Ghosts, we hope, may be always with us - that is, never too far out of the reach of fancy.

-Elizabeth Bowen

Watson

Holmes raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What's left of him?" he echoed dubiously.

"He wouldn't see fit to tell me where they'd dumped this young blighter here," Lachlan declared coolly, indicating the young reporter on whose shoulder he was leaning rather heavily.

"Oh, dear. Watson, come, I believe you'll be needed…"

Holmes's voice floated over his shoulder as he lit a candle and then moved back toward the bedroom Lachlan indicated. As I followed, snatches of heated conversation echoed behind me in the rather dank hall.

"Where the devil have you been for two days, anyway?"

"Out cold for a few hours at first, then when the storm started I barely made it to a farmhouse to wait it out. Then it took a while to pick up this blackguard's trail."

"Why the heck didn't you wire Holmes?"

"I lost my pocketbook in the fall, lad, and besides I was more concerned with tracking you down!"

"At least then they would have been able to tell me you weren't dead!"

"I can't believe you'd given up all hope, falling for that."

"Well pardon me for a natural conclusion! Grief does stuff to a man's mind, you know!"

"Gentlemen," Holmes's amused voice came out of the candle-lit darkness. "Why don't you take this outside and settle it like your Wild West friends are so fond of, Mr. Haight? And if not, please at least drop to a normal tone of voice."

Haight cursed under his breath, and Lachlan's dry chuckle broke the surprised silence.

"Is this the room?" Holmes asked, hand on the knob.

"Aye. Left him trussed up and waitin' nicely for us."

I heard Haight humph something that sounded suspiciously like a rather base American euphemism, and I could barely repress the relieved laughter from spilling out of my grinning mouth.

As Holmes slowly swung open the squeaking door, there was dead, tense silence for a few moments, broken only by the winter wind outside. Then…

"I thig you broke my dose, Renie."

Holmes's shout of reactive laughter echoed in the room, and as he lit a lamp to send a warm glow about us, I saw Lachlan and Haight both grinning at the unusually explosive outburst from the cool detective – obviously, he was as happy as the rest of us were to see our party complete once more.

However, when Holmes's gaze fell upon a figure tied to the chair across the room, struggling furiously and futilely against the sailor's knots, the humour left his face to be replaced by grim determined purpose. He strode over and removed the towel that had been hastily stuffed into the man's mouth, revealing a scowling countenance and a rather nasty-looking bruise on the man's right cheekbone.

"Mr. Albert Fleischer, I presume," Holmes snapped in English for the benefit of our friends.

The fellow's beady eyes glared daggers at my friend. "You're Sherlock Holmes."

"Quite so. You have, I believe, already made the acquaintance of Mr. Lachlan and Mr. Haight."

"That's him," Haight gasped. "The one with the rifle…"

I glanced at the reporter, and saw that he was shaking slightly, either from shock or anger and probably both, combined with barely having eaten anything in two days. Lachlan's gaze met mine quizzically, and when I nodded pointedly to the American he glanced at the lad's bloodless face and immediately, worriedly, took his weight off the young fellow's shoulder, leaving his hand there for support.

"Eyewitness testimony, Fleischer. You'll be lucky to get twenty years for abduction and attempted murder, probably more," Holmes spat cheerfully.

Fleischer swore harshly and fluently in German, struggling against the knots the sailor had made in the bell-rope he'd tied the fellow to the chair with.

"However, you probably could get several years knocked off that if you were to tell us where your two conspirators are. Odd, don't you think, that they left you to take the consequences for this? Do you know how perfectly and childishly easy it was to trace you, Fleischer?" Holmes asked pointedly.

The man's flushed face paled suddenly with that realisation.

"It wasn't supposed to be attempted murder, we just got carried away," the man protested, also in English, ducking a ferocious glare from an incensed American. "He didn't want us to actually kill them, just shake them up a bit."

"Who didn't want you to?" Holmes demanded eagerly.

"The fellow who hired us," Fleischer replied coyly, the colour returning to his face as he realised he held a trump card against our, so far, rather weak hand.

"Hobart Strauss," Holmes shot at the man abruptly.

Fleischer blanched suddenly but shook his head firmly a moment later. I for one did not believe his denial.

"He's lying, Holmes. It has to be Strauss," Lachlan snapped, "else why go to all this trouble to prevent us from gettin' to Vienna?"

"I agree that that makes the most sense…but Strauss has no motive to break off the marriage, which is the root of the matter," Holmes muttered, glancing at me. I shrugged helplessly, as much at a loss to explain the discrepancies in the affair as he was.

"Fleischer, are you really willing to serve a full term as an abductor and attempted murderer without taking your two friends down with you?" Holmes demanded.

Fleischer smirked complacently, his composure restored now. "The people who hired us, Holmes, have friends and connections you have no idea of. And money, as well. I won't be in prison for long, rest assured."

"Shall I try to convince him, Holmes?" Lachlan asked, his fist clenching.

"I think I have that privilege," Haight snapped, taking a step forward.

