Patterson was like dragging out a man who was already dead; he hung limp in his soaking wet clothes as Hopkins pulled with all his considerable strength. The wool coat wasn't so bad while in the water, but once he was out it turned to lead.

The young man grunted, panic sweating his brow. I can't get him out, he realised, just as sand gave way like quicksand; a reek of black water and rotting plants filled the Inspector's nostrils and he gagged, feeling them both sink into a chilly froth up to his waist.

"Hold on…! Hold on, sair! Nereabouts there!"

Hartley Loseth tucked a large-looking gun into his coat pocket and pulled on the other side. Hopkins didn't catch on at first, but the big fisherman was trying to work with tears running down his face.

"Loseth? Where are the rest?"

"Na yit, sair." Loseth sniffed loudly. He looked too-ready to start bawling, but his face was turning numb and set.

Patterson's return to the land of the living was marked with a choked scream of agony as Hopkins tried to maneuver him by lifting him under the arms. Seawater wasn't as sticky as what was beneath his left hand. Hopkins gnashed his teeth and apologized as quickly as he could; Loseth pulled from the other end and Patterson tried to hold back a scream and fainted from the effort. His weight seemed to double.

"Dear heaven, man, how did he get shot? He was right there with Gregson and Lestrade!"

"Caught by Sir Niles' mon." Loseth answered miserably. He added almost in an afterthought, "Boggs is dead." He sank down on the wet sand next to Patterson and put his head in his hands. "Me brither dead…I waar im not ta…Whitna steer we be in." The fisherman observed dully. "An hiddle be gin waar the night."

"Your brother is dead?" Hopkins' quick mind whirled. A mess they were in, indeed. Behind him a fourth figure lurched over the slim horizon; a large man with a peaked cap. Finally!

"Thought tae shoot the Inspector. But he was shot instead." Hartley nodded, the picture of biblical torment. "I waar im. Too mony deaths. I waar him."

"Hartley…if you're going to betray me and a wounded man, I advise you to think instead about getting up and taking a walk in—" Hopkins pulled back the hammer of his gun. "that direction behind you, and staying put on the other side of this wretched isle until we've cleaned it all up!" He heard the shake of fury in his panting voice and hoped it stood for sincerity.

"He's telling the truth, Hopkins." Bradstreet answered heavily. "I saw the whole thing from the rendezvous. Boggs shot Patterson and I thought he'd gotten Lestrade too…but later I saw him and Gregson bein' marched to the stone ware-house under their own power." He shook his head. "It was a near thing. I didn't think Patterson would even be alive, the way he fell into the water."

He sank to one knee and put his hand on the man's cold, wet throat. "His pulse isn't too bad," was the confirmation. "We need to get him into a place where we can shine a light."

"There's a netting-shack just up the cove." Hartley Loseth blew his nose, sailor-fashion into the sand. "Ha'f-sunk t'the sands."

"Are you certain about this?" Hopkins looked straight at the Runner and ignored Loseth.

"Na worry." Loseth answered in the voice of a man who is hurt too deeply to recover. "I wi' na stay." He climbed to his feet, the scraps of moonlight making silver in his cheeks and grizzled beard. "I waar im," he said at last. "But he noo listen. He the favor son."

Hopkins was upset, frightened for Patterson, terrified for Gregson and Lestrade as the case collapsed around his ears…but there was still room in his heart for pity to watch the broken-down old fisherman lurch across the rolling land to the far side of the shore.

"Damn," he whispered.

"Damn fathers who pick sides with their own offspring." Bradstreet answered without a pause. "I saw the shack in question…we can't even see about his bleeding until we get him to a safeway."

"Let's go."

-

"He's changed."

Gregson had nearly fallen asleep from that deadly mix of exhaustion, frustration, and boredom. Lestrade's low voice instantly snapped him out of it.

The big man sat up, the mattress crackling underneath. Lestrade hadn't moved a jot since sinking down into the corner by the moonlight.

Gregson watched, unsure if Lestrade had fallen asleep in his sitting position, he was so still. Steam from his breath coiled in the cool sea-air.

"He was always a cruel man; he was a cruel boy." Lestrade began again metronomically, as if his thoughts could only be conjured in a neat order. "His father taught him well. They taught my brother how to be like they were." Silence. "They were teaching Paul. We weren't anything to them but manikins." More silence. "But he was always…he was the master of his desires, Gregson. Always. Business first, then pleasure." Lestrade lowered his head slightly. "Always."

"But he does seem to have changed." Gregson pointed out. "He's not the coldly controlled man he used to be."

"That night at Beckett's…" Lestrade looked into his hands. "I saw his face when he was beating me…and then drowning me in that pond. I could see how much he enjoyed it…and…I could see that he was surprised at himself."

"It's a dark thing to learn." Gregson wished for a smoke. "Most men can't face that."

"I think he did face that." Lestrade murmured. "But I also think…that after so many years of only controlling his desires, he wasn't prepared for them to come out. It was like…he looked like a man in the grip of drink."

"And he's still drinking."

"Yes."

Gregson didn't think Lestrade had seen the way the agent had looked. The man hadn't seemed to be all that sane when he was at that unguarded first moment…then he buried that light of madness in his eyes, but still…

Gregson sought for something to snap Lestrade out of his mood. "Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you could get under his skin like that. Lord knows, you've got a talent."

