On their way to the residence, Sherlock explained to Watson who Dupin was as well as his relationship with him.
Dupin was a Parisian man of great rational prowess who had helped solve a handful of crimes with the police. Sherlock had to note how many fewer cases Dupin had partaken in than himself, as well as how much more publicity the amateur had made sure to garner for himself in the French papers.
Sherlock had studied in Paris as a young man, and it was Dupin who had first suggested, albeit jokingly, that Sherlock invent some profession for himself to both flex his own intellectual prowess as well as stem the tide of the, at the time, young man's ever-present, and near-crippling, ennui.
"And why are we seeing your old acquaintance now, before getting back to Baker Street for some sleep first?" Watson asked.
"Not only is Monsieur Dupin one of the very few competent minds currently in London capable of assessing the clues he would no doubt have been exposed to during his visits to Bedlam, but his presence here in conjunction with Stapleton and Svengali's disappearance is highly suspicious."
"You suspect a man who frequently helps the police of, of, of what?" Watson asked. "Of suddenly taking part in crime?"
"I never said I suspected the man of anything," Sherlock steepled his fingers. "I suggested his presence here to be suspicious."
—-
Auguste Dupin's flat was on the top floor of a tall residence with a view of the Thames.
Upon knocking, the door was promptly answered by one of the last things Watson had expected.
"Rheum of God!" Watson couldn't refrain from exclaiming.
The servant motioned for the two men to enter.
Sherlock lit his pipe. "You act, old boy, as if you have never seen an orangutan before."
"I jolly well swear I never have." Watson felt his pulse at his wrist.
"Ishmael," An accented voice called from a different room. "Bring them in here."
They followed the ape into a large study with a lit fire and open window. A mustachioed man of below average size and crisp dress stood from a desk in a deliberate motion.
Smiling wide, he immediately threw his arms wide and moved in as to hug Sherlock.
Sherlock put a hand up to stop the proceeding. "No time for all that, Auguste. We come bearing bad news, I'm afraid."
"It has been how long, Mr. Holmes, my boy?" Dupin asked. "We must have time for me to meet who I take to be Dr. Watson?" He then grasped Watson by the shoulders and pecked him on either cheek. "I am Chevalier Dupin, and an admirer of your stories, Doctor Watson."
"I'm honored. From the sound of it, you could be the hero of several adventures yourself, sir."
Sherlock shot him a stern glance.
Ishmael the orangutan set a kettle on the stove.
"I am happy," Dupin addressed Sherlock, "to see my tutelage has served you well in your career, son."
"Such a funny thing," Sherlock puffed at his briar pipe. "I thought of you as a pupil of mine, of sorts. I recall my contributions proving invaluable to that paper on ratiocination you submitted and."
"A point I will always allot to you, and doubly so as a gentleman since you refused to be named in that paper along with me."
"The limelight," Sherlock looked to the ceiling to blow his smoke at it. "Has never been my prerogative."
The tea steamed and the ape butler began pouring its contents into three cups.
"I imagine the escape of Jack Stapleton is what brought you here today," Dupin said.
"How do you know about that?" Watson said.
Dupin raised an amused eyebrow. "I have been reading the news."
"Ah."
"How is it you, a man of proficient deductive prowess," Sherlock said, "made no note of the dopplegänger filling the absconded breeder's cell in Bedlam?"
"I consider myself a perceptive man, but only of data I have witnessed or am aware of. I never visited the poor Stapleton nor had occasion to peer within his cell."
"And Svengali," Sherlock locked eyes with Dupin. "There would be no point in you denying having not visited the hypnotist, as I would never believe you. Was he not the very specimen that brought you to the Isles in the first place?"
Ishmael set the platter of teacups and accompanying accouterment on the table near the guests.
"Yes, of course," Dupin nodded. "It has been several days since my last visit to the Hospital. I saw the hypnotist while there, and it was definitely the man himself. Tea?"
Sherlock said nothing and instead looked the man up and down for several more seconds. This was the first time in Watson's experience he saw his detective companion need more than a glance to fill himself with whatever clues to be collected from an individual's appearance.
"Your suit is immaculate," Sherlock said. "You also impress me with your overall cleanliness. It was recent that you bathed yourself."
