Chapter Seven: Denouement

Being the only Irregular who possessed the knowledge of how to work a telephone, Ron ran off into the master bedroom to search for one. The police had to be notified, of course. I quickly walked the few remaining steps to the room (which, I discovered, was the living room) in which I had been confined, to see to Watson's needs. I drank in the strange scene before my eyes.

A dozen, even more, street urchins crowded the room, jabbering quietly amongst themselves. Many were nursing various bruises and cuts, the worst of them bleeding silently in pain. A few of them were sitting upon the thugs that they had so quickly disposed of, while others licked their wounds and chatted amiably as if nothing had happened. They did not even notice my entrance. David McGuiness was pacing the perimeter of the room, stony-faced and silent. I became instantly aware of what was causing his silence.

Sara McGuiness lay trembling on the ground, a great white sheet tied tightly around her middle, where the bullet had pierced her. Her face was pinched tightly in pain, eyes shut against the throbbing wound in her side. Watson knelt beside her, his hand pressed into hers, their fingers woven tightly together. His face was etched with the same pain that filled Ms. Sara's features. I watched the both of them for a long minute, watched as Sara's breath hissed through her teeth, watched Watson's eyebrows arch in worry and his fingers knead her reassuringly.

"The bullet passed right through her, Holmes," Watson said at last, not taking his eyes from Sara's face. "It's a clean wound, and it didn't hit any organs, but so many blood vessels were hit..." A darkness passed over his face as he released a shaking breath. "Heyman was right, Holmes. I can't be both. I can't..." I gripped Watson's shoulder hard to bring him back.

"Watson," I said clearly, "men from Scotland Yard are on their way. They will take Ms. Sara somewhere where she will receive ample medical attention. It is not for you to take upon yourself."

"My father was a surgeon!" Watson's eyes were suddenly filled with tears. "His father before him was a surgeon! Holmes, I should be able to help her with more than a sheet and a hand to hold!" He looked away from Sara at last, and his watery eyes met mine. I held his gaze.

"She needs that hand to hold on to, Watson."

He stared for only a moment, then his eyes overflowed. His grip on Sara's trembling fingers tightened, and he nodded, taking his eyes back to Sara McGuiness's pale and bloodless face. And there they stayed until we were awoken by a furious knocking on the door. I picked my way through the street children, stepping over and around them, until I was able to swing the door wide open.

I found myself facing a pug-faced young inspector whose dark brown hair had already begun to recede. He was short, at least a head shorter than I was, if not more. Even Watson, whose height was nothing to brag about, outstood this man by inches. Despite this, he had an air of authority about him, and he held himself erect as if at attention. The three other officers behind him seemed far less attentive, their eyes drooping and feet dragging solemnly. It had been, perhaps, a long night for them. I gave a wan smile.

"Inspector?" I asked, although I already knew. He nodded tersely.

"Yeah, we received a call from this 'ouse about a kidnappin' an' a freelance detective," he said as he pushed past me. His posture may have been official, but he had a thick cockney accent that difficult to decipher. The three lesser officers followed the inspector into the foyer.

"You will find the kidnapper outside the kitchen window. I am the freelance detective you seek." I tried to give off with my voice the same authority that the inspector showed in his dress and posture. It must not have been very effective. He turned slowly and looked me up and down once with a smug look on his face.

"Yeah, an' I'm the bloody Queen." He laughed as he cast an eye about, searching for the adult in charge. The pressure from the entire case suddenly plummeted down upon me, and I felt rage bubbling from inside my chest.

"I am in charge of this operation, sir!" I said with a bark. The officers stopped and turned, a surprised look on each face, to me. "You will speak to me as a fellow adult as, legally, I am your peer!" I stopped for a moment, taking in the growing anger on the inspector's face. "I am Jack Holmes, a privately employed detective. I am in charge of this case, and all questions will be aimed toward me." I continued with my story before I could be interrupted. "David McGuiness was kidnapped yesterday at approximately nine o'clock by Mr. Gerald Heyman, who, as I mentioned before, is awaiting you just outside the kitchen window. You will not need your gun," I warned the inspector, as he started for the kitchen, "nor will you need handcuffs."

With a grunt of dissatisfaction, the inspector dashed into the kitchen. I spoke to the nearest officer.

"Officer..."

