"Holmes?"
Sharp raps, echoes of knuckles on wood, reverberated through Holmes' body. It took him several long moments, cotton batting stuffed in his head to obscure his thoughts, but he did eventually match the voice to John Watson.
"Holmes, come now, old boy. It's been a day since you even moved in there. Can you hear me?"
Holmes blinked several times, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, a positively foul taste left behind on his pallet, thick like a melted, rancid confection. The room spun gently, not a whirl to herald a fainting spell but a rotation just pronounced enough to cause his stomach to flip low in his gut, and bile to trace a burning path upward to gurgle ominously in the back of his throat. He tried to roll onto his side but the effort was beyond him. He could hear his pulse fluttering wildly in the blood rushing past his ears. One of his hands flopped from his chest to lie limp near his face, and he stared in fascination as his fingers curled slightly upward like the spindly legs of a dead insect. He could not feel them do so.
"Holmes! If you do not answer me, I am going to assume that you are in need of medical attention."
How long had Watson been out there? Holmes had no idea. He only wanted to sleep a bit more. But that was not quite right, was it? There was something…nagging him, like bees stinging his brain. He was meant to be doing something, or looking for something, or paying attention to…something. He could not think like this; his own mind was an intolerable mess.
"I am going to count to three, Holmes. If you have not said anything by then, I will break this door down, do you hear me?"
Had he done something wrong? Watson sounded terribly cross with him. Holmes tried to recall what he had been doing lately. Experiments or…cases? There was the jewel theft case; he had liked that one. The culprits had shown promise, but they had ceased their activity. Outwardly ceased it – Holmes had never really believed that their streak had run its course. He would need to revisit the facts of the matter.
"One."
Then there was Lestrade and his pile of unsolved – ah, yes! Holmes had gone to Scotland Yard and made a nuisance of himself. No...no, that was not correct. Lestrade had made the nuisance, had he not? Either way, they were not speaking to Lestrade anymore, and Holmes did not want to see him ever again; he was a cad. Had Holmes told him so? Yes, that must be it – Watson was angry with him for alienating yet another of their casual acquaintances.
"Two."
Or perhaps it was Mycroft. Mycroft had said something. Holmes recalled being at the club. Then Watson had come, and they had gone home, and…Holmes had punched Watson in the face and broken his things. Oh. No, that would not do. He must apologize at once or Watson might wash his hands of him. A fellow did not simply go about destroying his flatmate's belongings like that. Watson had done nothing to deserve that. Except lie to him. And lies were not on. The last time Holmes had lied to Watson, it had turned Watson's mouth into a straight line and his face had gone dark like blown out lamps. Holmes understood now; when he had learned of Watson's lie, he had felt the way flames do when covered with a candle snuffer. Alone in a muffled, dark place, suffocating in the byproducts of his own exhalations.
But had Watson really done something horrible by it? Watson had said that he did not wish Holmes to worry, to be frightened – to break down in the foyer at the thought that he was not safe outside of his own home. He had meant to protect Holmes from the truth. Of course, he had not thought that to do so would blind him to the lurking danger that remained. Holmes had done something like that once. He had paid a boy to deliver a false message to Watson in order to lure him away so that he would not have to watch Holmes die. Had he ever told Watson about that? Holmes hoped not; it would make Watson sad to know, and perhaps angry. Watson had a formidable temper; it made Holmes' nerves jangle at the roots of his teeth.
Of course, Holmes had not died at Reichenbach, but when he had penned that note in a script not his own, Holmes had not thought that he would survive. He had only wanted to rid the world of a mad mathematician – a mathematician who had threatened to harm Watson if Holmes did not cease to hinder his criminal activities. Holmes could not have done that; Moriarty had been too dangerous to allow clemency. But he had threatened Watson. There had been no price that Holmes was unwilling to pay to keep Watson safe, even should Watson end up hating him for it. A person of a more romantic turn might call that kind of fealty love. Watson was a romantic - incurably so. All of those sea novels had evidently rotted his brain. Had Watson been this tedious when they first met? Surely not. Perhaps Holmes had somehow damaged him through their long and nearly constant association.
"Three."
Holmes was not aware of it when Watson finally gained access to his bedroom, but he did notice the familiar patterns of Watson's brocade dressing gown swirling close to his eyes, the smell of day-old soap lingering on the air, and Watson's sleep scents. It must have been early in the morning, then, prior to Watson's seeing to his toilet.
"...Holmes?" A tiny voice, distant and weak. Frightened?
No, not quite. But close. Holmes was rubbish with emotions; Watson knew that. He always asked about those things, or stated them plainly if it were necessary. He was always making allowances for Holmes' shortcomings, his dear Watson. No one understood Holmes as he did. No one else bothered to try, and even if they did, Holmes would have nothing to do with them because there would only ever be one John Watson. Holmes did not want a substitution. His Watson was unique, unlike the rest of humanity which bumbled about and multiplied and covered everything like...like oysters choking the sea floor. Disgusting, spineless, useless creatures, those. Watson was not an oyster.
Watson towered over him and then gradually drew into focus as his face descended. Ah. Holmes was on the floor, then. He tried to tell Watson that he was one of those shiny silver fish that jumped from the water and seemed to fly for a bare instant before they disappeared back into the dark waters that bore them. It came out as a wordless gurgle followed by a painful cough.
"Oh, thank god!" Watson cupped Holmes' jaw and angled his head for a better look at his face. "What have you been doing in here?"
Holmes blinked a few times and tried to get a look at his immediate surroundings. He already knew that he was on the floor, but the space between his bed and the hearth looked like the sort of nest that one of his more feral Irregulars might make out of a fully stocked laundry room. He frowned at the blankets and pillows heaped about his body, then blinked back up at Watson. A slow meandering of his thoughts turned up no recollection of how he had ended up on the floor, nor of how this mess had appeared around him.
Watson sighed and shook his head in something akin to disappointment and yet too guilt-induced to truly be so. He shuffled and patted his hands along the blankets and pillows, shook Holmes' tattered old dressing gown from the mess and laid it over the footboard of his bed, then stopped all extraneous motion to withdraw the syringe he had apparently been looking for all along. He held it aloft in the weak light cast in through the open door from the illuminated sitting room beyond. "What happened to only ever using this to ease the ennui?"
Had he been bored when he took that from his hidden drawer? No, certainly not. There had been too much stimulation, rather than not enough; his entire mind had been a jumble, and he had not been able to think. "It clarifies, Watson." There; that explained it. He had said as much before, after all. "I required it." The words were all wrong, rounded and soft-edged like a drunken slur. He was certain that he had not said them that way, but they sounded like it, regardless. Perhaps there was some chemical agent in the air, distorting the passage of sound.
"Oh," Watson replied, sarcasm tinting the edges of the sound until it drew out beyond its natural conclusion. His brows twitched up, causing the skin around his eyes to pull smooth. "And just how much clarity are we feeling now?"
Holmes frowned. "That is immaterial. I needed it."
Watson's mouth twisted up into a hidden squiggle beneath his mustache; Holmes could not interpret it when it retreated there. "I see. We are going to have a talk about this once your wits have been returned to you."