"Hah." Lestrade made a fake laugh. "You'll have your chance, Tobias. It's not much but it's a chance. Get Watson while I'm keeping them busy."

Gregson nodded in the moonlight. Outside the warf-rats were running back and forth, barking orders and swearing at freight. "Looks like we're about to ride to the fancy side of Streat." He murmured.

"I'm going to get some sleep." Lestrade sank down into an acceptable spot. "Lord knows I'm going to need it."

"Before you do," Gregson cleared his throat. "Is there anything you might want to pass on to me about…the others?"

Lestrade was silent again, slowly thinking. "No…nothing comes to mind…yet."

"As you say." Gregson accepted it with a nod. Every man had their secrets. In the Yard, secrets weren't supposed to be kept. But they all did.

If things went too poorly, he knew Lestrade would pull out whatever card he was nursing close to his chest.

-

The shack was awful.

Small insects and not-so-small cousins scurried out of the light of the bull's eye Bradstreet half-buried in the sand to further hide the illumination. Patterson's own coat had to suffice for a wet tarpaulin.

Bradstreet took over like the much-experienced old officer he was. Hopkins wasn't ashamed to admit he was grateful. Only actual practice could give him the level of skill Bradstreet had.

"Bullet went through," he said at last. "But that's not the half of it. Looks like a rib's cracked through, and some of the threads in the hole…we need a surgeon to get them out. Inflammation's going to set in and I can't stop it other than—" he splashed his flask into the oozing dark spot in Patterson's white skin and the unconscious man moaned without waking up. "He's out because of the pain. That's a mercy."

Hopkins agonized over his uselessness. "I don't know what to do."

"Field work, Hopkins." Bradstreet did not scorn to call the much-younger man "lad." He'd made the grade and that made him equal. "As bad as he's hurt…" He took a tiny sip for himself against the chill. "We've got less'n a week to get Watson, that's for sure. Patterson can't live for long like this."

"Now what?" Hopkins pulled out his own flask (his teeth were starting to clatter), and put his back up against a large drift of sand inside the shack. Sand was everywhere; it was no more than a shell of wood and disjointed, half-hearted attempts to do something against the wind and rains.

"We need to wait," Bradstreet chewed on his mouth. "Wait a bit further. Where they got the others…they'll be moving them soon enough." He shrugged out of his coat and made a blanket for the wounded man. "If they do anything, it'll be before dawn. So we need to just be patient."

Hopkins nodded in the darkness and breathed a bit easier as Bradstreet flipped the lid on the lantern, bathing them in gloom that would at least shelter them from prying eyes.

And Patterson was still breathing.

He was still breathing.

That was good.

Hopkins also sacrificed his damp coat to wrap about Patterson—it was wool and he would be unlikely to freeze with it…but now his own teeth chattered loudly over the sound of the surf and if it were possible to curl against the soaking-wet Inspector…well, he would have.

He even thought about it is a few times, but nothing could overwhelm the misery of being wet on a night on the rocky shores of Streat.

Bradstreet was at least dry…

"Oh, no." Bradstreet was sitting up like an alert hound. Hopkins followed suit. "Get your glass," he hissed. "There's some people headin' down the surf."

Hopkins threw himself on his stomach and squeezed his vision between the eyepiece of his field glass and a crack in the shack-boards. Bradstreet was already there, muttering under his breath.

The foggy night made it hard to see—damn near impossible—until the sound of crunching foot-falls grew close. Hopkins counted three figures in the mist; four. Four became six. A few of them were talking amongst each other; disgruntled, complaining, and earnest. The last one had a voice that rang as clear as a bell in the night:

"You might at least recall the loan of a man's cigarette-case, Georges."

Hopkins gasped. Bradstreet slapped his hand over his mouth.

"Sorry about that, sir." A thick-set man with a rough voice turned; the group paused and a long metallic object was passed forth.

"You're being paid well enough for this night, my good fellow. I would hope you remember that."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Holmes."

The tall, lean owner of the voice paused as he took his possession back, and lifted his head into the night sky…in the dark of the crevice, they could see his nostrils flaring as if caught upon a scent.

Stunned, the Inspectors were quite incapable of movement.

Cigarette lit off a match, the tall man nodded in satisfaction, and the group continued on its way.

They waited without moving—and precious little breathing—as the men continued down the coast-line to the small bastion of civilization for the Isle of Streat.

"Roger…" Hopkins licked his lips. "Am I going mad?"

"If so…" Bradstreet answered hoarsely, "then it's catching."

"Is he under cover, like Patterson was?" A hundred questions were crowding in at once. A thousand. The young man swallowed hard, trying to sort at least one out. "Patterson survived undercover for years—what if Mr. Holmes was—"

"Easy off." Bradstreet spoke not ungently, but his manner was firm. "We don't know what we just saw, Hopkins. "We saw a tall, skinny man with a less than humble attitude in the worst possible light conditions, who appears to be going by the name of Mr. Holmes. We didn't hear "Sherlock Holmes" nor did we hear or see anything else. And that's what we'd have to say in court."

"Dear God." Hopkins breathed. "We're in the middle of a snake-pit. How are we going to rescue the doctor—and Lestrade and Gregson—and Patterson? It would take a Sherlock Holmes!"

"We can't say we've got one. What we've got is the two of us, and somewhere, not far from Dr. Watson, there's two more of us. That's four. And including Watson…we've all got a fighting chance. That's what we have to work with."