"This time, Watson," Holmes commented quietly, stretching out his lanky frame, "I am not entirely sure that your silence was appreciated."

"And yet you should have been angry with me if I had disturbed you needlessly," I protested.

"Quite correct," said Holmes, "and yet I find myself now wishing that you had, in fact, provided me with some distraction, for I have spent a fruitless half an hour going over my plans and actions only to decide that I was right in all I have done. That half hour could better have been put to other uses."

"Had you cause to doubt?" I inquired.

"No," Holmes told me with a sigh, "and yet still I was led into doubt by the passion of Thomason. No, my dear Watson," Holmes repeated, "I am glad that I have acted as I have, for to have hesitated would have meant victory had been handed to our opposites."

"What events have you set in motion?"

"All will be revealed in time," Holmes told me with a brief glance at Mrs Kendrick, who still sat with eyes closed, thinking her own thoughts.

I felt useless. Never before in our cases had Holes proved so evasive with his answers and so tight with his information. Always before I had managed to glean some small piece of information that had, if not making things clear, given me some feeling of purpose or sense of control. This time, however, Holmes was holding his cards close to his chest and not revealing them even to me. "Is there nothing that we may do?" I asked quietly.

Holmes sighed. "There are a great many things that could be done, Watson," answered Holmes, "but we may do none. As Thomason said, by acting wrongly we would invite disaster down upon us. Perhaps tomorrow the time will come where we may take action, but for now we must wait."

It was a long wait that we three passed in silence, the weight of immobility pressing down upon us. Several times did Holmes start up from his chair toward the door, but each time he reversed course and returned to his seat by the fire. I made no comment of the strange half-flights and neither did Mrs Kendrick, who had taken her hand to Holmes's handkerchiefs, endeavouring to embellish them with his monogram. Holmes, although usually averse to such affectations, allowed her to proceed without a word.

The clock had just struck four when there came a violent ringing of the bell. Holmes flew to the door, too anxious to wait for the pageboy to answer it and show up the visitor, if they were, in fact, destined for our apartment. When he returned, he was alone, clutching a message in his hand.

"What is it?" I demanded.

"The time has come for action," Holmes declared, his muscles tensed, "and yet we must still bide our time. This message is from our friend Thomason, who has learned that the ship upon which the good Doctor Kendrick is aboard has docked only this past hour in the Portsmouth harbour."

"They had thought to return by way of Liverpool," Mrs Kendrick noted, speaking to us for the first time since that morning.

Holmes all but ignored the interruption. "For the moment we still hold the upper hand. The situation is at an impasse, for we may not act upon the conspirators while they remain in Portsmouth and they may not act upon us while we remain in London."

"But, Holmes, surely…"

And still he continued, brazenly speaking over my attempted objection. "While we are not constrained by the rigidities of naval law, we are far better served to remain here and have the enemy come to us. Those men that Trumper and Hancock have employed to watch over you, Mrs Kendrick, here in London, are not privy to so much information as we are."

"Holmes," I interjected, more firmly this time.

"What is it, Watson?" Holmes asked languidly, turning his sharp eyes to me. Excitement was written on his every feature.

"I…" I found myself unable to get past that initial word. I had broken into his stream of words without clear idea what I should say when he stopped, for I had not anticipated being able to slow the rushing torrent of information.

"Yes," said Holmes dismissively, "well, as I stated, the men that Trumper and Hancock have hired are merely mercenaries. That, Watson, is the reason for the multi-layered enciphering system. They must have been acting as conduits for the two for quite some time, if, as Thomason indicated, we are missing nearly double the number of messages that we should have had.

"You see, Watson, why we must bide our time here and wait for them to come to us, rather than us rushing off in pursuit of them?" Holmes asked, as if all had been explained to a child.

But although I understood several more points than I had, I still could not see a reason why the authorities in Portsmouth should not be telegraphed and the villains apprehended before any danger could come of their schemes. Failing that, I could also see no reason for Holmes not to board a train bound for Portsmouth and deal with the men directly. But I knew Holmes well enough to trust that his scheme, whatever it was, had been carefully planned.

Rather than answer, I sighed. I did not understand, but my pride would not allow me to admit as much when Holmes clearly felt he had clarified the situation beyond what was necessary. His air while delivering his earlier speech had clearly shown that he felt it was impossible not to understand his logic. But not all were graced with the mental capacities of Sherlock Holmes, and I, unfortunately, was not one of them.

"Perhaps then I will see Mrs Hudson about dinner," I noted after a moment. Holmes waved his hand dismissively, crossing over to his desk and beginning to root happily about in one of his many stacks of accumulated papers.

I looked instead to Mrs Kendrick. She lifted her eyes from her needlework and shrugged. I obeyed my own suggestion, descending to inquire about having dinner sent up when it was ready. But I was glad to note that I was not the only one who had not been satisfied by the scanty logic that Holmes had offered. I only hoped that when he was laying out all the facts at the end of this case the missing pieces could be recovered and fixed into the gaps that Holmes had left.

Still, now that I knew some course of action was being embarked upon, even if it was merely waiting until such time that more active interventions could be employed, I did not feel so useless as I had only a few hours ago. Once more I was assured that the case was firmly in hand, even if the hands were not my own.