Doldrums and Deep Waters

Chapter 12: Lucidity and elucidation

It was still light when I awoke. I remained conscious of pain and a deeply muzzy head; plus a familiar constellation of symptoms such as the metallic taste, shivers, clammy skin, headache and nausea so emphasised the fact that I had been drugged and was now withdrawing, that I marvelled my not having noticed it before. Nevertheless, I felt infinitely better than I had, so filled with hope was I that the terrible depression I had been plagued with was likely soon to be banished.

Filled with curiosity as to Holmes' discoveries, I sat up warily. On finding this manageable, I rose to my feet, noticing with gratitude that a clean shirt, trousers and dressing gown, as well as water for washing had been laid out for me. A little shakily, I cleaned and dressed myself. I avoided looking in the large round mirror over the washstand, not wishing to see livid purple marks about my neck. I blessed Holmes as I picked up a soft silk scarf from under my clothes, and draped it loosely around my neck.

Sliding my feet into my slippers, I cautiously made my way from the bedroom, my steps gradually becoming firmer. I kept a hand on the wall, then the banister, to steady myself.

I heard a door open sharply beneath me, and Holmes appeared, scurrying up the stairs to meet me, beaming.

"Watson! You are awake! Your timing is impeccable. I believe our rooms will now be sufficiently aired, and Mrs Hudson is just threatening to fling me from the kitchen, as she wishes to remove the casserole from the oven."

"What were you doing in the kitchen?" I asked, as Holmes took my arm, and led me companionably towards the living room.

"A chemical analysis. My usual workspace has been out of commission this last few hours, and Mrs Hudson was kind enough to grudgingly lend me her kitchen table, after I assured her it would help identify why we had all been acting so strangely and promised the process would not be too noxious."

"And was it?" I enquired drily.

"Ah, no more than mildly offensive," he answered with an airy wave of his hand, and I felt a pang of sympathy for Mrs Hudson.

Holmes opened the door to the sitting room, and I stopped in surprise. It was unprecedentedly tidy. The reams of paper were organised into four neat piles, each secured in place with a brick. Also, the hearthrug was gone, the carpet showed signs of extensive cleaning, and our usual sofa and arm chairs had been replaced by those from Mrs Hudson's front parlour. It was also very cold, as all the windows were thrown open, and the curtains had been taken down.

"It has been a hive of activity in here whilst you have been sleeping, and I doing my chemical analysis," said Holmes, fussing around me as he ensconced me in a chair, and wrapping an unfamiliar blanket around me that had appeared with the furniture. "I have recruited all the Irregulars with their scrubbing brushes, much to their disdain. Cost me a pretty packet, and probably half my reputation with the little wretches. It's probably only because I told them they were clearing up dangerous toxic residue, and insisted they tied scarves over their faces that they didn't desert me en masse, but I can't deny they have done a good job.

"I think it will be alright to close the windows by this time. There has been a good through draft," declared he as he did so. "In case you are wondering, the normal furniture is in the yard under a tarpaulin. With this breeze, it should be safe to bring back in inside a few days."

"Safe? Why?" I asked, perplexed and inarticulate.

Holmes rubbed his hands together. "Is it possible you haven't deduced it yet, old boy?"

A slight exasperation, which had nothing whatever to do with poison I was sure, rose up within me. "No doubt I am being unusually dense..."

"As you say." Interjected Holmes with a twinkle, giving my shoulder a squeeze. "It will all become clear to you in good time. But first, try and deduce it. Under what circumstances would you extensively clean and clear a house, speaking as a medical man?"

"Well, to fumigate, of course. To clean an infectious or poisonous atmosphere. Are you saying our very air has been poisoned, Holmes?"

"A difficult task, locally poisoning just the air of one room, wouldn't you say?" he grinned. He was enjoying himself. "Ah, I hear Mrs Hudson with the casserole. It should be sufficiently soft for your sore..." he broke off suddenly, as I hung my head and flushed in embarrassment.

Mrs Hudson bustled into the room.

"Oh, Doctor Watson, I'm so glad to see you're awake and back with us!" she cried, and I felt she meant more than that I was recovered from my injuries. "You stay there upon the sofa. You can have a bowl of this where you sit, although do try not to spill it."