He stared even longer at Dupin, eyes squinting the slightest bit.
"Thank you," Dupin picked up a teacup and took a sip. "In fact, I picked up this suit today from the tailor and pressed it here myself. And not that my bathing habits are any of your concern, but I did clean myself only hours ago. Svengali has flown the coop you say? This is serious indeed."
"Nothing under the nails either…" Sherlock muttered. "Picked clean. Not a scuff or scratch on those shoes." He took a deep inhalation. "Your soap has left you scentless. By my recollection, this obsession with the sterility of yours Auguste is a new trait you must have developed since I saw you last."
Dupin squinted his own eyes and took a long sip from his tea. "I see your penchant for intrusively reading a person is as persistent as ever."
"I gather," Sherlock said, "that you planned on being read by me this morning, and thus scrubbed yourself of telling details. Now, why might you be afraid of what I deduce from seeing you?"
Dupin laughed. He threw his head back in disregard and guffawed in a hearty inviting manner. "I fear nothing, my son. Least of all from you, mine own pupil. It is I who feel the suspected right now. What are you looking at me that way for?"
"Never have I witnessed a man who has so thoroughly covered his own tracks in his appearance. Looking at you is like… staring into a void. Save," Sherlock snapped his fingers. "Save for one thing. That gold chain attached to an equally gold watch in your pocket. The value of this watch is estimated by the quality of that chain as well as the purity of the gold, making it by far the most exorbitant machine I have ever come across. A watch, I'm afraid to say, laying outside the means of one such as yourself Auguste."
Dupin removed the watch in question in a languid motion. "This watch? An old family heirloom."
"I could believe, based on the current trim and flawless presentation of your attire that you would ensure that watch to be as equally taken care of and just as presentable. But there is no imagining the watch's predecessor to be as meticulous in preserving the watch in a state as an untouched and free of blemish as it is now."
Dupin squeezed the watch within a fist. "So you do suspect me; of something."
Sherlock's face drooped into passivity. "Not so much. It was all a mere exercise in deduction. I'm sure you, of all people, will understand my curiosity. Since you know nothing of Svengali's escape and are thus useless in my investigation, we shall be off."
Dupin leaned against his table. "You should know, Sherlock, that I can no longer allow you to leave."
"What?" Asked a shocked Watson.
"No one who suspects me," Dupin's mouth bent into a triangle with the most duplicitous smile Watson had ever seen. "Can be allowed to live. And I know you, Sherlock. I know your mind. You won't let this go until you discover something you shouldn't know. You'll tug on a thread until you've got your hands full of yarn, with no regard to the dismantlement of the sweater."
"What?" Watson repeated.
"I'm as confused as you are, my dear Watson." Sherlock knocked the ashes out of his pipe into an ashtray. "It sounds as if our friend here is delusional about my slight misapprehensions I aimed his direction. Never did I mention the man was guilty of anything in particular…"
Dupin slammed his hand flat against the table. "Don't take me for a fool, you half-daft detective. My mind is twice the combined intellect of all London's inhabitants. I can see inside your brain, I know your thoughts at a glance, as I know all men's. That is why I know it is better to kill you now than give you the chance to bumble around investigating me. Ishmael!"
Sherlock threw the ashtray and its contents at Dupin's face.
A 100-kilogram orangutan bull rushed Watson, knocking him across the room.
Dupin kicked his table up between him and Sherlock as a shield. The tossed ashtray struck the table's broadside. Black dust exploded a smokescreen separating the two detectives.
Forgetting he'd dropped it, Sherlock grabbed for his missing revolver, before unsheathing the wide kukri knife he'd acquired during his pilgrimage in Tibet; the one he'd kept hidden battling Stapleton for use in a possible hail Mary had his initial plans failed.
Dupin tore out the thick leg off the table and swung it around like a policeman's billy club.
"When I read about your demise at Reichenbach Falls in the paper, I was disappointed," Dupin said. "Knowing I would not be happy until I saw in print every grisly detail concerning your mangled corpse."
Dupin swung his club at Sherlock.
Sherlock sidestepped the attack and thrust the knife in to stab Dupin with his superior reach.
Dupin's swing proved mostly bluster, as he caught it mid trajectory and blocked Sherlock's knife with ease.