A tiny thread of anger, defensive in nature, wound its way up from Holmes' stomach to prickle in the region of his diaphragm. "You are not my keeper."
The pert response to that was, "Someone has to be."
Unspoken were the words Holmes recalled Watson saying to him – days or weeks ago, he could not recall – while neatly enfolded against Watson's chest on the floor with a cooling cup of tea discarded nearby, and the sharpness of angry shouting still hanging heavy in the air. Just leave it to me, alright? I'll keep you... An unfinished sentence, but left to stand as such, all the same, and then repeated. I'll keep you. Finality. Whether he had realized it before now or not, Holmes had been clutching that declaration close to his chest ever since. I'll keep you. Someone would keep him. Someone wanted to. "Yes, but only you," Holmes mumbled distractedly.
"Don't worry, I'm horrible at delegation; my superiors always said as much." Watson set the needle aside somewhere outside of the sphere of Holmes' vision, then perched himself in a crouch on the balls of his feet. He managed to lift Holmes by the armpits and shove him to sit unsteadily upright, leaning against the frame of his bed. The room spun out of focus and lurched a thick groan from Holmes' throat. God, he hoped he was not about to be sick. A pinch to the back of his hand made him flinch.
"You're dehydrated," Watson muttered, his tone one of accusation, "and you smell like a sick room." He was moving things about now, folding blankets and setting them aside for a washing. His limbs jerked through their movements, angry and abbreviated, and his harsh breathing betrayed the onset of a truly foul temper.
Holmes felt thick like quilts or pudding, and his face was full like a head cold. "Watson?" He watched the blurry form of his friend and flatmate grow still by degrees. "Watson, I am sorry I broke your chair. And I will buy you a new book, only…don't be cross with me. I deserve your ire, but…it is unpleasant and distracting, and if you would see it within yourself to perhaps…grant a reprieve, I should be very grateful. Because...because, you see..." Holmes struggled after the words that would make Watson understand, but they would not come to him in this half-lucid haze, not the sorts of words that normal people used. The sorts that Watson used. But then, Watson was not entirely normal anymore, was he? And he knew what Holmes meant even in the times when Holmes himself could not explain his own mind. "Everyone else is oysters, and there is only the one of you. Do you understand?" Holmes paused to observe the change in Watson's breathing pattern, the staccato upset of an inconstant rhythm. "Watson?"
Watson gripped his knees near to where they rested on the floor, and bowed over them. "How in god's name can you be so bloody thick?" And suddenly, there were hands gripping Holmes' head hard enough to bruise for a moment before Watson's fingers moved to grip savagely at the hair around Holmes' ears. "You have been in here for three days, Holmes! I left you alone because I thought it was what you needed, but when you didn't answer me, and I came in here just now and saw you lying on the floor, I thought you were dead!" He punctuated this last statement with a viscious shake for each syllable, and Holmes only refrained from yelping in shock because the sharp burst of nausea at the movement stole his breath. "Don't you ever lock me out of this room again – do you understand? I will let you be if that is what you want; I will sleep upstairs and I will observe strict gentlemen's habits. I will not even hinder your pursuit of destructive means. But you will not close me out, Holmes. This is non-negotiable. Do this to me again, and I will leave you. Is that…perfectly…clear?"
Watson could hardly speak in comprehensible words at this point; he seemed overcome by an excess of emotion, and there were wet marks streaking his cheeks. Holmes had rarely been so terrified. Watson was crying. No, Watson was not just crying, he was crying at Holmes. They were both shaking, though in Holmes' case it was mostly the reaction to the last of the cocaine searing his veins on its way from his body, and his profound need for sugar water. That did not negate the impact that Watson's ultimatum had on him – on them both. Holmes could read the sincerity plain as day in the shivering of Watson's lips and the stubborn flare of his nostrils. He would leave. If Holmes did not abide by his term, Watson would leave. And then Holmes would be crushed by oysters.
Watson blinked a few times as if just now becoming aware of his position, of the manner in which he had grabbed at Holmes to hold him captive to an hysterical tirade. He flushed, a delicate pink stain high on his cheekbones like ink bleeding up from the underside of a wet sheet of paper. His eyes dropped and he loosened his hold, petting Holmes' hair as much back into place as its sweat-soaked, unwashed state allowed. "Right, then," he croaked, and had to clear his throat in order to say anything further. "The first order is for you to drink and then eat something. After that, a bath; you're offensive."
Holmes allowed his eyes to once again lose focus as Watson withdrew and rocked backwards on his heels in order to rise from the floor. He watched Watson's feet move back and forth as he tidied, clad in an old pair of brown house shoes that only barely poked out from beneath the hem of his dressing gown.
An indeterminate amount of time later, Watson crouched down in front of Holmes and drew his attention with a single fingertip touched to Holmes' jaw. "Holmes. Have you been listening?"
Holmes wobbled where he sat, his vision flickering and covered in a watery glaze. "I was thinking."
"Ah." Watson smiled in that manner he had that betrayed the affection he harbored for Holmes. There was also sadness in it, and not the young kind. "I see. I was just saying that Lestrade sent a telegram this morning. He wishes to call on us at half past nine. You can remain in here if you prefer; I can tell him you are ill."
"No," Holmes replied, then blinked in confusion at the desperate tinge to the denial, which came too quickly on the heels of Watson's statement. "No," he repeated, more controlled this time. "Does he have a case for us?"
Watson pressed his lips together, his smile more like a grimace this time. "He didn't say, only that he prayed we would consent to see him."
"Oh." Holmes could feel it when his face fell, but even if he hadn't, he would have known for the echo of it in Watson's expression. "Well, no matter. We can find our own cases."
Watson gave a distracted nod and hitched a shoulder in the direction of the sitting room. "Come on. Food and a bath, remember?"
As Watson started to rise, Holmes grabbed him by the first thing he could reach, which turned out to be the collar of his dressing gown. Watson winced as he crumpled back to the floor, one hand out to steady himself so that he did not overbalance. Without conscious volition, Holmes' other hand migrated up to pat one of Watson's cheeks in what, from anyone else, probably would have been a condescending gesture. "Watson…you must understand…"
"It's alright," Watson interrupted, his voice a soothing murmur close enough to Holmes' face that Holmes could feel the brush of a warm exhalation against the side of his nose. "I do. I don't need any more words."
"Then…we are settled?"
"It is already forgotten, old cock."
Holmes nodded a few times, unaccountable for the nervous quality of the motion. "I will replace your chair." He had already said it, but it bore repeating for some reason. It was very urgent in Holmes' mind that Watson should be appeased somehow. "And your book, if you wish it."
At that, Watson reached up to uncurl Holmes' fingers from around his collar. He pressed Holmes' hands together and breathed on one of them, then said very quietly without lifting his head, "I have no desire ever to see that book again, Holmes. I agree wholeheartedly with its destruction." Then he looked up, finally meeting Holmes' eyes, his mouth quirked in an obscure smile that tangled in with his mustache. "My chair, however…"
Holmes grinned; it was quite an unexpected reaction. "You shall have mine until we find you a suitable replacement."
