Scotland Yard:

"Hold up!"

Lestrade turned to see Hopkins pelting through the lines. He waited, thinking patiently of the hot tea Youghal was brewing right now.

Hopkins panted lightly as he came to a stop. He looked as sleepless as the older man. "You wanted to know about the injuries," he managed.

"What did you find out?"

"I spoke to Dr. Mortimer." Hopkins ran his finger around his collar. "He agreed to help us keep this as quiet as possible until we have no choice." He smiled at Lestrade's nod of relief. "And he was quite useful. He said that the majority of sacrificial bog-victims have some sort of physical problem beforehand. The most popular examples are lame, or have something similar-wrong with an arm." He took a deep breath, face sweating.

"Over-dressed again?" Lestrade guessed dryly. "You have to remember the weather is warming up, Hopkins."

"Warm weather is a theory until it actually happens. And where I live is proof of it." Hopkins shot back. "Anyway. The sacrifices…I should say, the real, genuine sacrifices, are usually drugged, struck on the head, cut across the throat, and finally pressed into the bog."

"Is there a reason why they'd insist on killing a man all over, and more than once?" Lestrade grimaced. "Oh. Right. The triple death. I'd forgotten. Well, Mortimer's just a fountain of awful information, isn't he?"

"Looks like it. When's the meeting?"

"You've got just enough time to take off that wool waistcoat and grab a cup of tea with me."

-

Inspector Craddock was one of the many policemen who had began his service work in Army uniform. He began by putting his own service revolver on the table next to Watson's.

"Adams .450's meant for quick fighting." He began. Around him the room (crowded with Constables, Sergeants, detective-sergeants, plainclothesmen and watermen quieted. "I know it can look odd that we keep to a gun what was developed in our boyhood, but it was designed for its purpose. We're all drilled to fight until no thought at all is required, just reflex and instinct. Even with his reflexes slowed down by those poppies, he didn't have to think about what he was doing." Craddock looked haggard under his sun-beaten skin. "Maximum range is about 35 yards, but let me tell you, we were trained to hit just as well at 100 yards. You got a feel for how low a bullet could drop per so many feet after enough practice. Not that there was any long-distance firing.

"They hit him hard and fast…those Berkshires can do more than 12 rounds a minute when they're in a fight. If he only had time to get three off, they had it planned out to the inch." He grinned. "But they didn't realize Watson was trained same as I was. When we come home of an evening, the first thing we do is unlock our gun-drawer. It's how we were trained. And that drawer was right at arm's reach when they broke in."

Craddock's announcement was met with feral chuckles about the table, especially from the other veterans. To their thinking, the men had been responsible for their own deaths to be so stupid.

"I can tell you this," Constable Peake popped up. A tiny Army medal for bravery hung at his lapel. "These men weren't military, and I doubt they were led by someone who was military. They wouldn't have made that kind of mistake in judgment."

"There's a lot to what you say." Lestrade noted Gregson was chalking notes on the board as fast as his fingers would allow. "That would so far fit in to our suspicions that the cult is not military in nature. It's organized, but not to that point of efficiency."

"Cults are all about control." Bradstreet grunted. "I'm thinking they could easily don a militaresque aspect; they would have that ability if they bond their followers together on human sacrifice. But they haven't gotten that far yet. It would take the induction of someone who was already military in nature." He stroked his chin in thought. "I, for one, believe they wouldn't stand for the competition in discipline."

"Here's what I think happened." Lestrade stood in front of them. "Feel free to break in if you know I've gone off the tracks." He put his palms on the table by the Adams. "We know that Dr. Watson received a dubious gift of a drugged bouquet that, giving this time of year with cool evenings, had a good chance of slowing his reflexes inside a closed room with little ventilation. They waited, possibly peeping in the window until he appeared drowsy, and chose that moment to break in. They failed to realize that Dr. Watson is a light sleeper, a veteran of our worst war, and keeps a loaded Adams Mark within arm's reach. Three bullets were fired; one bullet was found in the wall, and judging from the bloodstains, that bullet went through one assailant. The other two bullets hit in non-vital but damaging areas but they were still able to finish what they started." Lestrade stopped to swallow bile down his throat. "There was a phial of Chloroform on the scene—exactly 3½ ounces. I don't need to remind anyone here that carrying around a primed rag for drugging has led to errors that killed both the kidnapper and victim, so we can reasonably presume that these fellows were either operating under specific orders, or they were very good at what they did.