With a shift of his club, Sherlock's embedded knife fell from his grasp and clattered to the floor.
Dupin held his club out like a fencer's rapier aimed at Sherlock's chest, forcing him back toward the stove.
"And that's precisely," Dupin's shark-like grin could be heard in his speech. "What I'll be reading in tomorrow's post."
As Dupin thrust the brunt end of the club at his opponent's face, Sherlock deftly caught it within his open palm with a flat thunk reverberating into his carpal bones.
In the same instant, he grabbed the porcelain tea kettle with his other hand and hurled it squarely at Dupin's face.
Dupin blocked the kettle with his arm. It shattered, dousing him with its boiling water. Dupin yelped as the contents scalded his arm.
Sherlock tore the club from the other's hand. The burned Dupin held his injured arm while stepping backward until he nearly tripped on the fallen kukri knife.
"You think you can defeat me in a bout of fist-to-cuffs Sherlock?" Dupin smiled even wider inspecting his steaming arm. "Me? The man who taught you everything you know about Bartitsu?"
"You're defeating yourself, old man," Sherlock flipped the table leg around to hold it by the narrow end. "Outing yourself as the rogue you truly are. As suspicious as our reunion was making me, it would have taken time to bring, whatever dark deeds you're guilty of, to light. Now I know what manner of man you truly are, freely confessed by your actions."
"And yet you couldn't sound more disappointed, detective, at me revealing myself of my own volition. I thought it best to skip all that mystery malarky and cut to our denouement. I have been patient enough, and now you will see the manner of man I truly am, to your horror."
Sherlock rolled his eyes.
Dupin pried his red blistered, melted fingers apart, dangling the gold watch from its chain. With the whir of internal gears then a click, a pendulum shaped blade whirred from the watches base. On its own volition, the device swayed left and right.
"You know what this is?" Dupin's voice grew deeper and more distant as if reaching out of a pit. "A scalpel. One I will use to vivisect your mind."
Sherlock felt a cut across his head. His mind felt soft. He knew, more than anything, he needed to look away from the swaying pendulum. The cut deepened through his head and sliced his optic nerves. His eyeballs floated out of their sockets, retaining their vision, but forcing him to look at nothing except the swaying gold blade.
"What," Sherlock stammered. His tongue had turned to lead. His feet were nailed to the floorboards, his palms nailed to the air. All he could hear was the flutter of wings.
"You are now mesmerized." Dupin's voice bellowed like a blacksmith's hammer smashing into molten steel.
I've come this far, Sherlock's eyes continued to float slowly away from his head and toward the pendulum. Catching the Ripper. Defeating Moriarty. Bringing organized crime in London to its knees…
His vision tunneled. Black swirled in tighter and tighter grip around his eyes, locking them in place so they could only see the pendulum.
Leading to this? to fall into such an avoidable trap. The moment before the hypnosis had begun, he'd seen Watson struggling to escape the grasp of the enraged ape. His service revolver was fallen to the floor, out of his possible reach. No reliable salvation from John.
"You have fallen prey," Dupin's voice resounded. "To perfect hypnotism. Svengali's weak brain gave me the final ingredient to this power after I squeezed it like juice from him. His corpse will never be identified, not in the state my interrogation left it blistering in."
The darkness around him, while swirling, also fidgeted and hummed. There was something within the void.
What was it they told me in Tibet? Thought the detective, who failed to remember his own name. About tricks of the mind?
"Your body, mind, and soul are mine," Boomed the chthonic chorus of voices from all sides. "The latter of which, I'll soon be sending to hell."
Beaks and talons peaked out of the hurricane of darkness. They pierced the detective's skin, dug into his flesh. They grasped him like meat hooks before they all began to tug.
With all his fortitude, his resilience, his grit, the detective strained to stay put, to force himself to realize what was happening was an illusion, to expel the devilish mirage for the farce it was.
He could feel his conscious being ripped out of his brain. His soul truly was departing his body.
They said there are powers too strong to be outfought. He had chuckled, at the time; never had he believed anything less. I was told, there is no power a man is unable to push past.
The detective shot his glacially projecting eyes like darts at the pendulum. He tore his body apart from his soul and bowled the husk that was left away from his ephemeral self. His corpse flew like a train down its tracks at into the darkness, and straight into the golden pendulum.