"Accepted." Watson smiled again, something sly and companionable that made Holmes feel warm again, despite the chill left behind in his blood from the dwindling effects of the cocaine. "Now come; you are nowhere near presentable enough to greet Lestrade."
To Watson's eyes, Holmes looked a wreck. Sallow-faced with sunken, bruised eyes, and an odd vacancy about his complexion. The puncture wounds marring the pale skin of his forearm put Watson off just as much as they always did, but he insisted on cleansing them with alcohol and checking for evidence of infection, and for weakness in the veinous walls. This was a new act on his part, and Holmes took obvious notice of it. Normally, in the wake of such destructive episodes, Watson comported himself as if nothing had occurred save that Holmes had been quiet for a few days. The pointed notice of the needle marks, the calm treatment of them, sent Holmes into a wary watchfulness that persisted well after Watson had completed his ministrations.
Perhaps, Watson thought for only a bare moment, his persecution of Holmes for this vice should be reigned back. If Holmes could not trust Watson to even swab the pinpricks, much less speak aloud on the issue without pitching a fit, then he would not likely come to Watson in the event that something went wrong with an injection. Watson needed to know that Holmes would come to him if he needed help, no matter what he had done to put himself in such a position.
They would speak on that later, Watson decided, and he would ensure that Holmes understood that he could seek assistance without fear of reprisal, however much it may irk Watson to hold his tongue in the face of Holmes' blatant abuse of his brilliant mind. One could only lead a horse to water, after all. If Holmes were ever going to overcome this addiction that he had cultivated out of the need for relief from the black moods and ignorance of the side effects of his choice drug, he would have to do so of his own wanting. It would kill Watson to stand idle when he knew that perhaps not even Holmes himself recognized the quagmire he had put himself in by self medication of his darkest fits, but by god, he would do it. For as long as it took. And he would hope with the greatest fervency that he did not have to wait so long that Holmes, either by accident or design, ruined himself by it.
The bath took precedence in the end, if only because Holmes finally realized, via the benefit of his returning faculties, that even he could barely stand his own odor. Three days wearing the same clothes, subsisting on cocaine and cold tea and toasts of crust pilfered from Watson's picked-over breakfast trays tended to make one rather pungent.
Lestrade arrived just as they finished breakfast, of which Holmes did consent to consume a fair amount in exchange for not having to drink a tonic. Watson considered this a fair enough trade, of course. Holmes looked better already, and he seemed nearly back to his usual, alert self, even if he was still slow about his movements. Watson tried not to be obvious about how he watched Holmes add copious amounts of sugar to his third cup of tea until it could not possibly have been considered palatable by any proper Englishman. Or even an improper one, at that.
Watson let the curtain fall back into place over the sitting room window as he turned back to face Holmes. "Lestrade's here. I can still send him away."
Holmes was frowning down at the newspaper spread out on the table before him, held in place with teacups and spoons on one side, the sugar bowl and a pastry plate on the other. Only crumbs remained of the pastry, though Holmes had barely touched his eggs. It wasn't clear whether he was actually reading the paper or not. "Describe his attire."
Watson sighed. "Holmes, if you want to deduce his reason for calling, go have a look for yourself."
A grunt answered that, and Watson nodded because really, he had expected no less. He cast an extra glance back, however, as he made his way to the sitting room door, assessing Holmes' mood to the best of his ability. Holmes kept his back to the room, leaving Watson to wait while Lestrade climbed the seventeen stairs, and then to force a terse if civil greeting past his lips.
Lestrade did look rather uncomfortable, standing there amidst one man's hostility and another's complete lack of notice. "I'll just get right to it then, shall I?" He bounced on his feet in that nervous manner he had, his hands clasped behind him on the brim of his bowler hat. "We need Mister Holmes' expertise on something that came up this morning."
"Oh?" Holmes inquired archly, to all appearances still engrossed in the paper. Watson could tell that whether or not he had actually been reading it over breakfast, it was now no more than a prop. "Not afraid to be shown up by a madman, then?"
"You've always been mad," Lestrade replied. "Doesn't mean you're no good at what you do." The moment the barb came out, well-intentioned toward teasing as it had been, Lestrade grimaced and took a step back as if to distance himself from his faux pas. In the past, such a comment would have made Holmes smile in the very least, even if only with his mouth.
Now, Holmes merely narrowed his eyes and then sniffed into his paper, but Watson caught the subtle sort of huddling quality to his posture. "As you say, Inspector."
Watson shut his eyes for a moment. "Inspector, I am not really all that inclined to be cordial at the moment. Either come to your point or kindly leave us in peace."
Lestrade nodded, drew in a long breath, and then said, "I, ah…Mister Holmes, I owe you an apology for the other day. My behavior was unprofessional and I do hope that we can come to an accord on the matter because, you see, we do need you on this one."
That drew the complete focus of Holmes' attention, and from the manner in which Lestrade fidgeted, it discomfited him. His voice only a shade short of threatening, Holmes demanded, "Explain."
"We found a body this morning, washed up along the Thames." Lestrade took several pieces of paper from the document folder he had been carrying and passed them over. "Bludgeoned to death."
In a careless maneuver that only Watson knew was a put-on, Holmes took the crime scene notes and passed them unread to Watson.
"Right, then," Watson said, shuffling through to scan the pertinent parts. "The body has been in the water for several days already. It is partially decomposed and considering that state, the murder could have taken place as much as a week ago."
"Interesting, perhaps," Holmes remarked, his attention once again fixed, to all outward appearance, on his newspaper. His eyes did not move to scan the text, however, and he was tapping a spoon against his tea saucer in a maddeningly irregular rhythm. "But in the normal course of business, hardly the sort of thing that might interest me. Why are you really here, Lestrade?"
Lestrade fidgeted, a fact that did not escape Holmes' notice though he remained indifferent to the inspector's presence. "It's the beggar who witnessed to those buggers dragging you into the alley. His identification of the three is what got them put away."
Holmes' restless fingers ceased their motion.
"Will you come?"
Holmes very deliberately folded his newspaper back into its original, perfectly creased lines, and held it out until Watson took it from him, to be added to the pile already threatening to topple off the edge of the credenza in the corner behind them near the scrapbooks and event files.
Watson eyed Holmes with concern, but he faced Lestrade to ask, "You believe that this has something to do with the attack on Holmes?" He would not consider the fact that he had been within a hundred yards of the man just three days earlier - that he may have been able to save his life, or at least garner the information that ended up getting him killed. If that were the case, here – if he were killed for what he had witnessed, perhaps to something left out of his testimony. Perhaps to the presence of an additional man.
Best not to theorize in advance of the facts; Holmes would twit him over it if he caught wind of any odd notions on Watson's face.
Lestrade shook his head. "We have no idea what to think, Doctor. It's suspicious, is all, considering the circumstances and who the victim is. Look, Mister Holmes, we're keeping the scene intact for you. If you'll come…" He made a helpless gesture and looked to Watson for a cue on what to do next.
Watson cocked his head in the direction of the fireplace and Lestrade retreated far enough to give them a semblance of privacy. Once Lestrade had politely turned his back, Watson knelt down and removed the tea spoon from Holmes' frozen hand. "Talk to me. What are you thinking? This is a good thing is it not? I mean…well, a man is dead, but still. It could be proof of a deeper business, or at the very least, a distraction to give you something to do."
