me about it?"

Needless to say, that was not the reaction Watson was expecting. Smothering his suspicion, he set down and recounted the story while Holmes ate his cold dinner. Once they'd both finished, they relocated to the chairs flanking the fireplace.

"So, you met the infamous Sir Mise. Pity I didn't come home earlier." Holmes packed a black clay pipe, which he lit with a coal from the hearth. "What did you think of him?"

Watson hadn't stopped to unravel his first impression of the masked man. He took a moment to consider. "Well, he was helpful, in a sort of stand-offish fashion. Secretive to the end – wouldn't even take off his hat when he got inside."

"Or his gloves."

"Indeed."

"Did he strike you as a Mentalist?"

"Er... now that you ask, no." Holmes' thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Unusually perceptive, yes. He finished a few of my sentences and gleaned my point before I'd come to it. When it came to little things, like which instrument I needed, he didn't pick up on those until I'd voiced them. It would have been at the forefront of my mind, so he shouldn't have had any trouble with it, were he a Mentalist."

Holmes smiled one of his secretive smiles, and Watson wondered if perhaps he hadn't said too much.

-x-X-x-

The next morning found the flat once against devoid of Holmes' presence. Watson checked on his patient, pleased to find that Oskinner had progressed from unconsciousness to proper, if very deep, sleep. Unfortunately, he was far from waking on his own, and Fairholm had given specific instructions for Watson to watch him until he'd woken. Watson resigned himself to spending the morning with a medical journal.

Before he'd met Fairholm, his mornings tended to be even less active. Most of them were slept through entirely – when he could sleep. When he couldn't, they were spent staring at the cracked ceiling of his hotel room, alternately trying to convince himself to get up and wondering if there was any point if he did. All too frequently he would conclude that there wasn't. He could only thank fate that, one particularly unbearable morning in February, he had decided otherwise.

Now, he could hardly stand such an unproductive morning. The days he'd spent laid up with fever at least had the benefit of Holmes' eccentric self to observe; the snoring Constable simply did not measure up. It was hardly half an hour before Watson gave up on the journal and began re-arranging the papers on his desk. When that failed to hold his attention, he began to pace a circle from the hearth to the dining table, rounding the settee on the way, silently telling himself that it was good for his leg. That argument fell flat, as nearly did he, when he tripped over his Gladstone bag at the base of the settee. He caught and steadied himself on the back of Holmes' chair.

Damn this inactivity. He could be out at Fairholm's or the clinic now, soothing pains and saving lives, doing something with the life he was inexplicably still living. Instead, he was relegated to playing nanny. He shot a glare at the constable, who dared to remain asleep and oblivious.

Watson sighed and dropped into Holmes' chair. The constable may have been a convenient target, but he was an unfair one. A police-man's work was no less valid than that of the military men that Watson had served with; where those brave men fought outside forces, he protected England from its own corrupt core.

Watson's gaze was abruptly drawn to the pen-knife sticking out of the mantel, and the pile of letters transfixed beneath it.

His respect for privacy and innate sense of courtesy joined forces and leapt to the forefront of his mind, informing him in very stern terms that it was incredibly rude to go through another man's mail. A tiny voice of reason added to their side, pointing out that anything incriminating would no doubt be in the urchin-letters, which never found their way to the pen-knife. On the other side, his sense of righteousness rose up tall and reminded him that it was his duty to crown and country to discover if Holmes was really the sort of man Watson feared he was. There would be no harm done if there were nothing there, and harm might be averted if there were. His anxiety weighed in on that side, proclaiming that if he didn't do something, he was going to go completely mad.

In the end, Watson rose and went to the mantel. His hands trembled with the still-raging internal battle, but nevertheless flipped through the pinned envelopes, leaving the knife in place. Return addresses and meaningless names passed by, all addressed to Holmes, some at Baker Street, some forwarded from his former address on Montague Street. It was near to the bottom before one of them caught Watson's eye. The envelope itself was a plain, rough quality, but scrawled into the corner was a very singular address:

Bethlem Royal Hospital, St. George's Fields, Southwark.

The front bell rang. Watson jumped about a foot in the air and nearly tripped over his own feet as he backed away from the mantel. He barely managed to strike the guilty look from his face before Mrs. Hudson knocked.

"Doctor Watson? There's an Inspector Lestrade here to see you."

Watson started to answer, croaked, cleared his throat, and managed, "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, send him right in."

He expected to be faced with the Inspector from the night before, but the small, trim man that opened the door could not have been more different if he'd tried. The largest and blackest pair of eyes that Watson had ever seen on an adult regarded him shrewdly from a narrow face which, with its long twitchy nose and large ears, reminded Watson inexplicably of a ferret.

"Good morning, Inspector," Watson greeted him with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"A pleasure, doctor." The Inspector shook hands and smiled politely, but there seemed an ever-present suspicion in those great dark eyes of his. "I heard you had one of our lads, thought I might drop by and see how he's faring."

"He's doing just fine." Watson gestured to the settee. "Sleeping like a log, but that's to be expected. He'll be back up by tomorrow at the latest, likely sooner."

Lestrade nodded, crossing to examine the Constable himself. When he turned back, it was with a more genuine – if a bit self-satisfied – smile on his face. "I also heard you butted heads with Inspector Gregson."

"Oh, was that his name? I never caught it."

"Yes, well, I'd like to apologize for his behaviour. My colleague can be a little..."

"Overbearing?"

"I was looking for a polite way to put it."

"Stubborn, then. Fortunately, so am I. And I haven't a partiality for Anomalies to hinder me."

Lestrade's genuine smile returned, this time with a rueful tint. "Ah, you noticed that, did you?"

"I had a feeling." Watson waved dismissively. "Never mind that. Excuse my manners, would you have a seat, Inspector?"

"No, thank you. I actually must be going – I've duties to attend to. It was a pleasure to meet you, doctor."

"And you, Inspector. Good day."

Lestrade paused outside 221b to pluck a cigarette from his case and set it between his lips. He struck a match.

"What do you think?"

Lestrade did not jump, but twitched rather violently and dropped his match. He glared at the masked man that had materialized at his elbow. "I think I don't like it when you appear out of air like that!" He stamped out the match and lit another.

Mise tipped his head in an impression of rolling eyes. "Of him."

"He knocked Gregson down a few pegs, that gives him a note in my book. Seems like an affable bloke otherwise."

"Nothing else struck you about him?" Mise asked with a note of impatience. "Nothing at all?"

Lestrade eyed him. "No."

The masked man sighed. "And that, my dear Inspector, is why you'll be consulting me for many years to come."

"Here now, if that was all just a build-up to an insult-"

"Insult? No, no, Inspector." Mise turned and looked up at the bow windows of the 221b sitting-room. "Just thinking aloud."

Based on stories and characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Thanks as always to my wonderful beta Adidasandpie.

Reviews are appreciated, and critiques are adored.