There was no darkness. No marks or pricks from the talons and beaks. The commanding voice snuffed out like a candle's fire by a breath.
And Sherlock Holmes charged into close quarter combat with raised fists.
Dupin growled his vehemence and swung his pendulum blade.
Sherlock dodged the chained weapon his full functions had anticipated, and slammed a fist under Dupin's chin, resounding in a crisp crunch.
Fortunately, Dupin reeled backward, again losing his balance.
…Unfortunately, Sherlock's attack had only succeeded because he got the punch off with the hand he'd previously caught the bad side of a table leg with. Half the crunch had been his own bones.
"That's one way to break through my hypnosis," Dupin spat onto his floor. "But that trick has made you far more susceptible to my influence of suggestion. You can never pull that trick off again."
Sherlock jabbed twice in succession, which Dupin easily dodged by backing away.
Keep him on his toes. Mustn't let him sway the pendulum even once more.
"Being generous enough to confide in me your guilt," Sherlock found his words panted out more than he would have expected. "Why not continue to confess to me what it is you're guilty of."
"I made you," Dupin said, readjusting his fighting posture.
Sherlock wheezed a scoff.
"I gave you the proper push at the proper time, to set you down the path of legally ethical 'justice.'" Dupin held out his burnt arm so the gold pendulum's chain fell straight and taut. "My only reason for doing so, was to form you into the inevitable nemesis for my other creation; a certain genius professor of mathematics I'm sure you are familiar."
Sherlock stepped in and shot another punch lined up at Dupin's neck.
The gold chain arced up, its blade slicing at Sherlock's punch.
By retracting the jab and slamming his foot down onto the kukri blade, the knife flew into the air and caught by Sherlock's awaiting grasp.
"Your sole reason for existence, Sherlock, was for Moriarty to test the mettle on. You're a whetstone for my pet 'Napoleon of Crime" to build up his empire. And soon, his life's work will all be mine."
"Robert James Moriarty*," Sherlock felt his face burn red. "Is dead!"
Dupin chuckled. "Only most of his body, which I fished out from Reichenbach. We're flying in a specialty doctor to fix him up enough for me to mesmerize and scoop out every detail I need from his brain in order to take over his laboriously acquired empire."
Sherlock didn't have any more time to waste. He no doubt needed to wrap things up with Dupin so as to swoop in and rescue his doctor from his one-sided battle with the ape.
"It's not my wont to enact lethal force," Sherlock's knife-free hand felt around for any item nearby he could use as a weapon. His hand alighted on a towel. "Often enough, circumstances do bend our arms into action we don't prefer. This is not one of those times."
Sherlock feinted with a frontal jab with the knife before tossing the towel at Dupin's face.
A double bluff! Having blocked Dupin's view, Sherlock attacked in the least predictable manner; the same forward strike with the knife.
The pendulum moved so fast it felt like it appeared and slashed in two places at once.
Sherlock's tossed towel was shorn in half, as was the detective's face.
Backing up several paces into the kitchen, Sherlock gingerly pressed his fingers his nose. There was a deep set sticky feeling from the bridge of his nose through his cheek and to his left ear. His nose had a line through it almost as deep as it inset into his face. The outer part of the ear was separated into two halves. That sticky feeling was replaced by an intense stinging that forced hot water into his eyes.
Every slight movement from his left eye brought excruciating pain to his face. Blood was covering that quadrant of his face and trickling down his neck.
Feeling around the counter he found exactly what he needed.
"Ha," crowed Dupin. "Gore is a good look for you. Give me a few seconds. I'll take no time removing the rest of the skin from your head."
Sherlock believed his opponent capable of doing just that. Dupin was too fast with the chain weapon. Usually, outmatched speed in a scrape was barely an obstacle for the detective. The trick was to deduce where the speed was intended to land and turn that foreknowledge into his favor.
The problem was Dupin could match Sherlock's ability to read the other's moves in advance.
Sherlock shook his head, causing him to wince from the wound. Blood was trickling all the way down his chest and gave no signs of slowing down. Time for another trick learned in Tibet.
The detective cleared his mind, entering it into a meditative state.
Dupin was smart, but was he smart enough to predict a move from his opponent when Sherlock didn't even know what he was going to do next?