"Yes," Holmes murmured, his eyes that luminous, washed-out hue that they shaded toward when he was trying not to jump to a disastrous conclusion in absence of proper evidence. "Watson, I fear I may have made a grave error."
"What?" Watson set the tea spoon aside and tried – failed – to catch Holmes' eye. "What do you mean?"
Rather than answering, Holmes pushed his chair back and stood, stepping around Watson to reach the window. He shoved the curtains apart and examined the street below for several long moments. Then he very deliberately turned back and reached for his jacket, which he had draped over the back of his chair. "Come, Watson."
"Wait. Holmes?" Watson grabbed his own jacket and shot Lestrade a baffled look as they both hurried to keep up with Holmes' form disappearing down the stairs. They only barely made it out the front door before Watson noticed the beginning of a reaction of a some sort. He slipped his arm into Holmes' before his difficulty became noticeable and guided him along the sidewalk toward the waiting carriage. Sotto voce, he murmured, "Are you alright?"
"Yes," Holmes bit back. "Fine."
"You're sweating terribly all of a sudden."
"I said I am fine, Watson, just get me to the carriage."
Yes, because needing help finding a carriage door certainly qualified one as fine. Watson kept his mouth shut though because there was no point in using sarcasm on Holmes; it either irritated him into a right strop, or failed to register at all. "Right, here we are." He opened the door and waited until Holmes had climbed inside before looking about the street in hopes of seeing whatever it was that had so unnerved Holmes when he had looked down from the sitting room window.
Watson noticed nothing out of the ordinary, however; several of their neighbors were out sweeping snow from their doorways. The barber shop on the next block was open as usual, as was the druggist on the other side of the street. There was a line out the door of the telegraph office at the corner. A few hansoms clattered on by as Watson watched, wheels kicking brown slush up from the ruts they ran through. There was a closed carriage stopped two doors down from their own, the horse covered in a blanket and the driver on his bench looking bored. And of course, there were a dozen or so children running about, only half of them attended to by adults. The rest were members of Holmes' little army of loyal hangers-on. Even as Watson spotted them one after another, they waved or smiled or otherwise acknowledged his notice.
One of the older boys, at least Cartright's age if not more, stepped out from a doorway and crushed a cigarette out on the pavement. This one was to be their unofficial escort, then, Watson guessed. The young man nodded as if to confirm this and stuck his hat on his head at the jaunty angle common to Holmes' street urchins. Come to think of it, Watson had not seen Cartright in several days. Perhaps the boy had found some paying work; many people had odd jobs that needed doing around the holidays. It would do the boy good to have a steady source of income for a little while.
Watson glanced over at Holmes, who sat stiff and unmoving on the bench beside him, then across to Lestrade, who had by now joined them in the carriage. Watson ventured to ask, "Where exactly are we going?"
"The Regent's Canal Dock in Limehouse, on the Thames." Lestrade paused as if awaiting comment, then cast a surreptitious glance to his right at Holmes's silence before continuing. "The coroner's initial report conjectures that the body was washed down the river and then swept up in the wake of one of the narrowboats using the locks to enter the canal." He again looked to Holmes, this time with an uncertain cast to his features.
Watson nodded once and looked out the carriage window as the horses kicked up. He wished that Lestrade were not here so that he could press Holmes for an explanation of his odd behavior; they should have followed after Lestrade in a cab. Then again, perhaps Holmes' reticence was perfectly natural in this situation. They were, after all, skirting a delicate issue and strife over the situation had abounded for weeks now. This could not have been comfortable for Holmes to endure, and today would mark their first foray into Yard business since the assault. A bit of an adjustment period should be expected.
The carriage ride felt interminable. Holmes did not even twitch as they passed along streets and under bridges, his eyes focused yet unmoving, unseeing. Watson watched him openly, though for signs of what, he could not have said. In Watson's periphery, Lestrade fidgeted with his hat, then his gloves, trying to be inconspicuous about pointedly not looking at either of them. A knife may not even have been sharp enough to slice through the tension that hung thick in the chill air.
Watson felt a dark sort of satisfaction at seeing Lestrade so nervous in their presence, but after a while, his better nature won out. In an effort to defuse some of the awkwardness, he asked, "What exactly is it that you believe Holmes can tell you about the scene?"
Lestrade bit his lip briefly in what appeared, on the surface at least, to be relief. Then he sighed quietly and looked just as weary as a poorly rested man should. "For starters, it would be nice to know where he went into the water. We might be able to trace his steps back to his killer, if we knew where to start."
"Do you have a theory at present?"
"Not as such," Lestrade replied. He leaned his head back against the wall of the carriage, then slanted his eyes sideways to peer at Holmes. It must have seemed strange to him, being able to observe Holmes but not being observed and dissected in return, for his features turned first pensive and then troubled. "It looks like a petty theft on the surface – one beggar kills another for a bit of pocket change or a nice coat. If it weren't for the bloke having been a witness to Mister Holmes' assault, we wouldn't give it a second look. We just… I want to be sure." He looked at Watson when his words evoked no response from Holmes. "I need to be sure."
Watson did not reply, as anything he could not have done so nicely. In any case, it was probably not his place. Instead, he settled his eyes back on the side of Holmes' head in an effort to determine just how much attention Holmes was paying to the conversation. Holmes often feigned to woolgather, but he ever seemed to have an uncanny awareness of the events occurring around him.
And yet, when Watson cleared his throat and touched his fingers to the inside of Holmes' elbow, Holmes startled. Once he had swallowed back some irregularity of breath, Holmes glared at Watson and looked affronted.
At that uncharacteristic and unheard of reaction, Inspector present or no, Watson turned sideways on the bench to regard his friend. "Alright, out with it. What have we missed?"
For once, no acerbic commentary about observing and deducing for himself made its way from Holmes' lips. He simply shook his head once, looked away out the window and…diminished, somehow.
Watson glanced at Lestrade as if to detect a lead there, but Lestrade simply looked bewildered, so Watson dismissed him and pressed Holmes, "Is it because of who the victim is?" He leaned forward before he realized that he was crowding Holmes, then cleared his throat and sat back again when Holmes shifted just enough to eye him in a wary manner. "Is it the reminder? You have to talk to me, Holmes. I cannot be of any help to you if I do not know what is going on."
"It is surely nothing," Holmes murmured. "At present, I have no data with which to work. I know nothing aside from what was written in the preliminary report."
"But…you suspect something?" Watson canted his head and caught a glimpse of their Irregular escort loping along the sidewalk at an easy pace. "Holmes?"
"Have you seen Cartright lately? He was not outside our flat this morning."
For an indiscernible reason, Watson felt a chill start low in his spine. "I…no, I imagine he found some work for the season. Why?"
"No reason. I have not seen him either; I simply thought it possible that I had overlooked him."