"Stop it, both of you," Holmes said curtly, whirling on all of us. "The man is obviously not going to be of any further help to us. Haight?"

"Yes, Holmes?"

"As the Doctor is still recovering slightly, would you mind to give me a hand with this gentleman. Lachlan, take a look round to see if you can find any correspondence or such from Strauss or anyone else."

"Already did, Holmes – I was doing it when this bloke came in from the barn out there," Lachlan offered. "Not much, but there's an unsigned note postmarked Weissberg and another from Vienna. I have 'em here in my pocket."

"That proves nothing, though," I muttered in dismay.

"No, but it gives us a starting point, and upon closer examination of the missives I might be able to deduce more. For now, it is high time we got the local police in from searching for a body that cannot be found and take this man into custody. Haight, if you would be so kind?"

The reporter reluctantly left his friend's side only after Lachlan squeezed his shoulder and pushed him gently toward Holmes. Then the seaman turned to me.

"Recovering, Doctor? Don't tell me as soon as we left, you got yourself in another mess!"

"I'm afraid so, Lachlan," I said ruefully, keeping my revolver trained on the two men as they untied Fleischer. "I got chased by that ghostly horseman and caught out in a snowstorm. Slight frostbite -" I indicated my bandaged hands, "and did some damage to my bad shoulder. Other than that, nothing serious."

"By the Lord Harry, Doctor, I do think you need to be under a constant twenty-four hour guard!"

"No need, Holmes came after me," I said softly.

"Always does, doesn't he?" Lachlan replied with a smile.

Holmes and Haight yanked the abductor to his feet and secured his hands behind him, though Fleischer had apparently given up attempting to struggle against those odds.

"I say, Doctor, thankee for takin' care of the lad," the seaman said wearily. "I will admit I've been worried out of my head, it took me so long to trace this fellow after the storm."

"Of course. Now, would you like some help in getting to the trap outside? I do need to look at that leg as soon as we get into a clean warm place."

Holmes

I did not allow myself to relax until we had finally, well after midnight, taken the last available train back to Weissberg. Given what I had been able to deduce from the notes Lachlan had found, I judged it best that we return to Weissberg Castle without delay; time would be our greatest ally here, as whoever was indeed behind this was counting upon it taking us quite a while to find and rescue our friends.

It had taken us far too long to get the slow constabulary there to complete their formalities, but at least we utilized the hours in my inspecting the notes, smoking four pipes, and generally making things darker in my mind instead of clearer, while Watson gave Lachlan the medical attention he so needed.

Just after midnight found us on the last train to Weissberg, and for the sake of keeping our quick return a secret I had not telegraphed ahead to the Count; his sleigh would not have held us all anyway, and I wanted not to chance warning our quarry of our return so soon after leaving.

Although our seaman had remained stalwart as ever, I could tell that the last few days had been as much a physical strain upon him as it had been an emotional strain on his young friend; and after the compartment had grown warm enough and he propped his bandaged leg on the opposite seat beside Watson and me, Lachlan was asleep within minutes.

Watson glanced over at me and grinned when we saw the young American's head nod steadily downwards before he finally gave up the fight and slumped against Lachlan's shoulder, dead to the world in an actually peaceful sleep for the first time in nearly three days.

Lachlan sighed and shifted slightly, and Watson scooted closer to me to give the man's injured leg more room, finally sitting back with a long, weary sigh.

"What a perfectly long day," he whispered softly. Only one day? Had it only been that morning that we left the castle? Surely not…yes, it had.

"On that point I entirely agree," I sighed, stretching myself and then slumping backwards as well.

"I still can't believe it, you know," he said quietly, gazing at the sleeping figures across from us with some lingering amazement.

"This business grows darker every hour, Watson," I said, frowning deeply as I thought of how the danger had progressed from minor harassment to this near-death escape. I did not at all like the progression, or what its outcome was obviously supposed to be.

"Do you really think that Strauss is behind the entire affair?" Watson asked, turning slightly in the seat to view my face better in the dim corridor light.

I sighed. "I do not know, Watson. Obviously, Fleischer's reaction was suspicious, highly so. And those notes Lachlan found point to men that are not classically educated, as the Count or his cousin for instance; a totally different phrasing and so on."

"That could be a blind, quite easily. We know our man, whoever he is, is certainly clever enough for it."

"Yes, but if he were that worried about the notes being found he would have sent wires or taken more pains to disguise his writing – and the notes were in two different hands entirely. Both hands were very simple block lettering, almost impossible to draw any real conclusions from other than that they were both men's writing. But if these men were that worried about the notes being found, I should think they would have instructed Fleischer to have destroyed them or sent telegrams instead. No, I believe them to be from men of lesser education; Strauss does seem to fit that.

Add to this the fact that the blackmailer is obviously someone not accustomed to doing such things, as the woman has only been threatened and no threat has yet been carried out after three months, and you have a man who does not really want to hurt the girl – and while Strauss may be a cad, I doubt he would resort to physical violence against a family member."

