Chapter Six: The Better for Proof

You can imagine my horror and my disquiet, of course, when, after several moments of waiting in the hotel room, I realized all of the import of what had just occured. After the best and most careful analysis to which I could subject myself under the circumstances, I realized that the best and most efficient way of handling this debacle was to get to Pall Mall and to Mycroft at once, so that he could come to our aid as well. After all, Holmes had always declared his brother to be in possession of even greater powers than himself, and surely with both Mycroft, Sherlock, an dmyself on the job, we could sort out the entire mess. In fact, I reflected, growing more relieved and eager the more I thought about it, Mycroft would surely have an alibi for his brother, whom he had seemed to have spent a great deal of time with in the last week. What I had previously seen to be an undesirable amount of time spent in Mycroft's rooms would now come in handy, and I rushed to hail a cab.

Mycroft Holmes was not as surprised as I was, but equally as disturbed when I brought him the news of his brother's arrest. He groaned, and slumped into one of his luxurious chairs, rolling his eyes back in his head in an excess of dread.

"It is because of the bracelet," he announced after a moment of his display. "It is that ridiculous business with the bracelet that has convinced them he is the culprit. No doubt the police traced Sherlock to the 'theft' of Anne's diamonds, as we were not terribly careful about hiding the whole affair, and have now decided that this unfortunately similar murder was committed by the same hand."

"But surely," I insisted, "Holmes notified the police of the real matter concerning the bracelet."

Mycroft gave a little desperate shrug. "I thought he had, but you know Sherlock, always desirous of someone to watch him solve his little mysteries. It's very likely that he did not correctly inform the police after all, and because of the great uproar that Anne and I made about the matter, no doubt word of the fraudulent theft got back to them in the end."

"But if you come to the police station, you can explain everything," I insisted, pulling impatiently at Mycroft's sleeve in my agitation. "You shall be able to clear up the entire matter, and they'll let him go first thing in the morning. You will come, will you not?"

"Right away," nodded Mycroft, standing up and stretching his great bulk with a few bodily cracks that spoke of ill-used it was. "I'll be along just as soon as I've gone over to get Anne."

"We've got no time," I cried in frustration. "There's really no time to lose at all, surely Miss Fairchild can wait here for an hour or so while we go to the scene of the misunderstanding. I highly doubt that when you've arrived and said your piece it will be more than an hour."

Mycroft shook his head, holding up a hand to forestall my angry protestations. "I shall get Anne," he said, "because it is she who has the bracelet now, as Sherlock returned it shortly after you left, with the expectation that he should tell you all. She'll need to present proof of all that we so, and so it is best that she and I travel together."

There was truth in what he said, and I recognized that despite my desire to make as much haste as possible, things must be done in their proper order, for the sake of ensuring success. "Very well," I said, trying to sound calmer and more collected. "I shall travel to the police station now, then, and I will await your coming. Please hurry. There really isn't a moment to be lost over this."

"Don't worry yourself," chuckled Mycroft, his better spirits apparently beginning to return. "Nothing can possible come from this unless someone will appear against him, and since there is no evidence and no witness who could possibly have caught my brother in the act of anything, there will be no prosecution. As you say, he will be free by morning."

We both went our seperate ways then, Mycroft over to his young lady's home, and myself to the police station, where I knew I would find my friend in custody.

When I arrived, however, to my chagrin, I was refused entrance, and unable to see my poor friend. I argued for a considerable time with the indefatigable Johnson, who kept repeating to me in the same deadpan monotone that he could not allow Mr. Sherlock Holmes to have any visitors, and that I should return home before it became advisable to connect me with Sherlock Holmes and with the murder that my friend was accused of. Absolutely seething with frustration, I was about to start my tirade of pleas and insistences all over again, when a familiar voice was at my ear, and I found Inspector Lestrade, even more haggard than usual, standing at my elbow.

"Doctor Watson," he was murmuring, "leave this to me, if you please, and I will be with you again in a moment."

Lestrade kept his word, and after a short and heated conversation with Johnson, our friend led me to a back room, where Sherlock Holmes appeared to be receiving particular treatment, due to his numerous instances of aid to the force.

"I must wait with you here," Lestrade was saying. "I've no concerns about you, but I'd much rather that I be the one standing in on your conversation than anyone else, and I worry that I may be the only member of the force who is convinced that Sherlock Holmes is not a very dangerous man."

Holmes was standing quietly in the corner of the unfurnished room, his lean frame braced up against the wall, eyes downcast, apparently lost in an extremelly patient perusal of the floor of his makeshift cell. It was apparent that he was making no fuss and no trouble, and seemed to have decided that resolution, rather than aggression, was the only way to bear out the situation.