Watson blinked a few times and then shifted to sit straight in his seat again. He glanced out of the window on his own side of the carriage, and then with a sigh, he fished his notebook from his jacket pocket and licked the end of the stylus which he always carried tucked between the pages. Let Holmes keep his secrets, if that was the way he wanted it. Lord knew, he had never been in the habit of total disclosure when a case beckoned; it was simply habit for him to hold his deductions in reserve for a grand unveiling later. Watson would not begrudge him that pleasure, if that was indeed what he hoped to gain from such deflective tactics now.
They reached the Reagent's Canal Dock half an hour later, without further incident or conversation. Once there, Holmes loitered beside the carriage while Lestrade went to speak with his men. Holmes appeared to be surveying the overall scene, but there was a tentative quality to his scrutiny that did not fit with his normal crime scene procedure. Again, Watson chalked his behavior up to the awkwardness of returning to his work amongst people who knew a very personal secret about him and could thereby make him uncomfortable by it. It would pass; of this, Watson was sure. Holmes would quickly find his stride and by his usual personality, irritate everyone around him into fits of frustration and temper. There would be no mollycoddling, no pitying looks, and no platitudes or misplaced condolences; Holmes, by his very existence, seemed to repel such sentiments from his person. Talk of that other matter would never come up.
"Right, then," Lestrade called, making his way back to them. "We have no murder weapon, but the coroner believes from the pattern and depth of the wounds that it may have been a brick, or a similarly shaped cut stone with sharp corners. It's probably still at the actual murder scene. Anything you can do to point us to it, Mister Holmes, would be appreciated."
"I assume that you have already tried his regular haunt? The corner he occupies for his trade?"
"What?" Lestrade asked, indignant. "You mean his begging post? I was there this morning, before I sent the telegram on to you. Really, Mister Holmes; I am not a complete imbecile."
Holmes' nose crinkled with a brand of distaste that was unusual for him in this context. "That remains to be seen. What did you learn this morning?"
Rather than puff up like a porcupine, which Lestrade appeared to want to do very badly, he crossed his arms and bounced on his toes to dispel his irritation. "He was seen as usual by the people living about the area, as well as by the local business owners and street folk. Normally, he stays all night to catch the blokes coming out of the pubs and such, too sauced to know how much they're dropping into his cup. That flower girl said he was approached by a young man just after midnight. The two spoke, then argued a bit, and finally walked off together. We traced them back to the beggar's doss, but they didn't stay there; another tenant witnessed them leave less than ten minutes later. And that was the last anyone saw of either of them." He paused, passing a critical eye over Holmes' silent poise. "We figure that the young man lured him off somewhere, maybe had some friends waiting, and that they did the man in once they were away from prying eyes. I don't know what he could have had, though, to make it worth the bother. According to the flower girl, he didn't have two bits to rub together, not after he paid for his board each morning, such as it was." Lestrade hesitated again, this time less discerning and more worried. "Mister Holmes?"
Holmes was busy flitting his gaze about, seemingly at random, his lips sucked in between his teeth. He responded to Watson's hand on his shoulder by giving him a weak smile, and then he set about picking his way down the embankment to where the body lay in a depression of extremely soft and sucking mud mixed with the bilge sewage kicked up and expelled by the boat engines which travelled through the lock in droves each day. Watson followed after him, fitting his feet into the prints that Holmes left behind; it did little to ease his going, and even less to protect his pant legs from the muck. He should have worn an older pair of trousers.
Once they reached the flat expanse of river silt, they could walk on planks set out by the Yard men. Watson made a vain attempt to scrape the worst of the filth from his shoes, but stopped his efforts abruptly upon noticing that Holmes had stilled just in front of him with both of his hands, balled into his shirt cuffs, pressed to his nose and mouth. His eyes were clenched shut and he appeared to be shivering just enough that Watson, trained to notice such things, saw it course through his rigid frame in a single wave.
Watson resigned himself to remaining filthy and approached Holmes slowly, lest he startle the man. "Holmes? All right, old boy?"
Holmes sucked a ragged breath in through the fabric of his shirtsleeves and blinked owlishly at the empty air before him.
Another tentative step brought Watson within arm's reach, yet he still refrained from contact. "Can you tell me what's the matter?"
Holmes began to tremble and squeezed his eyes shut again. Into his hands, his words muffled but still clear enough to understand, he replied, "The smell." It came out barely audible across the negligible space between them, small and tin-toned like water sloughed into a metal can.
The smell, like rotting refuse and sewer water, pervaded the air all about them. Filth and dead things and chemical solvents from the warehouses, mixed with the sickly sweet scent of the Thames. "Alright," Watson breathed. He glanced aside long enough to see that they were attracting curious stares, then stepped up behind Holmes and gripped him by the upper arms. "Come; we're done here."
Holmes shook his head violently and refused to be backed away.
"You cannot work like this, Holmes. We can assist from the road; they can bring the body to you up there for examination before they take it to the morgue."
"It will still smell of it if they bring it up there!" Holmes opened his eyes and Watson close enough to see both the reddened rims of his lids and the stubborn determination to have his way. "And they will surely make a mess of it in the process; I need to study him here, undisturbed." His hands lowered in a forced gesture, driven only by the obstinacy of his will, and Watson made no comment as Holmes swayed backwards for a moment before regaining his equilibrium; he simply accepted the extra weight and steadied him upright again.
"Easy," Watson murmured, his voice pitched low so that it would not carry. From his vantage point, he could just see the brightness in Holmes' eyes and spared a moment to worry for the mania that seemed to be threatening from within Holmes' mind. "Breathe through your mouth, slowly. You are perfectly safe here. It's a crime scene."
Holmes nodded, his jaw set in a grim line caused by the gritting of his teeth. They must see this through; Holmes would never consent to slink off back to Baker Street like a cowed hound. "Yes. And you…" He cut himself off – from appearances and his wince, by actually biting down on his tongue. Then he drew on some reserve other than one of strength and turned his head far enough to be able to see Watson in his periphery. "You will remain with me?" he murmured, too quietly for anyone else to hear and bear witness to what was evidently embarrassing him quite a bit; the tops of his ears had pinkened, though the rest of his face remained pale, almost pasty from the effects of his binge these past three days. "You will not wander off?"
Watson nodded and pitched his voice to the same quality. "One step behind you," he said with a wistful smile. "With my revolver in my pocket."
Holmes breathed out, long and deep, and faced the flatland again. He had smiled back, though, no matter that it had been a fleeting and uncertain thing.
If they must do this, then for mercy's sake, Watson preferred the business completed as soon as possible. "Focus on the details, Holmes. The body is just ahead of you, there. Tell me what you see. Observe for me."
Holmes inhaled several times in the manner of a fish gulping in the open air, then swallowed hard enough that his nausea was evident. "Single blow to the back of the head, from above; the murderer was at least six inches taller than the victim, and used an overhead strike with considerable force. He was likely a manual laborer, to have the strength to drive a rock so deeply into another man's skull. Also, not squeamish; accustomed to getting his hands dirty. There would have been a considerable amount of blood and tissue spatter. The murderer could not have avoided dirtying himself with it. But he was not precise, so he did not have much knowledge of anatomy; he relied on the force of the blow to do its job, rather than the placement of it."
"Good," Watson soothed. He rubbed gently up and down the outsides of Holmes' upper arms, depleting the force of the tremors that shook him. "What else?"
