There are certain rules about a war and rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is doctors can't change rule number one. -- MASH, the series
Holmes
None of us spoke much until we were in a four-wheeler headed across London for Scotland Yard, and it was Lestrade who then broke the silence with a bemused frown.
"Am I particularly dense, gentlemen, or is it because I lack medical expertise that I don't quite follow you about the implications of this fellow's drug withdrawal?" asked he, glancing back and forth rapidly between the two doctors.
Beside me, Watson leaned his head gingerly back against the cushions and, after a nod from Ives, answered the official.
"Morphine withdrawal alone can be a quite serious condition," he replied. "The first twenty-four hours' symptoms include those you've already mentioned, but after that the possibilities can range anywhere from severe headache and abdominal pain, chills, and muscle spasms to severe cramping, nausea, drug cravings, and anything in between. And, in the worst cases, another symptom is such elevated blood pressure and heart rate that there is a strong possibility of heart failure or stroke."
Lestrade's eyes widened. "When would those symptoms start to occur?"
"The serious ones usually peak between forty-eight and ninety-six hours after the last dosage," Watson replied.
"But that is not the most potentially dangerous factor in this instance," Ives added after a pause.
"No?"
"You forget the cocaine use, Inspector. The cocaine withdrawal symptoms will begin just as the morphine withdrawal reaches its peak," the old doctor replied. "Morphine withdrawal can be potentially deadly alone, but when combined with cocaine withdrawal, the effects could quite easily grow to be more than a match for Brownley's system."
"Good Lord…what does cocaine withdrawal entail, then?"
"More of the same: chills and muscle aches and tremors, but also irritability, restlessness, emotional disturbances…" I answered without thinking.
Lestrade looked at me in some surprise, and I felt my ears begin to burn; not for the world did I ever want him – or Ives, for that matter, though doubtless the man already knew from Watson's memoirs – realising just how well acquainted I was with at least the cocaine withdrawal symptoms, mild though they had always been in my case.
All animosity I might still have held for the elderly doctor turned into a brilliant flash of gratitude and relief as he shot me a knowing look and then smoothly turned the conversation back to its previous channel.
"And those minor symptoms can last up to one week, after which anything from angry mood swings and severe drug cravings to depression and insomnia is possible," Ives informed Lestrade.
"So you're saying we will have an unstable inmate at best, and a dangerously ill one at the worst, for over a week?" the official gasped in dismay.
"Ill is not the worst that could happen," Watson interjected. "In his condition, with that amount of pain and trauma to his abused body, his system could very well just decide it has had enough and give up. Or he could be in danger of dying from dehydration."
"Or," Ives added quietly, "he will decide that living with that amount of pain, either physical and or mental, is simply unbearable. I hope you have him under heavy guard with the proper precautions, Inspector?"
Lestrade, who had paled slightly at the notion of the man becoming suicidal, nodded. "The usual, Doctor, although perhaps I should double the security in that case."
"It would not be ill-advised," I interjected through a tightly clenched jaw. "I want him to live to hang for what he did, Lestrade."
Ives raised one bushy eyebrow at my vehemence, and Watson shot me a sidelong glance of some concern. I ignored both of them, concentrating on the official sitting across from me.
"Yes, well…what do we need to do with the man, when these symptoms start?" the inspector asked. "I cannot assign a police doctor to be with him constantly. Are you saying we need to give him whatever he's addicted to if it will keep him alive?"
"We will be better equipped to answer that when once we have seen the man's condition, Inspector. Which I see shall be within minutes," Watson added as the vehicle pulled to a halt outside the premises of the Yard.
I noticed that both my friend and Ives were moving just a trifle slower than normal and slowed my own rapid pace accordingly behind them and Lestrade as we entered. The inspector located the file of information he had gathered during the morning hours and read odds and ends from it aloud as we made our way back to the holding cells.
"Fellow apparently had a pretty rum go of it," the official said, flipping through the sheaf of papers. "He wouldn't tell us much this morning and absolutely nothing last night, but according to what our research has turned up, Alexander Brownley was part of the 51st Foot…err, the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, I believe they are now. Let's see…1877-78, Jowakhi Expedition; November 21, 1878, Battle of Ali Masjid…"
"Yes, we were aware of that," I interrupted impatiently. "We traced his file through General Malkin's memoirs earlier in the week. That is how we learned his true name in the first place."
"Well, I have not heard his history," put in Ives. The look he sent me was reproachful, tempered with faint annoyance. "Was that battle where he was wounded in the spine?"
Beside me, Watson shuddered slightly with a twinge of some memory.