When he heard my footsteps, his head snapped up, and he looked somewhat relieved. "Watson," he said, springing out of his chair in his excitement, "I had worried about what you would do when I left you at the hotel. You've been to Mycroft's, I assume?"

I nodded, hurrying to his side and laying a comforting hand on his forearm. "It's quite all right," I said, "your brother is to be here very shortly with Miss Fairchild, and together the four of us shall explain the whole matter. I am quite convinced that you are right, and that we shall all share lunch tomorrow and laugh at our misfortunes."

Holmes shook his head slowly, and chewed on his lip in rueful thought. "No, no, I do not think that is quite as likely as I previously said," he muttered. "I do not think, in fact, that Mycroft can be any help to us at all."

Surprised, I stared at my friend, and then, with a little laugh, I drew closer to him, lowering my voice and trying to sound comforting and reassuring. "I understand your pessimism, Holmes, but all that we have got to do is to show Johnson the bracelet, and then Mycroft and Miss Fairchild will explain everything."

Again, Holmes smiled sadly. "Yes, my dear Doctor, that is all that we must do, but I believe that you will be hard pressed to accomplish it. If you manage to both show the bracelet, and to convince Miss Fairchild and my brother to explain the length and breadth of the matter to the police, I confess that I will not only be greatly in your debt, but also greatly in awe of your powers of persuasion."

I could make nothing of his statements, and was just about to ask him what he meant by it all when I remembered that Lestrade himself had been in on the whole mock mystery. I advanced on him, holding out my hands beseechingly. "Why, Inspector Lestrade, the answer lies with you after all. You knew all about the real whereabouts of the bracelet, did you not?"

Lestrade nodded slowly. "Aye," he said, "I did at that, but the truth is that I cannot prove any of it, and it has been announced that I am too close a personal aquaintance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes' to be allowed any say in the matter whatsoever. I have been taken entirely off the case, and can assist you only as a member of the public."

"You see, Watson," Sherlock Holmes was saying, "we should be all the better for proof."

Looking back and forth between the two men, I read the complete resignation on my friend's face, and the concern and nervous twitching on that of Lestrade. I could not for the life of me determine why, in the face of all of my plausible assurances, they should still be so morose, and was about to ask as much when the door of the room, guarded by Lestrade, was thrown open, and Johnson entered, his eyes blazing bitterly at Lestrade.

"That is quite enough," he declared coldly. "Doctor Watson, I shall ask you for the very last time to leave us here, and to return to your own lodgings immediately. I am sure that an Inspector should be very glad to accompany you, if you linger any longer on the premises."

I waited for a moment, glaring into Johnson's smoothly confidant gaze, and was just about ready to suggest to him that he attempt to accompnay me home, when my friend's voice broke into my aggressive thoughts.

"Go home," he said, "and get a night's sleep. I shall very likely need you at your best tomorrow, perhaps more than I have ever needed you before."

Despite my desire to remain with Holmes until I was forced away, his words rang true, and I reluctantly started for the door, Lestrade at my back, and Johnson beckoning me on peremptorily from the front. Even as I left, Holmes cried out from behind me, and I spun around to find entreaty in his eyes as he stared past me at Johnson's set countenance.

"Watson," he murmured, "I should like you to go to Miss Fairchild tonight and ask her yourself to come to the station."

"But, Mycroft insisted that he would follow shortly after my own visit," I said. "No doubt you will hear from both of them in no time at all."

Holmes shook his head."Do as I ask, Doctor," he insisted, and there was a very faint tinge of fear in his voice. "If you have ever spent care on me, your often unworthy friend, then you will do ask I ask."

Lestrade and I walked silently together out towards the street, where he hailed me a cab, and waited by my side as I climbed in. "I'm sorry," he kept saying, "about this unfortunate occurence. I will try as hard as I can to keep it under control in your absence so that nothing of importance will occur until you have had time to sort it out again with Mr. Mycroft Holmes."

"Very good," I replied. Then, although I did not have to hear the answer to know it, I felt that I had to ask the question that had been burning in my mind ever since I had met Lestrade in the station. "What exactly will happen if we do not manage to succesfully clear Holmes of the charge, unlikely as that event is?"

Lestrade shrugged dolefully. "He'll be hanged," he said, and then walked back into the station with drooping shoulders, leaving me sitting in the cab. I stared blankly at the driver when he asked me repeatedly for my destination, unable to speak around my thoughts for several long minutes. It was not until we were back at Baker Street, and the driving was asking in irritation for his fee that I was able to regain myself and to think it all through.

I did not trust myself to sit too long on Holmes' words, but started off immediately for Miss Fairchild at Pall Mal, determined to wait there for her until she arrived back from the station, in order to fulfill my friend's request.