Holmes' body ticked once, rather sharply, and then a small amount of tension bled out from beneath Watson's hands. "Someone tried to pull him from the water before he washed up here. His trousers are blackened with silt from initially having been dragged through the shallows, as are his cuffs, hands and face, and the front of his shirt. His back and his sleeves, however, are relatively clean in comparison. Additionally, the air is chill this time of year, and he is absent a coat; even a beggar would dress in more than just shirtsleeves at the onset of November. Whoever attempted to save him must have grabbed him by his coat, which came off in the process."
"Could he not have been robbed for his coat?" Watson could remember it from the glimpse he had gotten three days ago near the Punch Bowl - a great black thing the color of soot, and perhaps covered in that very material to make it so dark.
"No." Holmes shook his head and seemed to regret it when it unsteadied him. Watson's fingers tightened momentarily, and then Holmes explained, "No, he was dumped in the river first, before he lost the coat. Otherwise, his sleeves at the very least would have been as dirtied by the mud as the rest of him. You can see the clear line above his cuffs, which denotes the length of a coat sleeve, which incidentally was not long enough for his frame. His shirt is wet but comparatively clean above it."
"And the silt," Watson prompted when Holmes fell silent and his respirations began to turn shallow. "Where did he acquire the silt?"
"Some…somewhere upstream, not the site of the bludgeoning. He would have been dragged through it to the river, across a shallows most likely, and dumped; whoever attempted the rescue would not likely have done so from a shallows, as that would have dragged at least parts of the body through a second subset of mud and particulate waste. It is more probable that the attempt was made from an embankment wall, where the water would have been too deep to allow the person to enter the river in order to obtain a firm grip on the body. He snagged at it, you see – at the coat."
"Which came off, leaving the body to float out of reach." Watson nodded, his fingers kneading now at Holmes' biceps. "And the silt, Holmes. Where did it originate?"
Holmes inhaled sharply, his muscles jerking in a myoclonic twitch. "The only embankment site which is graced by currents strong enough to pull a body from its clothing is that which runs along High Street at the Black Eagle Wharf."
"Good," Watson encouraged, but he was frowning over this obsession with the rescue attempt, as opposed to the murder site. "But the silt, old boy. Where is it from? We need to know where he was originally dumped."
Holmes remained in place, staring blankly into the scene and just to the left of the body. "I think…Hermitage. There is rock particulate crusted in with the mud on his clothing – granite, I believe, from the workhouse there." He swallowed, and in the midst of it, blinked in an exaggerated fashion. His nostrils flared and Watson watched the bob of his adam's apple, a thing not connected to the effort at swallowing, but to the rise of bile. "John, get me out of here. Now."
The use of his Christian name galvanized Watson into action before his thoughts could intrude and complicate matters. He twisted around the pivot of Holmes' body, switching his and Holmes' places so that he could better maneuver Holmes away from the stench of the scene, as well as be in a position to catch him up under the arms in the event that his steps faltered. It seemed as if everyone had an idea of what was going on, but all they did was step out of Watson's way so that he and Holmes could pass as quickly as possible. In fact, the deliberate lack of notice was disconcerting.
They made it back to the carriage without incident, and Watson stood guard like an old bull dog with his cane at the ready while Holmes bent over with his hands on his knees, gulping at the fresh air in an effort to eradicate the roiling of his stomach. He was, thankfully, not sick, but it was a near thing, and when Holmes finally straightened, he nearly fainted from the displacement of blood. Watson had to seize him by the elbow and take his weight long enough for his vision to unblacken and his legs to hold him properly.
Lestrade only appeared after Holmes had perched himself on a carriage wheel and Watson had released his arm in order to extract his cigarette case from the inner breast pocket of his greatcoat. He waited through Watson's lighting of two fags, declined the offer of a third, and then watched with an odd expression on his face as Watson passed one of the burning cigarettes to Holmes, a steady hand to one which seemed nerveless in its fumbling. "All right there, Mister Holmes?"
"We must go to the Black Eagle Wharf at once." Rather than raising the cigarette to his lips, Holmes bent himself down toward his hand and inhaled with something like desperation to feel the minor rush of burning tobacco.
The lift of Lestrade's eyebrows matched Watson's own. "But Mister Holmes, you said the murder actually occurred at Hermitage."
Watson nodded his agreement and exchanged a puzzled look with Lestrade. "Unless," Watson ventured, "you expect to find the would-be rescuer at the wharf? Do you think it possible that he saw something of the crime?"
"Or," Lestrade put in, "are we looking for his coat? There could be evidence on that, I reckon."
Holmes responded to neither of them, but squinched his eyes shut in something like pained intolerance, rubbing his thumb knuckle between his eyes with the hand holding the cigarette. "I am looking for a second body."
Lestrade made a wordless exclamation, but Watson remained completely still up until the moment he accused, "You knew from the start that there should be two bodies. That was what had you so bothered at Baker Street." Watson ghosted his tongue along the inner rim of his teeth and stole a glance at Lestrade, who appeared both taken aback and annoyed by Holmes' pronouncement. "Inspector, I believe we should go at once."
Lestrade balked, and then he narrowed his eyes at Watson as if he could ever have deduced Watson's thoughts the way that Holmes could. "Alright, but I'm sending the boys ahead to Hermitage to secure any scene they can find there."
"Fine," Holmes snapped. He whirled about to all but attack the carriage door in the process of entering it. "Whatever you think is best, Inspector, as we all know there is nothing I can say to convince you to do otherwise." By his tone, he made Lestrade's title an invective, and it struck home in the tightening of Lestrade's features. Apparently satisfied to have wrought that reaction, Holmes turned away and clambered into the carriage, slamming the door shut behind him savagely enough to startle the horses with the vibration of it.
Watson blinked at the carriage, then tried to act as if he weren't both bewildered and irrationally sick at the thought of what they might find at the wharf. Something bad enough to send Holmes' theorizations flying in six separate directions, data present or not. What could he have seen in the evidence, the coroner's report, Lestrade's summary, to affect him thus?
Lestrade cleared his throat and met Watson's answering glance with a modicum of awkwardness. "Shall I follow separately, then?" His manner was frank, even in the way it obviously saddened him to abruptly find himself thrust outside of that sphere that marked what passed for friendly acquaintanceship in the strange world of Sherlock Holmes.
Rather than respond, Watson averted his gaze and sighed his hand where it curled over the head of his cane. "Inspector, I'm sure you understand that this is…Holmes is simply…" Watson trailed off while his mind groped after and discarded a number of descriptive phrases. Finally, he settled for, "It is difficult for him."
"Yes," Lestrade agreed without reservation. He pursed his lips in discomfort then, and made a nonspecific gesture with one hand, perhaps to give expression to the awkward atmosphere. Barely audible, Lestrade finally confessed, "I know what his mind means to him; his reason is both a terrible and a beautiful thing. It's frightening at times, the way he sees the world. I never intended to make him doubt himself."
"Others got to that goal before you," Watson countered, unable to stop himself. "You've no idea what sorts of things he has taken to questioning lately."