"I should hope not. But…is he really brilliant enough to pull off such a scheme, Holmes?" my friends asked incredulously. "I mean, the man obviously is prone to drinking and other less than desirable habits –"

"Which does not necessarily make him less than average intelligence."

"No, but still, it's not a point in his favour, certainly. And besides all that, Holmes – Strauss has no motive to break off the marriage!"

I winced, for he had indeed hit upon the point. Strauss had all the opportunity, the ability…but no motive whatsoever. If anything, he of all people had the motivation for the marriage to take place, before the family business went completely under.

"I know, Watson. He has absolutely no motive," I sighed.

"What will you do, then?"

I was silent for a moment, pondering. What, indeed? Were I to go blundering after Strauss with no proof and no motive and he were innocent, I would lose any chance I had of capturing the real criminal.

"We wait, my dear Watson. We wait and above all, make sure that something like the events of today does not happen again."

He nodded in agreement, looking across the way at our sleeping friends.

"I will not allow more innocent people to suffer because of their association with me," I vowed in a low voice, surprising myself with the unusual vehemence I could detect in my tone. Watson made no comment on the odd fact, like the true gentleman he was.

"Do you suppose the Lady Cecilia will be of any help to us in tracing those other two men?" he asked. "Since that one note telling when the other two men were to meet there in the village was postmarked from Vienna, it's entirely possible that the men are someone she, or Strauss more probably, knows."

"I shall give the descriptions to her, certainly, and perhaps Haight can sketch what the men looked like for her. It is worth a try, at any rate. And yes, Watson," I went on thoughtfully, "it is entirely possible that, if Strauss is indeed our man for motives yet unknown, that those two men who escaped and no doubt are back in Vienna are known to her. At least to him – shady business companions or gambling partners in all probability."

"What a tangled skein, to be sure," I heard him mutter behind a stifled yawn.

"Take a short nap, old fellow, we've an hour and a half left."

"You don't need a sounding board?"

He sounded so absolutely sleepy that I nearly laughed. "No, my dear chap. And no, I'm not going to fill this compartment with smoke either; I shall just be sitting here thinking for a bit."

"Right, Holmes…" he broke off with another yawn and then hunched down in the seat.

I observed he was still holding that left shoulder very stiffly; no doubt he was still in a good deal of pain which he of course was keeping from me. I would need to watch both him and Lachlan over the next few days, as they both were the type that would collapse rather than tell the truth about their conditions.

After a few moments Watson's breathing evened out, and I was left as the only awake person in our compartment, alone with my thoughts.

I had been thoroughly frustrated to learn that the likelihood of tracking those two men was close to nil, as they were obviously from Vienna judging from that note and were no doubt in the bowels of the city by this time. More frustrating was the fact that both the notes appeared to be in different writing; the one from Vienna was dated the evening before our friends had left Weissberg…wait.

If that note was dated then from Vienna, then Strauss could not have sent it. And yet Fleischer's reaction indicated he knew it was from Strauss. Odd, very odd…and it indicated more than one agency at work here, yet another fact I did not like. Strauss could have wired a confederate in Vienna to send the letter late that night, and it would have reached Fleischer by the next morning; in all probability one of the men themselves had sent the note after receiving instructions from Strauss.

And then I remembered the oddity in Fleischer's words that I had not picked up on at the time – he had said, "The people who hired us," not the "person" who had done so. That indicated Strauss was working with someone, if he were indeed our man. More than one of them…

Then was the hand in the other note (which I was still annoyed with the police for not allowing me to bring with me) Strauss's? The one postmarked from Weissberg Castle, speaking of payment for a 'job completed as promised'? I cast back in my mind for the date…December 31…December 31…of course! The day after Lachlan had been pushed under that cab in Vienna! Fleischer must have been a sort of go-between for Strauss (if it was indeed he) and the other two men he had in his employ.

That all fit, certainly…but the problem of motive remained unsolved. Strauss simply did not have any kind of motive to blackmail his sister into breaking off the marriage and throwing away her fortune.

Was he being framed, then? Our man was certainly clever enough; was he that clever, to pull off such an elaborate and dubious frame on the lady's brother? If so, what was his game? Why Strauss, why bother framing a man when obviously even Sherlock Holmes was baffled without the added deception of pointing suspicion at someone else?

I scowled, thoroughly angry at myself for not being further along in my investigation than I was. Because of my slowness, the people I cared about were being haunted and injured.

But no longer.

No more would any of them suffer because of or for me – I would die before letting such a thing happen again.

And that I vowed by all I held sacred.

My brain faintly registered that such a sentiment was better suited to a romantic, heroic temperament such as Watson's, but it was true nonetheless. The train and cab accidents, Watson's near-freezing in a snowstorm, the kidnapping, Lachlan's near-fatal plunge – I would not allow anything of the sort to happen again if it were within my power to prevent it.

This man – Strauss? – or whoever our perpetrator was, had made an enemy of the worst possible kind out of the wrong man.

And with that resolution firmly in place, I leant my head back against the cushion and attempted to relieve the tension holding my brain captive by getting a few minutes' sleep.