"I believe so," Lestrade flipped the paper over and scanned the next. "Yes, took a bullet to the . . . sixth cervical vertebrae?"
"Lower neck, upper back," Ives translated.
I winced instinctively.
"It could not have paralysed him permanently, at least, since he obviously is still mobile," Watson remarked. "Bruised spinal cord, I believe was Malkin's retroactive diagnosis."
"Spot on, Doctor," Lestrade reported, glancing up from his papers just barely in time to keep from running into a wall as we turned a corner. "He was temporarily paralysed by the force of the impact."
"But surely he would not have been left by the medical personnel on the battlefield, even in that condition?" I asked in revulsion.
"Of course not!" Watson retorted with some heat. "Besides, Brownley never made such an accusation in Malkin's report!"
"Brownley reported it later, after his reinstatement to the 51st," Lestrade hastily interjected. "Apparently the medic who found him did not check him thoroughly and left him for dead."
"Disgraceful," Watson muttered. "It is no wonder he hates all army doctors."
"Hardly," I replied. "The retaliation for one man's actions, however careless, should not be carried out upon innocent parties."
"That happens more often than you would think in wartime, Holmes," Watson said to me in a low tone. His eyes were pained and troubled as they looked into mine; was he actually feeling sympathy for this murderer?
"All that the files we checked said was that he recovered the ability to move on the field some hours later," Lestrade went on, blissfully unaware of the slight rise in tension behind him. "But by then he was unaware of his regiment's location and instead stumbled upon the enemy in the dark. Was captured, and for the next ten years was a prisoner of war in southeast Afghanistan and northwestern India."
"Ten years," Watson muttered with a gesture of revulsion. "Ten years in who knows what kind of hell all for the want of the ten seconds it would have taken to make sure he was dead or alive."
"This gives us no details of that time," Lestrade said, pausing for a moment to pick up a paper he had dropped. "It just says that he was found in the First Hazara Expedition by his old regiment, the 51st. But given the scarring on his wrists and face alone, I think we may safely guess at what happened."
This was old news for Watson and myself, having already read that particular report. However, Ives was clearly taken aback by the coincidence.
"And it was then that General Malkin treated him after the rescue," he pondered aloud. "He must not have recognised Brownley."
"Says that our man served with that unit until 1893, when he was dishonorably discharged," the inspector reported, closing the file and tucking it under his arm. "Any further details will have to be gathered from the man himself…if he's in any condition to talk to us."
"Dishonorable discharge," Watson mused. "On what grounds, I wonder?"
Personally I would not have been at all surprised if it had been for taking a potshot at one of his superiors, but naturally I did not voice such an opinion as I had refrained from doing so much thus far in the conversation.
While I did not pretend to anything akin to sympathy for the man that had taken one innocent life and nearly taken at least three others, one of whom was dearer to me than I should ever admit even to myself, I recognised that I also had no real inkling of what could be driving such a man to what he did. I therefore allowed the two soldiers of our party to take the initiative in the converse for once instead of instigating it myself when we arrived at Brownley's cell a minute or so later.
The man in question was indeed apparently in some discomfort, and the aggressive fury of the night before was most conspicuously absent, being replaced by what at first glance would appear to be symptoms of a common cold; sniffling, watery eyes, and general unwellness. This was accompanied by a depressed lethargy of movement – he barely moved when we entered – and occasional grimaces of hidden pain that seemed to grow worse as the interview went on.
When he saw that we were not the police, he grew more animated, actually rising from his pallet and taking a few stumbling steps towards the bars. His swollen, red eyes scanned each of us from tip to toe, gazing longer at Watson's head and Ives's shoulder. I felt my hands clench in rage when he smirked at them.
"So you're the bait I sprang for as neatly as a fish," he addressed Watson. "A soldier knows his own kind; you couldn't have fooled me otherwise, but who the devil are you?"
"Dr. John Watson, Assistant Surgeon, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers," my friend replied.
Brownley gave a low growl of contempt. I bristled, but Watson did not appear to even blink. "Pity I didn't have more time to line up my last shot," the prisoner snarled, "but it's nice to see I haven't entirely lost my touch." My friend tensed but otherwise outwardly remained the unshakable soldier.
Brownley glanced over at Ives, who was more than maintaining his barrack-room posture during this unpleasant interview. "And you?"
"Dr. Ernest Ives. Surgeon-Colonel at Peshawar," the man drawled flatly. "I am also a friend of General Malkin."
A flash of fiery anger flared up in Brownley's eyes and he lunged forward, gripping the bars when he legs failed to hold him upright. "A friend of Malkin's, eh?" he spat with deep contempt. "You can tell him from me that his turn would have come within the week."