"Dobson, sir. Roger Dobson."

"Officer Dobson, would you please see that Ms. Sara McGuiness finds her way to the nearest hospital as soon as possible?" Officer Dobson's eyes grew wide, and he dashed to the indicated room, only to emerge a moment later with Ms. Sara in his arms. Watson followed closely, but a second officer detained Mr. McGuiness.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll need to be taken in for questioning concerning the kidnapper and his men." I looked to the officer's identification tag and found his name to be M. Johnston.

"Officer Johnston, perhaps the questioning can be done at the hospital? Surely it does not take the entire police force to question one man?" I glanced at Watson, whose eyes were clear of tears once again, and his face set. They would take Sara nowhere without him. Finally, Officer Johnston caved.

"Don't get too comfortable there, Mr. McGuiness," warned Officer Johnston, and he moved into the room where the two hired men lay unconscious. Just before he passed through the door, I felt Mr. McGuiness grab my shoulder.

"Thank you, Mr. Holmes," he said under his breath. Then he was gone through the door and down the stairs, following Officer Dobson, Ms. Sara and Watson, presumably to Officer Dobson's squad car.

I sat in a chair by the front door, retreating back to exhaustion, and watched as Officer Johnston and the remaining officer toted the hired men as best they could out the door and down the flights of stairs into their automobile. I sighed and leaned back in the chair, watching as Ron walked into the foyer, but said nothing. The taciturnity of my newfound brother was strange to me, but I smiled.

"So, my young brother," I said, cocking my head to one side, "how long did you know that you and I were related?" Ron on the floor by my side, looking up at me with admiration.

"Since I walked into your flat. I remembered readin' about you, an' you looked so familiar... Y'know?"

"Yes... I do know..." I reached down and patted his head gently. "And if it makes any sense to you, I knew as well. You look so much like our father."

"An' you look like Mum," Ron said with a wide grin. I felt as if all of the joy in me suddenly deflated. Ron saw the change immediately. "What?"

"When was the last time you saw our mother, Ron?" I could feel the stabbing pain that I thought I had left in the orphanage return to my heart. Ron shrugged.

"About two months ago, I guess. She goes off sometimes with some wanker so she can give us some money. She lived on the streets with us, y'know. Like a mum to the whole lot of us." I forced a sad smile. So he didn't know. I pulled him onto my lap.

"Ron... I know where she is."

"Really? Well, you shoulda told her to get her bloody rear back here!" His face was pulled into a wide smile. I hated to make it disappear, but I had no choice.

"Ron, when I lived in an orphanage, our mother's murder was the first case I solved." He didn't seem to understand, so I simply let it come. "She was killed, Ron."

He didn't speak for a long time. His wide brown eyes just migrated to the floor, and they stayed there. The entrance of the inspector from the front door caught my attention, and I stood quickly, placing my brother on seat that I had occupied.

"Inspector, if I did not know better, I would have said that I thought you to be in the kitchen."

"I was 'till I saw your Mr. Heyman down there in the bloomin' alley. Climbed down there all by meself just to find the man's bloody head caved in." He shrugged with a long sigh, replacing his hat atop his balding head. "I'm gonna need a statement from you two. You're the one what called us, ain't you?" He asked, looking to Ron. He looked up and nodded, still contemplating our mother's death. The inspector nodded. "Where can I get a hold of you two if I need to?"

I fished into my pocket and wrote our address on a spare bit of paper I had. His eyes darted up suspiciously to mine when I wrote the words "Baker Street," but he looked away quickly. After I was finished, he placed the slip of paper into his breast pocket and looked as if he was about to leave.

"Excuse me, Inspector," I called after him. He turned. The look on his face was considerably less irritated than it had been upon his arrival. I was pleased. "My friend-" I almost said "Watson" but I figured that his suspicions were already too high to risk it. "My friend John would most likely wish to have your name if he is to write an article about this endeavor." He paused, as if waiting for me to add a punch line, then he raised his eyebrows as if shrugging.

"Lestrade. Warren Lestrade."

He moved out of the door and shifted his hat on his head, muttering something I could not hear. A great bark of a laugh echoed in my head, and for a moment, I thought that it had been Inspector Lestrade, but I realized that it had been Holmes.

"What is so funny this time?" I asked. Ron's head shot up, for he had not heard anyone laugh.

