I took a deep breath to steady myself as the footsteps on the creaking stairs grew nearer, pricking up my ears and listening intently. It sounded as if there were two or three men –Moran himself in all probability, and two of his cohorts. Leftovers from the Moriarty syndicate, I surmised.

In a matter of minutes three shadowy forms appeared in the doorway of the crumbling room, one of them carrying a dark lantern. He did not unshield it more than a crack, I supposed because with the fast approaching darkness someone would see the light from the window.

That meant, I deduced, that I was still in town, where people would be passing by this house. I had no time to be proud of my small deduction, however, for as the leader of the men stepped into the room, the watery light from the window fell upon his face and I instantly recognized him from the courtroom.

"Colonel Moran. I was wondering when you would pay me a visit," I said, willing my voice to be as cool as Holmes's always had been when dealing with criminals.

The man's large mustache bristled and twitched in a brief smile.

"Holmes always did say you were cool under fire, Doctor," he said, regarding me with a baleful scrutiny.

I said nothing but waited for his next move. The two men behind him remained in the shadows outside the room – probably were going to be my guards for the night.

"I suppose you are wondering why you are here, Doctor?"

"I must admit to being puzzled as to why you merely captured me instead of just killing me like you did the Honorable Ronald Adair," I said, eyeing the tiger-hunter for his reaction.

His high bald forehead jerked upward as he glared at me.

"How much do you know about that affair?"

"Isn't that why you brought me here, because you realized I knew too much?" I countered with a question of my own. If I were going to get out of this, I had to play for as much time as I could.

"How much do you know?" the man asked, taking a threatening step toward me.

"That is not what you should be worried about, Moran. You should be wondering how much of what I know I have told the police," I said coolly.

My mind was jumping much faster than I had ever thought before in my life, trying to keep him unsettled so that he would not take it into his head to try to force the information out of me. I would need my full strength to try to find a way out of this mess.

"I caught you before you got to the police, Doctor – I am not a fool," the man spat angrily, his former falsely honorable attitude gone upon the instant, "I have been following you every second since I first found out you were the police surgeon for that young fool Adair."

"Yes, I spotted your men on two occasions," I replied, forcing calm into my voice.

"I know you have not contacted the police since last night after the inquest, Dr. Watson," Moran said, towering over me and leaning close to my face, "that is not the information I want out of you."

"Well, that is rather a good thing, since I would not tell you at any rate. What exactly do you want from me, then?" I asked, my neck cramping from having to look up at the man towering over me.

Moran's mustache bristled again with barely suppressed seething rage as he glared at me and spoke in a tone of hatred such as I have seldom heard from anyone. But that was not what arrested my attention and filled my mind with disbelief. It was his words that did it, that made my face drain of color as he spoke.

"I have no time to play games with you, Doctor. You are going to tell me, and you are going to tell me now, where your friend Sherlock Holmes is - or I will kill you right here and now."

NO TRACES YET STOP MORAN NOT SEEN AT CLUB OR HOME SINCE SATURDAY EVENING HAS VANISHED AS WELL STOP LESTRADE COMBING DOCTOR'S HOUSE FOR CLUES NO LUCK AS OF YET STOP MAKE ALL HASTE STOP M.
"I beg your pardon."

"Where is he?" the man demanded, grabbing my collar and forcing my head upward to meet his baleful yellow eyes.

"At the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls with your master, you idiot – where else would he be?" I spat in fury, the still raw grief in my heart fueling my words with an anger that could have matched Moran's own.

Moran slammed my head back into the hard wood of the chair, glaring at me.

"Do not play games with me, Doctor – I know he had to have told you. That is why you went to Baker Street, is it not? He contacted you and told you to fetch some information from there that he could use to convict me of the Adair murder. Didn't he!"

I stared at the man as if he had taken leave of his senses – perhaps he had?

"Moran. Holmes could not have told me any such thing, because I do not believe in séances and communicating with the dead!" I snapped.

"You are lying, Doctor."

"What? Are you mad?"

"You will learn, Doctor, that it is a dangerous habit to play tricks with me," the Colonel said menacingly, fixing me with a stare that sent a chill of fear stabbing through my heart.

But amid that chill a tiny, tiny faint spark of hope suddenly ignited. Could Moran be right? Could Holmes really be – really be alive?

No, he would have told me. He surely would have told me in three years.

Or would he?

BOAT LEAVES IN NINE HOURS STOP SHALL BE IN LONDON BY MIDAFTERNOON STOP HAVE LESTRADE MEET ME WITH YOU STOP HAVE PLAN TO CAPTURE MORAN STOP S.

I glanced at the clock, desperately wishing for sleep if only to escape the frightful thoughts that continued to race through my head. But I could not sleep, I could not. The one time I had, I had been visited with such a ghastly nightmare about Moran and Watson that I was actually afraid to doze off again, scared that the awful dream would repeat itself.

My mind was back in London, mentally tracing the byways and streets, knowing exactly where Moran lived and what his haunts were.

I had been completely unable to get any evidence against him, not even a whisper, when I had routed the Moriarty gang. He was the only large fish that had escaped my net three years ago, without even a slight indication of involvement with the Professor.

But now that man had spread nets of his own – Watson had already been caught in the trap, and I was next, I had no doubt.

The question was, how to get Watson out without harm befalling him?

I gave up sleeping and started to pace up and down my dingy hotel room, smoking incessantly, going over and over every bit of my plan for tomorrow night – it had to go off without error, or my dearest friend's life would probably be forfeit.

And that thought made me positively ill.

I swallowed hard as Moran's intent to get the information he desired from me became clear as one of his men stepped forward with a gag for my mouth – they could not chance any sounds being heard in a town house such as this one, I supposed.

"Moran, Sherlock Holmes is dead," I said, hoping my voice was not shaking with the fear I was fighting desperately to quell.

Moran stopped the man from gagging me and got down on my eye level to fix me with a penetrating stare.

"I admire your willingness to protect your friend, Doctor – quite gallant and heroic. But it is very foolish, I promise you. I have no real desire to do you an injury, other than to bring the pain I know it will to your friend. But I have no compunction whatever about getting that information from you one way or the other, Doctor. You may choose to either cooperate or be stubborn."

My mind was racing like an engine about to tear itself to pieces. Why did Moran think Holmes was alive? Did he just assume I could not have made the correct deductions on my own about the Adair case, that I was merely a puppet and Holmes was working me from behind the scenes?

"What makes you think that Holmes is alive, Moran?" I asked, casting a glance at the two burly thugs that were waiting in the shadows for our conversation to end.

The old tiger hunter glared at me.

"You are not very good at stalling, Doctor, or prevaricating."

"No, perhaps not. But tell me anyway."

Moran let out a sharp bark of a laugh.

"I do not think, Doctor, I know that he is alive, because I followed Professor Moriarty to the Falls that day three years ago and saw exactly what happened."

My head started to spin – was he telling me the truth? Had I been deceived into a wrong conclusion based upon the evidence at Reichenbach? Was Holmes really alive like this man evidently was prepared to swear to?

Or was he lying to me, taking pleasure in seeing my distress?

But what motive would he have in lying to me? He was keeping me alive for some reason – why go through all this rigmarole about the Falls if all he wanted from me was to know how close I was to being able to convict him for the Adair murder?

Perhaps… perhaps he was really telling the truth?

I steeled myself for the explanation that was about to be forthcoming, knowing that whatever I was about to hear, it was not going to be pleasant.

If Moran is right, then…then Holmes has deceived me for three years? Three years? Would he really do that – to me?

To be continued...reviews are very much appreciated!