I leaned forward, feeling Holmes tense as footsteps sounded in front of us. One crew member and the captain had yet to return. Would this be one of them?
The shadow became a passing pair of Yarders, and I settled back into my place. We were not finished yet.
The stars indicated an hour closer to dawn than sunset, and I was beginning to wonder if our remaining suspects were going to return at all. The ship had been slated to leave with the morning tide about nine hours hence, and I would have expected the captain and crew to be aboard well before midnight. The crew had arrived in ones and twos, usually too drunk to put up much of a fight when we sprang our trap, and the constables stationed around the dockyard had taken turns carting the men back to the station and a waiting cell, but we had not seen the captain.
I readjusted against the wall I had placed to my back. Better a long stakeout than hours failing to write, but I frequently forgot the tedium of a stakeout in the excitement of the resulting altercation. Hours of silent alertness drained me worse than sitting vigil over an ill patient, and I was simply grateful I was not fighting to stay awake. I had been up well before the sun with my patient this—rather, yesterday—morning, and without the several hours' nap earlier, I would be yawning worse than Bennet. Lestrade had finally told the man to bring coffee back from the Yard with his last trip, but I had not seen the constable again to know if the suggestion had worked.
Movement came again, and Holmes tensed, then adjusted from sitting to crouching. His hand twitched a moment later.
That is him.
A figure lumbered down the sidewalk as I joined Holmes behind the bushes. The captain was nearly as tall as Holmes and wider than I, and he was obviously inebriated, though not as badly as his crew had been. He walked with a swaying gait more suited to the sea than to land, and he paid little to no attention to his surroundings. He never saw us waiting for him.
I hit shoulder first, intending to tackle him to the ground, but the mountain of a man merely stumbled and threw me off. Lestrade joined the fight a moment later, but the captain refused to go down, taking our hits and making us dodge his own as he roared angrily. He tossed us around like leaves in a storm, slowly fighting his way towards the relative safety of his ship. From the dock, he could not tell the ship was empty, and I supposed he thought that reaching the ship would gain him the aid of his crew, but that made no difference to the fight. Each of us hit the ground multiple times in a short couple of minutes, and the captain was moments from escaping when two constables finally joined the fray.
The extra men made the difference, and a few minutes later, Lestrade's cuffs finally locked on the captain's wrists. A blow to his leg dropped him to his knees.
"Let me go!" he growled, still feebly fighting the cuffs.
"You are charged with smuggling and illegal diving," Lestrade informed him, masterfully hiding his panting. "I would suggest holding your tongue."
The man glowered but said nothing else, and the two constables led him to a waiting wagon. I turned to Holmes once I had caught my breath.
"You said there was one more?"
He shook his head. "We will not catch him. He was a hundred yards behind the captain."
He would have bolted when we attacked, then, and we would never find him now.
"Do not worry about it," he said when I scanned the nearby streets anyway. "We have the others, and the remaining man was the lowest rank. He will not be able to restart somewhere else."
I frowned but nodded, ignoring my fatigue to focus on the ship.
"I suppose we need to search it?" I asked instead. The fight with the captain had left me exhausted and aching worse than our altercations with the crew members, but we had not had time to do more than a cursory search before the crew started arriving. Lestrade would need the evidence of smuggling to build his case.
Holmes led us back up the gangway, somehow showing none of the fatigue I felt, and the three of us began searching the ship far more thoroughly than Holmes had been able to before. Within minutes, we struck gold. Literally.
"Holmes!"
Lestrade's eyes widened at the bag of gold and jewels I pulled from a crewman's hammock, but Holmes was unsurprised. Three more bags joined mine, and Lestrade's jaw nearly dropped.
"Every hammock has one?!"
Holmes nodded, pulling a bag from the next hammock as I fought with a loose board beneath a washstand.
"Not just the hammocks," I announced. Footsteps came closer as I pried a small chest from its hidden compartment, and Holmes helped pick the lock. Gold, rubies, diamonds, and various other jewels glistened in the lamplight.