"Once they had Watson, they were under a ferocious timeline; he'd sounded the alarm with his bullets in a quiet residential neighborhood. They dashed to their cohort in the cab, and took off with our policemen arriving just in time to follow them to the Serpentine Tracks.

"The man with the piercing wound had been more deeply injured than he had first appeared. Watson's bullet nicked the artery at the clavicle—ironic, that—and he bled to death on the way to the river. They took the time to dump the corpse of their friend, tracking clear prints of their shoes in his blood on the dock and continued their mission, which was to deliver Watson under the cover of night to the little Thames riverport we all know as a smuggler's paradise…" Lestrade rubbed his eyes again.

"Here is where things begin to be less clear. They switched him to the Thames somehow. It appears they had managed to drop Watson in that wretched coffin of a cargo-hold, and he partially awakened from the drug at some point, because he took the time to pull off his cravat and cufflinks and leave the message on the inside of the wood—" Lestrade still felt slightly queasy at the memory of that tiny space. "But at the rendezvous, the kidnappers were set upon by a second party—a rival gang who for some reason had a great deal of objection to what was happening. The men were taken out systematically, bullet by bullet; dropped like sheep at a slaughtering-house. The blood was well spilled from their heads when the second gang boarded and found what they were looking for. This second gang was just as hasty as the first; they left all kinds of evidence in their wake, including a second dose of Chloroform, but it was from a treated sponge. The bodies were then dumped aboard, and I'm sure they thought it would be at least twenty days before they rose up again, but they didn't think of random happenstance, and the loose net snagged their bodies long enough to pull them to the Limehouse nineteen days ahead of the usual floater schedule."

"It all reeks." Bradstreet snapped. "I can get that they were wanting to nab Watson because of his reports on those bodies—I can get that they wanted him for their cult because he has the same kind of wounding the other victims had—it would be no more than taking out two birds with the same stone--but the second gang? What the bloody hell is that about?"

Lestrade pulled in his breath. "I think we need to put Colonel Moriarty back on the list of suspects." He said tightly.

MacDonald flinched. "That's going into dangerous terrain," he said cautiously. "The Colonel is military as they come, and we've established this is not a military achievement."

"I know, but I'm not likely to forget his sally upon us." Lestrade slapped his hands together and got up to pace. "We're missing something here."

Gregson frowned. "Such as what?" He demanded.

"I'm not sure…the cravat…the stickpin…" Lestrade ran his hand through his hair, upset as he could get. "Watson went to quite a bit of trouble to take off that cravat and hide it in the very back of that box where it wasn't likely to be seen. Gregson, where were the cufflinks found?"

"In the top, where his head'd be." Gregson supplied. "It had to have been a bother to get that done. There wasn't room for a man of his size to move around, but still, they were small and it was dark. Hard to see."

"He took off a cufflink, and used it to write that message in the wood." Lestrade said slowly. "His hands were bound, that's obvious. One cufflink snapped, so he removed the second cufflink, and finished his message. He couldn't bloody well put the cufflinks back on, so he concealed them as well as he could. But what about the cravat? He unknotted his cravat, did something with that stickpin, and somehow—don't ask me how—he managed to get that cravat all the way down to the bottom of that coffin." He paced; the room was thick and awkward with heavy thoughts.

Gregson slammed his fist on the wall, making the chalk fall off the tray. "Concealment!" He bellowed. "Goda'mighty! It was right there in front of us!" He was so excited he got to his feet, eyes gleaming at Lestrade from across the table. "He must have heard the fracas, figured out something even worse was happening. He ripped his cravat off and stuffed it in the back so the second group of kidnappers wouldn't notice his stickpin was missing!"

"I don't follow you, sir," Crane said timidly.

Gregson was so thrilled he didn't even snap. "You're John Watson. All you can think of is surviving long enough to see the bastards that did this to you meet justice. You figure out the possible length of the trip by the limited space and oxygen. You do everything Lestrade has described up to this point—then you hide the cufflinks as well as you can. Why not? These men moved very fast against you, but they shed evidence like feathers off a moulting duck! Their key is in moving quickly. But you hear something going on, something that tells you things are going from bad to worse. Maybe there's talking, threatening, shots being fired—whatever. You have to take another chance."