'That the man's progeny never thought to branch from the same dull line of work as their father, grandfather and so on...' He laughed again. 'To think that there may be a Lestrade in Scotland Yard ad infinitum.'

"What was funny, Jack?" Ron asked from the chair, hopping down. I watched him, to see the effects of our mother's death on him, and I was surprised to find no change from the normal, rambunctious urchin I had found just earlier that day. I ruffled his caked and filthy hair.

"Perhaps someday, I will tell you. But today has been far long enough without long explanations. Let us go home." Ron looked taken aback.

"Home? What do you mean?"

"What sort of older brother would I be if I let you starve out on the streets? You are staying with us of course."

For the second time in only as many minutes, Ronald Holmes was struck dumb with silence.

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It was my second funeral since the year of 1943 began.

This funeral, unlike the combined funeral of my mother and Isabelle Wright, was formal and had all of the furnishings. I was even required to buy a black suit for the ceremony. I stood, once again, looking into the black hole in the earth as it swallowed up yet another person close to me. Watson stood by my side, his unblinking eyes watching the coffin get lowered into the ground. At his side was Sara McGuiness, her arm linked with his in what appeared to be a painful grip. Her eyes were filled with sad tears. I tore my eyes from them and stepped forward to say what I had been asked to say: a eulogy.

"I hardly knew Neville Richardson." I looked from the coffin to those surrounding it, all of the damp eyes now on me. I could even spot the man's wife's sisters among the grieving. "He came into my life just when I was in need. He told me that it was because my friend and I saved his life that he sheltered us and fed us. In reality, it was he who saved us. Watson and I would not have lasted long in London without Mr. Richardson's guidance and support. I remember his only request to me, when he gave us so much. He wished for me to call him Neville, and not to think of him as my father." I took a deep breath, fighting back the emotions that wanted to come. "So now I say good-bye, Neville, my benefactor, my guardian, and, most importantly, my friend."

With those words, I tossed a great red rose onto the coffin's lid. Other roses followed, and I could see the tears rolling down Sara's face as she lay hers atop the growing pile. Watson grabbed her hand with his and squeezed it firmly. She could stand it no longer and buried her face in Watson's chest, weeping openly. He embraced her fully, letting her tears come, and even allowing some of his own to fall. I refused to cry. I had done my grieving, enough to last for a lifetime.

At my other side, there emerged not a sound. I looked with a placidness at Ron, who looked at the descending coffin as well, though his rose was clutched tightly in his small fingers. He had cleaned up nicely for a boy living on the streets for all of his life that he could remember. His hair was combed, his face was clean, and he even wore a black suit of new, pristine material. At last, his watery brown eyes blinked, and he was the last to toss the flower onto the casket. I nodded approvingly, and took his small hand in mine.

I did not tell him where I got the money for his suit. And for mine. And for Watson's. I had paid for them all with the money left to me by Mr. Richardson. I had come to the belief that he was a destitute man from his constant stories of how his wife had left everything to "her damned sisters." But when the letter came to me, naming Watson and myself as the sole recipients of his small fortune, I nearly collapsed. As I was 18, I inherited my money on the instant. Watson, who had just turned 15 the week of Mr. Richardson's death, would glean his on the day of his 18th birthday. I remained silent on the issue to Ron.

As we stared at the dirt being shoveled over Mr. Richardson's grave, Ron looked curiously up at me.

"What now, Jack?" He asked me, seemingly devoid of emotion.

"What do you mean, 'What now?'" I asked. "Life is not like a book in the sense that one can simply turn a page and a new adventure will appear from nowhere, Ron." I was silent for a moment, looking on as Watson calmed Sara McGuiness by caressing her hair. "But in a profession like mine, adventure could happen at any time, and we must always be ready for it when it comes."

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AN: TAH-DAH!! The third part of the series is over! Huzzah for me! I reeeeeeally hope you guys liked the ending of this one, because I would hate to be crucified by angry fans. And yes, I know that Mycroft was older than Sherlock, but... yeah... ALSO!! Tell me if another story would be too much, because I have a 4th story in the making, but if no one wants it but me, then I shall refrain from posting it. Again, thanks to EVERYONE who has supported me through this one, and I hope that you all enjoyed it!
-The Shoeless One