She placed the bowl on the coffee table next to me, then, to my surprise, pulled me into a rather smothering hug and planted a kiss upon my forehead. Blushing, she then recollected herself, and handed the bowl to me.

Turning to Holmes, she demanded;

"Are you about to tell us what has been going on in my house then, Mr Holmes?"

"For shame, Mrs Hudson," replied he, his eyes glinting with mischief that belied his innocent tone of voice. "Dr Watson needs nourishment. You would not have me disturb his dinner, would you?"

He laughed at the retort, which was a blow from the tea-towel, and turned his attention to his own food. "Never fear, Mrs Hudson. Lestrade will be here in no time, and myself and Watson will be well fortified with casserole. That will be the time for the grand denouement."

Inspector Lestrade was more than punctual, arriving early for his appointment, and gratefully accepting a bowl of food from Mrs Hudson, whom Holmes cordially invited to stay in the room for our subsequent discussion. He was obviously big with news, but he managed to ask me how I was faring before sharing it.

"So, Lestrade. What word of Dix?" Holmes cut into our civilities impatiently.

"Well, I suppose I should be appreciative of Sergeant Timms. He's a bright lad," muttered the little official, rather disconsolately I thought. "We got him, Mr Holmes. Edwin Obediah Dix is in custody at the Yard."

Holmes gave a small whoop, and Lestrade tried to look pleased, but evidently something was oppressing his triumph.

"Why so glum, Lestrade? You have as nice a criminal as any other in your bag, when for all you knew, he might have escaped when you didn't show in time with your warrant."

"Not in my bag, Holmes," said Lestrade, with a rueful half-smile and a shrug. "In Gregson's."

"Gregson's? How, may I ask?" enquired Holmes, almost managing to conceal the fact he was trying not to laugh.

In the face of Holmes' politely suppressed amusement, Lestrade's own sense of humour caught up with him, and he chuckled.

"Timms sent a fleet-footed young Constable hot-footing it to the Yard with a note when I didn't meet the rendezvous. Apparently, he asked for Gregson as he knew we'd often worked together before." He shook his head at the irony of the situation. "Gregson cottoned on that something might have gone wrong straight away; took him two shakes of a lambs tail to get the paperwork sorted. Always was quick at that sort of thing. They got the fat blighter on his way out, red-handed, so to speak."

"Oh, Lestrade! I am sorry." Holmes was laughing, but he sounded as if he meant it, and the Inspector appeared to appreciate that.

"Ah, well, can't win 'em all. At least we got him, and I will get a portion of the credit at least. Gregson's not such a swine as all that." He gritted this last out dubiously.

"Gregson will be sure to do so," uttered Holmes, with complete, and somewhat menacing, confidence. Lestrade looked grateful. "What are you charging him with, Lestrade?"

"Multiple counts of receiving and handling stolen goods, plus conspiracy. Should go down for a good hard stretch."

"You might like to add the murders of his associates, Albert Foster and Euan Hawkes, plus the attempted murder of Mr Sherlock Holmes."

"What? But Albert Foster was a suicide...Oh." Lestrade trailed off, caught between embarrassment and enlightenment, as he glanced at me.

"And Euan Foster died of a mysterious illness. And Dix is a chemist. And tobacconist."

I gasped as the implication of the statement struck me, and heard Mrs Hudson do the same.

"My tobacco! You said on Monday that I had changed my tobacco! I didn't believe you at the time – that was foolish of me."

"And foolish of me not to grasp the implications when you so boisterously denied what was the obvious truth."

I cast my mind back over the nightmarish week, and realisations began slotting into place.

"Every time I went any length of time without tobacco, I began craving it, and developed a headache, nausea, cold sweats, a metallic taste... yet every time I smoked, I felt... well... as if my world was ending."

Holmes gave me a sympathetic look. "I believe it began as excessive anger and irritability?" I nodded, mutely, shuddering as I remembered calling Holmes a vile little addict. "It then progressed to a sense of deep despondency and despair?" he asked gently, and I nodded again.