"All because he failed to recognize you back in '88?" Watson asked in disbelief. 'Is that why you were sending him those threats for months?"
"No, Doctor," the man snarled, emphasizing the title with deep hatred. "Retiring with honors, when he deserved none, warranted those!"
"If you hated Malkin so much, why then did you choose David Chamberlain for your first target?" Ives asked.
The blood-shot eyes blazed at the elderly doctor. "Because he ruined what pitiful bit of a new life the military, in its almighty wisdom, granted me," Brownley growled.
"He was the one who prescribed you morphine and thus started your addiction," I said quietly, realization dawning. "Had you not been treated with the drug before?"
"Oh, I had been given morphine before," said the prisoner, loathing dripping from his voice. "But that man told me it disgusted him to see a soldier complaining of pain, and that if I must have something for it then he would see to it that it would leave me no pain left to complain of."
Peripherally I saw Watson flinch and even Ives stepped back. "The dosage was too high. You became addicted to it," I finished.
He gave a very rigid nod and retreated back to his pallet, lying upon it as stiffly as an Egyptian mummy. He closed his eyes, meaning to ignore us, his continued discomfort from the withdrawal evident.
"And the cocaine enhanced the pain-killing properties of morphine without the usual drowsiness and lethargy you would otherwise experience," I goaded; it took no great deduction to see what had happened.
"Had to be able to work somehow," Brownley grated.
"If you held the army and its people in such low esteem, why in the world did you take a job in an office handling their pensions?" I asked.
He snorted. "You, sir, were never a soldier."
"No."
"Then let me say this," the man said bitterly with a twisted scowl. "You may take the Queen's shilling but they take a bit of you in return. It gets in your blood, like malaria. 'Once a soldier, always a soldier.' "
"And you were unable to obtain a more respectable job than custodian, due to your . . . discharge," Watson said quietly. "You could not reveal your educational background without revealing your true history."
"Oh, well done," the man snapped, his eyes glinting with a combined pain and bitterness. He draped an arm over his eyes with a choked-off groan – no doubt the withdrawal headache was intense.
"It must have been maddening to have such an occupation, added to your injuries and addictions," Watson ventured questioningly.
"Watching checks being written every day to those fools who had no right to be supported by the army…" continued Ives deliberately provokingly. "Then when you read of Surgeon-General Malkin retiring with honour, that landed as the last straw on the proverbial camel's back,"
Brownley sighed heavily, though the tail end of it was disturbingly close to the sound of a dog's warning growl.
"Of course you then utilized the pension office to gain the information you sought about the men you chose to receive your twisted interpretation of justice," I snapped, my patience with the man's matter-of-fact attitude about cold-blooded murder fairly nauseating me – a difficult feat to accomplish with my iron constitution.
"Why did you go back to visit Chamberlain one last time before starting to send threats and finally murdering the man?" Lestrade interjected for the first time in the conversation, smoothly cutting off any further angry outbursts from either of us.
Slowly the arm came down and he turned his face towards us one more time. "One last chance," he enunciated slowly. "One last chance to acknowledge what he did to me. To apologize, as not one of you damned doctors has done to me yet. And he didn't even recognize me," the man spat with a flare of fury.
"He probably didn't even remember you, if it had been years since your first consultation," Watson snapped, paler than was his wont.
"All the more reason to rid the world of a callous scoundrel," Brownley replied, glaring fiercely at my friend.
One thing had struck me as odd, which I now phrased voiced. "I am puzzled, Brownley, as to why you have directed your murderous attentions to these innocent doctors when logically you would have gone after the medic who actually left you on the field those years ago."
Those baleful eyes turned my direction briefly. "And so I would have, had the filthy scum still been alive – the Second Afghan War stole that privilege from me, as it stole almost everything else from me."
Brownley's mouth snapped shut abruptly after this pronouncement, and his face contorted with an expression of intense pain, his hands clenching convulsively on the side of the bunk where he lay.
"Any further questions, Mr. Holmes?" Lestrade asked, pulling out his pocket-watch and glancing at the timepiece.
"No, Lestrade. Doctors?"
Ives replied in the negative, and Watson shook his head, his face drawn and wearing that half-pensive, half-haunted look I had seen periodically throughout this case.
I dearly hoped that with the closing of the sordid drama would come the burial of whatever ghosts had been resurrected by the affair, though heaven only knew how long that might take.
Even more concerning than this was the fact that I was not entirely sure I knew what to do to hasten that eventuality, save seeing Brownley stand trial.
If he indeed were to live that long.