"I thought you said they were diving illegally?" Lestrade asked.
"They were." Holmes picked up one of the diamonds. "Do you not remember the large diamond lost in a shipwreck last month?"
Lestrade merely huffed, declining to answer, and he could only shake his head as two more loose boards and every hammock yielded another bag of jewels at minimum. We soon spread out, searching the entire floor after Lestrade recruited two constables to search the hold.
"Lestrade!" Holmes' voice came from the captain's stateroom. "Did I hear you discussing jewels with Hopkins the other day?"
"You did," he called back, never glancing up from searching the galley area. "Some of the queen's jewels were on one of the ships that went down at the beginning of the year. Why?"
"A necklace came back up."
I glanced out of the medical bay as he stepped back into the main room, holding a bejeweled necklace.
"Wait a minute," I interjected. "That ship went down miles from their route. How did they dive it without getting caught?"
"Ships sometimes travel as they sink, Doctor," Lestrade answered, "and that one went down in the middle of a known current. If I remember the map correctly, the current would have dropped the wreckage directly in the Mary Sue's path. The queen will be glad to get that back."
"More than just a necklace was on that ship," I remembered as the glittering jewels disappeared into a pocket. "Are the rest of them in there?"
Holmes shrugged, but footsteps sounded above before he could resume searching. All three of us froze. Two constables outside should have prevented anyone from boarding. Had the final crew member returned hoping to claim his bag?
The newcomer quickly crossed the main deck to the stairs, and we waited in the shadows, listening to the person descend.
"Bob?" a woman's voice said. "Mother sent something for you."
Holmes gestured to indicate Lestrade should handle this, and he waited for the woman to reach the deck before replying.
"Bob is not here, miss."
"What do you mean?" she asked, following his voice closer. "You are supposed to leave in only a few hours. Where else would he be?"
She came around the corner, halting mid step when she spotted us. "You are not part of the crew." She looked around. "Where is everyone?"
A badge flashed in the lamplight. "Inspector Lestrade," he answered. "Scotland Yard. We have the crew and captain for smuggling and illegal diving."
"Smuggling?!" she repeated. "Illegal diving? What—" Understanding washed her expression, followed closely by grief, then anger. "Those idiots! That is how they got those jewels? They told us they had a mining claim!"
I felt a half smile try to escape at the word play. One searched in water, the other in earth. The description was true enough, I supposed.
"That is what they told all the families?" Lestrade asked, and she nodded firmly.
"They said they had a mining claim near one of their southern ports. They paid people there to mine it and cut the jewels, then they brought their portion of the jewels back here to upgrade the ship or divide among the rest of us. I never dreamed—oh, you idiot." She put her face in her hands, stunned at the idea that family—probably her brother—had been committing a crime. She looked back up after a long moment.
"Mother gave Bob a memento when he first took a position on a ship," she said hesitantly. "A good-luck charm for his first voyage, if you will. It is not a jewel, and I know she will not want it lost with whatever happens to the ship. May I get it from his things?"
"Show me."
She led Lestrade to the hammock at the far end, and the medical bay revealed only a scant handful of emeralds. Lestrade and the woman were still at the far berth when I joined Holmes in the staterooms.
"Take the First Mate's," he said as I made to join him in the captain's quarters. "I am nearly done here."
Barely glancing at the increasing pile of gold and jewels he was accumulating on the captain's desk, I moved to the next room. I found the ubiquitous bag of jewels hidden in the thin mattress, then started rifling through the rest of the furniture. Holmes joined me after a moment, and we found diamonds in the washstand, rubies in the desk, and a pile of gold in the toe of one boot. We put it with the rest we had gathered in a corner as two pairs of feet climbed the nearest ladder. One of the constables that had been searching the hold let out a low whistle.
"That's a sight more than we found down below," he said, eyeing the fruits of our search as the woman finally left. "We stacked it next to the ladder."
Lestrade could only shake his head when he finally reached us.
"Greed," Lestrade said quietly. "It can only be greed that would stockpile this much while they searched for more."