He readied his kukri for attack and held out the acquired cutting board like a shield.
Dupin smirked. "Try what you may, pupil. There are no thoughts conceivable in your head that are not known to me."
With an unexpected war cry, Dupin let loose his chain weapon.
Sherlock made to block the pendulum with the cutting board, but the flying blade disappeared before it struck.
The chain whizzed through the air with such disorienting speed, even Sherlock's reflexes lost all perception of the weapon at its tip.
With no real thought of why he did it, Sherlock dropped his knife and the breadboard. The discarded board nicked up against the chain, throwing it slightly off course.
One razor sharp edge of the pendulum embedded into the side of Sherlock's stomach. As it did, he grabbed the chain with both hands.
Dupin's face dropped enough at this for Sherlock to deduce his opponent couldn't pull the weapon free.
Sherlock stepped closer, wrapping his knuckles into the long gold chain. Blood was circling around the rim of his trousers.
Even if Dupin could outfight him, Sherlock had stronger muscles. With a yank, he divested Dupin of his toy.
"What should I do with this?" Sherlock said, the movement careening his face into a furnace of pain. He plucked the pendulum's embedded edge out of his side, causing a whiskey-tasters worth of his blood to gush onto the floor.
Veins protruded all across Dupin's face like a nest of vipers revealing themselves. "Sherlock, you foolish boy. Me killing you would have been a mercy. Once I wretch my pendulum back from your hands I'll have you mesmerized and eating the muck off my boot heels in no time. I will enslave you, torture your soul, and force your body into committing acts of depravity that would make Satan flush."
Sherlock cocked his right eyebrow and began playfully spinning the chain in a circle. "Best get a grip, monsieur. I happen to be losing mine."
With that, he opened his hand, releasing the chain. The pendulum let loose and flew out the window and its glass with a satisfying plink.
Dupin's eyes bugged out like a madman. "You absolute cunt." And he dove out the window in a rain of glass after his golden trinket.
Sherlock refrained from whistling from what he just witnessed. It was a sheer drop to the street from the window. He ran over to look out.
Dupin was floating gently to the ground. His good arm grasping the golden chain which rose up to the pendulum giving off a vibrant green glow that was preventing Dupin from plummeting straight to his death.
Cavorite*. Sherlock rubbed globs of blood from his face. That pendulum and chain is the most ridiculously over-developed tool I've ever seen. For a man who proclaimed to be such an outstanding genius, Dupin had shot himself in the foot by cobbling all his tricks into one device. No wonder he'd jumped through a plane of glass and into possible death by gravity for his gold watch.
Dupin gestured a "V" with his burnt hand and bared his teeth. "We shan't meet again, Sherlock. You're a dead man already. This city is filled with my hired knives, and now I'll be sending them all into plunging your heart."
"You should have made it hard for me," Sherlock said. "Without a case to occupy myself to discovering your true nature, I'm freed up to find you and end you. And you should know I can."
With that, he ran off to find Watson.
In the other room, he found the orangutan covered in soot and adding logs to a blazing fire under the hearth, with Watson blatantly absent.
"Shit," Sherlock pieced the puzzle together.
Seeing him, the orangutan set its log down and charged.
Don't have time for this. Sherlock ran at the ape before sliding like a cricket player under its grasp. His trajectory landed him beside Watson's cane.
With a twist on the cane's knob and a pull, he had the hidden blade out.
As the orangutan turned, ready to attack, it met a sword piercing through its brain.
Sherlock brought the sword down like a rail spike impaling the beast, leaving the hilt sinking into the top of its skull.
"Watson," Sherlock rushed to the fireplace. The smoke filling the room indicated an obstruction in the chimney.
Kicking the flaming firewood out onto the floor, Sherlock went to pull his friend out from where he'd been crammed up the chimney.
*Professor Robert James Moriarty: No doubt you're familiar with Professor Moriarty, often ascribed as Sherlock Holme's main nemesis. Appeared in The Adventure of the Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (His first name is not given in the story, and he is often assigned the name "James." Since James was the name of his brother in the Final Problem, I gave him the first name of Robert instead.
*Cavorite: A fictional material from The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells. I'll admit that I've never read the story. My iteration of the material is almost completely akin to Alan Moore's.