Gregson threw himself back into his chair, holding his hands out in his delight. "The second party is going to be looking for John Watson, but they don't know what condition he's already in! For all they know, he was grabbed while he was taking his cufflinks off—it was nightfall—so if his cufflinks are gone, why not his stickpin? The first group, as soon as they haul him out in the light of day, they're going to notice he has a stickpin and relieve him of it—it's a weapon, a lockpick, something that can cause harm! But the second group isn't going to know any of that!" Gregson yanked an invisible tiepin off his throat. "He's hidden his tiepin somewhere, but he can't let them see he has a cravat on. A cravat would remind him he might have a pin! So he stuffs that in the furthest corner of the hold. The second group will think that the first group has already searched him of weapons. If they notice anything, it'll be the cufflinks that are closer to the top, close to the opening! They'll be decoyed and not think of looking any deeper!"

"Just like you did!" Lestrade stared. "Gregson, that's brilliant."

"It'll be brilliant when we figure out who exactly has him." Gregson snorted.

"All right. Watson's been grabbed by organized, clever criminals. Where does this fit in with the rumors about Holmes?" Patterson spoke up for the first time. The lean man ignored the appalled hush in the room. "Come on, we're all thinking it. What if there's any truth to those rumors? What if Holmes isn't really dead?"

"Oh, that's a simple problem." Gregson said sarcastically. "Anyone got a three-hundred-foot salvaging hook?"

Lestrade glared, close to striking the other man in the mouth.

Patterson shrugged it off. "Or something even more clever." He continued. "We didn't get all of Moriarty's gang; his unknown second-in-command got away with him. But what's the first rule in organized crime? It's hierarchical. The king dies, the princes fall to pieces quarreling." He struck a match and lit up his pipe, aware he had a rapt audience. "If I was to take over Moriarty's empire, I'd want to stack my odds. And if I really wanted to stack my odds, I'd make it easy on myself and throw a royal scare into my competition." He sucked thoughtfully on his pipe and blew a smoke ring. "What would scare the Professor's men worse than the thought of Sherlock Holmes returning from the grave?"

"Hell, that would scare anyone." Bradstreet retorted.

"I'm not saying it would be easy." Patterson said wryly. "For all we know, it took this long to even find the right person and train him up!" He puffed again. "What if the other side believed it? They couldn't afford not to."

"Sherlock Holmes was immune to bribery, blackmail, jibes, and coercion of any kind." Lestrade agreed slowly, wincing as all eyes slid to him. "Taunts and mockery didn't affect him—it was a language he didn't understand. He didn't give a tuppence for anyone throwing his weight around; although he followed the law, he wasn't a slave to it. You know as well as I do he turned a blind eye if it meant a higher justice was being served." He began pacing, the thoughts growing more and more worrisome as he spoke.

"No one could think to control Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Not the Home Office, not the Prime Minister, no gentry nor landed nobility." He stopped to wipe the sweat off his forehead. "But there was one person that had any kind of power over him, and that's John Watson."

"Are you certain?" Craddock asked doubtfully. "I mean, I barely worked in his circles…"

"Lestrade's right." Gregson answered. "When Watson felt Holmes should take on a case, he'd cajole him right into doing it. He'd smooth the way, do the talking…Holmes listened to Watson more than any other person alive—probably because Watson was the only man on the planet Holmes couldn't frighten off. Lord knows he had plenty of reason to run screaming from the man. But he didn't. Holmes depended on him like no one else."

"If you are a high-ranking criminal with ambitions, and you think Sherlock Holmes is alive, then you're going to need a weapon on your side." Lestrade twisted his wedding ring in his hands. "Watson is the only weapon that would pierce that armour."

"If that's the case," Craddock cleared his throat, "would Watson be more useful dead or alive?"

"That," Lestrade sighed, "depends on just how personal the war is."

-

He was sick of being drugged.

Powerless or not, he was willing to at least kick out at the next fool who ripped open the crate for the next timed dose of Chloroform. He was getting rather good at pretending to be groggier and less awake than he really was; they spent less time with the pad over his face each time. No doubt it helped that he probably looked as terrible as he felt. He no longer had any sense of time, save there was too much of it. He knew he needed food but the Chloroform made that notion less than desirable. Water he needed more; if they didn't let have something to drink soon they might as well not keep him alive.

Thumping vibrations attacked the ear that was against the wood and nails shrieked as the top of the lid was pulled up. Lights burned his eyes and the world upturned as two blurry figures in dark, shabby clothing yanked him upright into the chill of the air. The sudden movement overtaxed his muscles and they held him in between to prevent his complete collapse, guiding his feet out of the crate and to the haven of an empty chair against a dining-table.

"Major Watson," said a sickening voice from behind the wreath of smoke, "I'm so pleased you were able to join us tonight."

Watson caught the rank, and the pronoun, and wondered if it were possible to feel any more ill.