"Like nothing I've ever felt before. I have been down in the dumps in the past, of course. When I first came back from Afghanistan, I don't believe I had a cheerful thought from one week to the next. But nothing like this. Noting so... inescapable... so all pervasive." Again, I wondered if this was how Holmes felt whenever he lapsed into one of his dark moods, but it would have been too personal a question, even if Lestrade and Mrs Hudson had not been sitting there. I determined to be more patient with my friend in the future whenever his mood was particularly bleak.

"I felt something too!" broke in Mrs Hudson. "Whenever I came up here, and spent any time in that great cloud of smoke from your pipes. Heaven knows, the pair of you have made enough of a mess in the past, and sent your food away enough times that it should have stopped bothering me. But I just couldn't contain myself. I felt as if some horrid hobgoblin was on my back, whispering for me to say dreadful things, and I couldn't stop myself doing it."

"I should think it must very much dull the faculties, as well as inflame them," interjected Holmes. "It did not dawn on me for some time what was happening to us all. I just put it down to my original damnable temper. It wasn't until I was able to identify the withdrawal process that I realised I had been drugged at all. Once I arrived at that conclusion, the rest became obvious. You see, Doctor, you may have disparaged certain of my habits, but it has had its uses in the end." He winked at me confidentially, and I automatically glanced towards Lestrade. The policeman did not look confused, but rather seemed studiously to be avoiding Holmes' gaze. I presume he must have drawn his own conclusions as to my friend's habits.

Holmes began to animadvert the details of the case, crossing them off upon his fingers, as he was wont to do.

"Observation number one; Dr Watson had changed his strong tobacco for another strong tobacco, very similar to my own brand, but was apparently unaware of having done so.

"Observation number two; Dr Watson, usually as placid and unruffled as a Scottish loch, appears to have entirely changed his personality, not to mention that he is looking most unwell. He has gone through a progression, from irritable up to almost catatonically depressed. This has occurred contemporaneously with his dramatically increased consumption of tobacco.

"Observation number three; Dr Watson was in a somewhat improved mood, despite one of the most paralysing hangovers I have ever seen, after his uncharacteristic drinking binge, which had rendered him unconscious and incapable of consuming tobacco for a number of hours.

"Observation number four; Dr Watson has finished his own tobacco, and begun to consume mine. There is not an appreciable lightening of his mood, but he has begun to show signs of anger again, which may represent a reversal of the previous progression.

"Observation number five; Mrs Hudson, our usually much abused, long-suffering, and much appreciated landlady has also begun behaving with less than her usual forbearance." Mrs Hudson pressed her hands to her cheeks at this, then blushed as Holmes directed his warmest smile at her.

"Observation number six; Mr Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and occasional blind beetle, has also been having a great deal more difficulty than usual maintaining his usual impassivity; a change which is contemporaneous with sitting in the dense cloud accruing from his friend's increased tobacco consumption.

"Observation number seven; the fore mentioned Mr Sherlock Holmes detects a sensation of drug withdrawal whilst en route to apprehend a talented chemist and tobacconist. Remarkable, would you not say?"

"I had dropped the remainder of that bag upon the floor!" I recollected suddenly. "Thank God that I did, or the consequences could have been far worse, if what you're suggesting about the tobacco is true."

"Oh, there's no doubt it's true," stated Holmes, withdrawing a twist of paper from his pocket, and unwrapping it to reveal a few shreds of tobacco within. "This is for your own people, Lestrade. I picked it off the floor in here earlier. I have already analysed it myself. An interesting little concoction, and I don't doubt I've only discovered the half of it yet.

"Lead particles – in sufficient doses, enough to cause psychological disturbance and notorious for provoking depression.

"Cocaine – provoking anxiety and withdrawal, not to mention psychosis. Interesting that it seems so powerful when inhaled.

"Datura stramonium,– I have encountered this nasty little weed before; it is quite common alongside ditches, hence its common name, stink weed. It is an efficacious hallucinogen – you would be interested to hear the original accounts of its effect on soldiers in Virginia. We may all count ourselves fortunate, as the poor fellows were reported to have squatted naked in corners behaving as monkeys and attempted to wallow in their own excrement before they were confined for their own safety – my apologies, Mrs Hudson.

"If I am not mistaken, there were spores of Amanita muscaria identifiable under the microscope. I suspect there are several more agents that I have been unable to identify yet. The combination of these two hallucinogens alone must have been highly potent, especially when combined with the depressive agents."