"Just the same," Lestrade pressed. "Look, I like Mister Holmes. He is impossible and completely beyond my reckoning, but he's not a bad man. Just the opposite, really." He shook his head then, seemingly at a loss for how to handle the current situation. "But this…" Again, he shook his head, but he ended the motion this time with his eyes on Watson's. "I don't even know what to think anymore. This business should be over and done with. The case file's been closed, the men responsible are on their way to Bedford…" He flung an open hand in the direction of the river. "What am I supposed to make of this, Doctor?"
Consider that you may have made a mistake, was the first response that came to mind. Lestrade seemed to be considering that already, however; Watson's stating it aloud would not help matters. "Perhaps," Watson suggested quietly, "we should simply make the journey to Black Eagle Wharf and leave the analysis for later. It could be nothing, after all. A coincidence – one unfortunate killing another for the sake of a warmer coat on a cold night."
Lestrade nodded as if in agreement, but what he said, too low to carry farther than the two of them, was, "I don't think either of us believe that any more than Mister Holmes seems to. There is some bad business going on here. Truth be told, I'm starting to think that it's been going on all along – that Mister Holmes was right, god help me."
"There will be time for that later," Watson told him, indicating the cab, and by extension, the thin trail of cigarette smoke creeping out through the curtain covering the open window. What he really wanted to do was punch the man for saying such a thing only after sending Holmes into a fit with assertions of the opposite. Then again, even Holmes had said that were he an outside observer, he would have doubted his testimony as to the number of assailants. It was a sobering thought, that even Holmes could find no certainty in this business. And Watson was not yet prepared to confront the ramifications of that, no matter what the truth of things came out to be in the end.
To all appearances, Holmes dozed during the ride to Black Eagle Wharf, but Watson knew him too well to be fooled by it. When Holmes napped, he did so bonelessly, sprawled out over every surface within reach of his gangly limbs. He could never have maintained the rigidity necessary to stay upright in his seat if he were truly asleep. Watson suspected that his recent association with his beloved needle could be blamed for his current state, eyes closed, respirations shallow and slow. He could not have been feeling well at this point, not starved for the drug as his body must surely have been by then. From the tremors displayed earlier and the current pallid cast to his complexion, Watson estimated that his last injection had taken place sometime the night before. Granted, some of his difficulty could be attributed to emotional or nervous reactions, but not all of it; Holmes was not usually, by nature, an hysterical sort, for all that the recent months had been trying for him.
Watson also suspected that Holmes had only sobered this morning because his supply of cocaine had finally run out. Watson's insistence on rising and seeing to the normal morning pursuits of a gentlemen were coincidental to that. And at some point the previous night, Holmes had clearly injected too potent a solution to have left him nonsensical on the floor long enough for Watson to find him like that. At this moment, however, that was not at issue, and Watson would wait to address it.
They arrived in due course at Black Eagle Wharf, and after a sort of flighty scurrying about by the waterline, Holmes subsided into brooding silence. Indeed, he seemed to lose interest in the proceedings entirely, except that Watson could veritably feel him thinking. Lestrade was understandably annoyed by this behavior, though he also betrayed a bit of concern by repeated glances over his shoulder to see if Holmes had moved from beside the carriage where he had at last taken up a still pose with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He looked odd, standing there like that without a cigarette held idly in one hand. Eventually, Watson strode over to offer him one, but Holmes waved him off and went to stalk about the fronts of the buildings facing the wharf.
Finally, Lestrade heaved a great, exasperated sigh and came to stand next to Watson beside a pylon coiled with rope used for the temporary mooring of barges. "Why are we here, Doctor Watson? If I am not mistaken, not even Mister Holmes has found anything noteworthy since we arrived."
Watson only made it halfway through a shrug before Holmes abruptly left off his skulking and bounded over to them. "Is there a constable assigned to this area? Or some other form of patrol?"
"Well, yes," Lestrade replied, puzzled. "Of course there is; surely you know that."
"Yes, yes." Holmes waved a hand about as if to dispel Lestrade altogether. "We must speak to him to see if anything out of the ordinary has occurred nearby within the past week. Can that be arranged?"
Lestrade shifted to a more belligerent stance. "Now see here, Mister Holmes. This is our investigation. I am not giving you leave to interrogate my officers unless you tell me what you're on about."
Holmes made a face at the gently moving water and tugged his cuffs down to cover his wrists, even though they gaped about the hinge of his thumb in the absence of cufflinks; he persisted in refusing to wear them. Under his breath, he gave an irate mutter of, "Obvious. Obvious – it is so stupefyingly obvious." Then to Lestrade in a normal tone, though his eyes shifted to his hands and not to the object of his conversation, Holmes spat, "This crime is nearly a week old. Why is it so difficult for you to deduce that if we wish to know of any extraordinary happenings in this area on the night of the murder, then we should speak to the constable or constables who patrolled the wharf during the time in question – what is wrong with you?"
Holmes' whole body shook on that last bit with the force of his irritation, distracted though he appeared to be. His mannerisms could often seem erratic in that to outward appearance, his attention commonly wandered and flittered about as he spoke. Watson had learned to see through such inconstancies, but this mood... Watson did not immediately recognize it. Holmes was not distracted. It took Watson several seconds to place part of his expression as an amorphous sort of fear, and longer still to identify the remainder as guilt.
Holmes so rarely appeared to feel guilt that it came as a bit of a shock to Watson to see it now. In fact, aside from the expression briefly apparent on his face after Watson had roused from his faint at Holmes' return from the dead - and there had been more mere apology than remorse in that one - the only other occasion upon which Watson had seen a variant of this expression was at the death of Mister Hilton Cubitt, for which Holmes partially blamed his own slow-wittedness. But in the present instance, Holmes had committed no error that Watson could perceive, either real or imagined; why, then, should he look so afraid to learn further details of this matter?
Watson glanced at Lestrade in time to motion him to silence just as he was about to retort, and then grasped Holmes by an elbow to better steer him to a private corner near the irregular join of two abutting warehouses. "Holmes, what on earth is going on? You have to tell me, old cock; your deteriorating mood is beginning to worry me. If this is because of the attention that will be drawn back to you concerning the attack, then rest assured that you will be shielded from it. I will not allow aspersions to be cast on your character for something that was beyond your control."
"Watson, if ever I am tempted to laud your increase in mental faculties, remind of this moment so that I may be cured of the impulse."
"Oh, sod off, Holmes." Though in truth, the insult stung. "Why are you so insistent on this avenue of investigation? Facts or no, I can see that you suspect something awful, and it is affecting your judgment. Now, have it out before I call Norbury."
Holmes started to reply – an unkind one, to go by the flash of an ugly expression that crossed his face. It turned instead into an abrupt sigh, and Holmes' countenance closed off along with the shutting of his eyes. "Do not make me say it, Watson. If there was no incident here, if nothing more untoward than a beggar's murder occurred, then I am merely being foolish and we can leave it at that."
Watson could not help making an impertinent reply. "And if you are not proven a fool?" There was no reply, save Holmes opening his eyes and giving Watson such a hopeless look that Watson leaned away in a burst of prescience. Finally, Watson sighed and tried to imbue the sound with his usual sufferance. "Alright. I'll convince Lestrade of the necessity of this. You wait here; any nearer and I fear you may put him off again."