I eyed the mound, for I could not truly call it a collection when the pile of bags, chests, and boxes was nearly three feet tall. I could not remember the last time I had seen such wealth in one place. A small portion was worth enough to feed several large families for months.
I did not say as much, however, stifling a yawn instead.
"I believe we have all of it," Holmes replied, somehow still wide awake. "Do you need us to help move it to the Yard?"
I tried not to show my relief when Lestrade shook his head. "I sent Bennet to retrieve a wagon and five constables from the current shift. They should be here any minute. You can go on home." He yawned widely. "With any luck, I will not be here much longer myself."
The early hour muted most of the pleasantries, and I soon followed Holmes down the gangway, each step only making me more aware of the various aches I had ignored while we searched. I had landed hard on the cobblestones more than once during that last fight, and my exhaustion did nothing to help how sore I was. I would be glad to get off my feet.
Holmes seemed to be nearly as drained. Usually, his excitement at solving the case would extend until well past dawn, but I thought little of his silence until the cab lurched to a halt in front of the flat.
"Holmes, the cabbie would like to move on without an extra passenger."
He did not answer, and I paid the cabbie then walked around in front of him, grinning when I realized he had fallen asleep. I bumped his foot with my cane, and he jerked awake, studiously ignoring my grin and the cabbie's faint laughter as he quickly stepped to the cobblestones.
"I am glad I am not the only one exhausted," I told him over the fading clip clop of the retreating cab, "though how you can appear wide awake until the moment you sit down, I will never know."
He tried to scowl at the ribbing, passing me to bolt up the stairs much faster than I could ever hope to match, and I closed the door behind us before following carefully. Stairs were always harder when I was tired.
"Watson?" he asked from the sitting room. He had probably realized the tapping of my cane moved far slower than normal.
I used the banister to steady myself on the next step, ignoring the way my knee tried to buckle. "Hmm?"
His footsteps moved to the landing, and I glanced up to find him peering over the rail.
"Are you trying to fall down the stairs again?"
I rolled my eyes as I gained another step. "I do not try to fall down the stairs."
He stared at me for another moment before retracing his steps. "No," he replied, taking my arm and forcing me to lean against him instead of the banister. "You are simply too stubborn to admit when you have pushed yourself too hard. Are you injured?"
I shook my head. "Just—" My knee tried to buckle again, and the word cut off as I fought for balance. "Just tired," I finished.
"Do not fall asleep standing up again."
It was my turn to frown at the ribbing, though the tired amusement leaking through probably ruined the attempt. That had happened once, yet he and Mrs. Hudson had brought it up multiple times. I was beginning to wonder if something else had happened that night as well.
"Better standing in the stairwell than sitting in a cab," I shot back. "The stairwell does not travel the length of London every night."
"As far as we know."
Fatigue turned my laugh into more of a huff. He would say things when overly tired that he would never say any other time.
"Science fiction is my forte, Holmes. Stay with the logical."
"You are the one that says the midnight hours are never rational."
They were not, especially around him, but that did not mean I wanted to debate the impossibility of moving stairs with Holmes. I focused on my feet instead of answering.
"Are you going to write up this case?" he asked after a moment.
I thought about it, then shrugged minutely when I could not find the words to begin. The denouement had obviously not helped my writer's block.
"Maybe eventually. Why?"
He shook his head, but we reached the landing before I could ask again. I moved much faster over the level floor, though I did notice him frown when I directed my steps towards the settee instead of the next flight and my bed.
"Go to bed, Holmes," I told him, pulling the rug off the back of the settee in answer to his silent question. There was no reason to navigate the second flight of stairs when I would sleep just fine in the sitting room.
He studied me for only a moment before waving a goodnight, and I settled into the cushion as he moved around his room.
If only a pointed question could end my writer's block as it had ended his case.
A satisfactory end to a Mary Sue, I hope? lol, don't forget to leave your thoughts below :)
Thanks to MCH1987, Dr. who, and Guest for reviewing the last chapter, and now it is time for me to go to bed.