"It was." Holmes smiled sympathetically at my muttered response, but there was a muscle twitching in the corner of his jaw.

"I still don't entirely understand," said Lestrade, frowning. "How did the poison get into the tobacco in the first place? And why was the doctor targeted?"

"In answer to your second question, I doubt that he was targeted," replied Holmes. He stretched a long arm out to the fireplace and picked up the Persian slipper. "If you were seeking to poison somebody's tobacco, is this the receptacle you would think it was stored in? Many of my vices are proving virtues today.

"As to how it got here – Mrs Hudson. Could you please describe the visitor Watson had on Monday?"

She looked surprised, and I froze in my seat as I recalled my visit from Dr Effram Morgan. "Yes, Mr Holmes. He was well-dressed, and tallish - around Dr Watson's own height. He had a round face, and his nose, a bit of a beak anyway, likened him to a drinker, if you'll forgive me saying. Bushy grey side whiskers, and he was very stout about the torso, although he was balanced atop a pair of the skinniest spindleshanks you've ever seen."

"Watson? Anything to add?"

"He had remarkably white teeth for a man of his age. Eyes were blue and bloodshot. Small hands and feet, neatly trimmed fingernails. Very charming in his manner."

Holmes turned to Lestrade, whose mouth had pursed into a silent whistle. "You see, Lestrade? Strip away the removable features such as facial hair, and what do you have?"

"He sounds very like our man Dix, Mr Holmes," answered Lestrade, grimly.

"Indeed. And he dropped his calling cards upon the floor when he was here."

"However do you know that?" I exclaimed.

"You picked one up from behind the leg of the sofa. You did not appear surprised to see it, nor to study it when you threw it into the grate. Therefore, it was not an unexpected finding. Mrs Hudson cleans under the sofa as often as I will allow her, usually weekly, or fortnightly if I am being particularly obstreperous, so it cannot have been there for long.

"I would anticipate that you picked his calling cards up, Watson?"

"Yes, I did, Holmes," I said, the truth finally dawning on me. "He told me he had lumbago, and couldn't reach the floor. I was crawling around down there for some little time. Easily long enough for him to look around, find where we kept our tobacco, and fill it with his poisoned blend."

"Precisely!" beamed my friend, and I dipped my head in embarrassment at being so easily duped.

"Why did he ask for me, Holmes?"

"Ah, what more respectable guise is there than a doctor? And what more innocent excuse for visiting a man than a medical one? He also might have suspected that I would recognise him, but had no reason to think you would. I believe he has had the house watched, and waited until I was out before calling upon you. He was certainly quick off the mark; I had not been watching him for long when he fixed his attention on to me."

"He sounds as if he runs a formidable organisation," I mused.

"Ye-es," drawled Holmes. His eyes had suddenly taken on that dreamy, faraway look that denoted furious internal activity. "A very formidable organisation indeed. Hm. I wonder..."

He broke off, giving the impression of suddenly arriving back in the room. "You do have him guarded closely, don't you Lestrade?"

"What? Yes, of course."

"Good. I shall look forward to speaking with him. He certainly has a great many questions to answer."

At this moment, there came a knock at the door, and the scullery maid brought in a telegram, blushing under her mistress's stern eye and dropping a curtsey as she delivered it to Inspector Lestrade, before scuttling from the room.

Lestrade scanned the telegram, then paled and looked up, consternation writ large upon his face.

"You'll get no chance to speak to Dix, Mr Holmes. He has been found dead in his cell half an hour ago."

Well, the plot thickens, just as you thought it was thinning. Well done to those of you who guessed poison, especially poisoned tobacco! (Lee, Be3, KylaRyan, Hagstrom, Reflekshun) Well done to Faersul, who didn't like Dr Morgan from the beginning, and to FoggyKnight who noticed the business cards..

For double-detectiveness, Shedoc got that the fat doctor did it to the tobacco, and Pompey that the tobacco was poisoned and that Holmes' quarry was a tobacconist... gosh, you're all a good load of detectives! And, as you can see, I really DO read and appreciate your reviews.

But now what's happening? Well, all will be explained in Chapter 13. Perhaps.

Please read and review, to keep my fingers tappa-tapping!