A weak smile graced Holmes features; it was a short-lived thing.
In the end, it took no persuasion whatsoever; while Holmes and Watson had all but argued in the background, Lestrade had sent the carriage driver off to find the constable currently in charge of this route. Even if the man on duty had not witnessed an incident on the wharf, he would be aware of any reports made by the other officers who walked this patrol.
Holmes did not pace while they waited, which in itself was enough for not only Watson, but also Lestrade to notice. Normally, when in pursuit of a clue, Holmes could not be stilled to save his life; he fairly vibrated with the excitement of it, to the point where one might find his glee obscene. All he did now, however, was sit against the steps leading to the water and stare into space. His expression made it clear that he was not mulling over the facts of this matter; his mind had wandered clear away, and he had not seen fit to call it back.
The constable arrived after a short delay, waylaid by an attempted pick-pocketing against his own person. The nervy little bugger responsible for the transgression had run off and disappeared after scaling an alley wall – a child, so the constable had explained. The constable did not appear upset by the attempt, only saddened at the plight of such a young lad. Watson tossed a glance in Holmes' direction, as such unfortunate children had so often come into his employ for legitimate if odd jobs, but Holmes had not yet risen from the steps, and had his back to the rest of them.
Watson cleared his throat. "Right, then. Inspector?" he prompted, deferring to Lestrade.
"Yes." Lestrade faced the constable. "Now, then. A few days ago, no more than a week, there may have been an odd happening at this wharf. Do you recall anything?"
The constable's brow knitted. "Odd in what way, sir? There's always crime in these parts."
Lestrade looked to Holmes for guidance, but although Holmes had finally deigned to join them, he may as well not have bothered for all the attention he seemed to be paying them. "Um." Lestrade shook himself and addressed the constable again, his stance drawing straight as if he had, for a moment, set aside his mantle as Detective Inspector and needed to reclaim it. "We're not entirely certain. There may have been someone trying to fish something out of the water. A coat, maybe."
"Nothing like that, sir," the constable replied. "And begging your pardon, but that's not likely something that would make notice. It's not a crime to fish off the docks here, though I can't imagine anyone who'd want to eat what might be swimming in there."
Lestrade grit his teeth for a moment, eyes widened skyward with his hands clamped in irritation behind his back. "What did make notice, then, eh? Come on, lad, out with it!"
The constable snapped to attention as if he had been slapped. "There was just the usual, Inspector. Muggings, a couple of rough-ups. Vandalized buildings and the like, sir. There was one bloke, stabbed for the silver of his cigarette case, but there wasn't anything off about it."
"Here," Holmes interjected without warning. He held out his notebook for the constable to look at. On a blank page, he had rendered a rather passable pencil sketch of a familiar youthful, solemn face. "Was this the stabbing victim?"
"Oh, god," Watson exclaimed, quite without meaning to. His gaze shot to Holmes' profile, the man himself distant in affect though he stood close enough for Watson to feel the aura of heat that ever surrounds living tissue.
"Why, yes, sir." The constable glanced amongst the three of them, uncertain and made wary by it. "That's the lad. I was on watch myself when it happened. Felt bad for the poor boy; he couldn't yet have passed his twentieth year."
Watson closed his eyes, both hands cupped over his nose and mouth as he shook his head in denial.
Holmes evidently tore the crude likeness from his notebook, to judge by the sound of ripping paper. "Our young Mister Cartright, Inspector. You met him, if you will recall, upon one of my visits to the Yard."
"This…" Lestrade began, and then made a wordless sound, perhaps of surprise. "Constable, tell us the whole of the matter, if you please."
"There wasn't much to it, sir," the constable replied. Watson opened his eyes in time to catch the apologetic look which he directed at the top of Holmes' bowed head. "I heard some yelling, and came upon two roughs going after the lad. It looked like the boy tried to escape them by going into the water, for when I first caught sight of them, they were dragging him away from the edge and his whole front was wet."
Watson inhaled hard through his nose and had to look away, which brought his eyesight in line with the edge of the wharf and the water beyond. That was no better.
Holmes roused himself from whatever depth of contemplation he had occasioned into, and prompted, "Pray continue, constable." His voice had the quality of gravel ground beneath a horse's hoof.
"Yes, sir. They were trying to get at his hands, sir – I imagine to the silver case – but the boy wouldn't let go of it. They were relentless, too; even after I arrived, they wouldn't leave off. I got myself a good pop too for my troubles." The constable pointed to the faded remnants of a black eye, and then shifted in discomfort. "Not that I wouldn't gladly have taken more if it could have saved the boy."
"Quite right," Watson offered faintly. He reached out by instinct to grasp Holmes' arm, then was glad that he had done so when Holmes swayed in his direction just enough to make his mental state clear.
"Anyway," the constable went on. "I managed to run those blackguards off, but not before they'd done the boy in. He died in my arms, sir, gasping for his breath. The coroner said it was a rib, driven straight through his lung." He paused and shrugged, a helpless motion tinged with sympathy and the bewilderment of one who does not truly understand the nature and pervasiveness of evil deeds. "If he'd have just let it go... That bit of silver wasn't worth his life."
Holmes nodded, still intent on his study of the cobblestones at his feet. "Did he say anything?"
"I remember it clear as day, sir. He apologized."
Watson looked up, blinking in a desperate effort to contain his grief. "Apologized? For what?"
The constable bit his lip and looked down, respectful and solemn. "For getting himself hurt. I don't rightly believe he knew who was with him at the end, there."
Holmes stiffened and sputtered, "Oh, for pity's sake," on a single ragged burst of air as he flung Watson's hand off and strode away in a furious temper. He got as far as the nearest warehouse and came to an abrupt halt, facing the crumbling brickwork of its outer wall, one hand shoved deep in his pocket and the other arm raised with the notebook in his hand as if shielding himself from an overhead blow. Just as unexpectedly, he came storming back a moment later, pointing at the constable with his notebook though he seemed unwilling to look directly at the man. "You said he was beaten for the sake of a silver case. A cigarette case, you said. Did the roughs make off with it?"
The constable shook his head, stepping back out of range of Holmes' wagging arm as he did so. "No, sir. He held it fast to the last. We couldn't even pry his fingers from it after he'd expired. I imagine it's in evidence now, awaiting a claim on the body. If you wanted to have a look at it, sir."
"Yes, I do indeed wish to have a look at it. Lestrade, you will arrange it."
It was not an unusual request, that Holmes be allowed to examine objects held in evidence, but Holmes usually displayed at least a modicum of civility in requesting access; he had never, to Watson's recollection, issued such an imperious demand of a Yard inspector before. Lestrade bristled accordingly. "Now see here, Mister Holmes."
That was as far as he got. Holmes had been walking away toward the carriage but now whirled back and if Watson had not already been standing between them, Holmes would have actually laid hands on Lestrade. "That boy is dead because he was doing your job, Detective Inspector!"
The use of Lestrade's full title was meant as a mockery, but Lestrade did not rise to the bait; rather, he paled and looked as if he were suppressing an urge to cower. Watson gave him credit for standing his ground; Holmes could be downright fearsome in a temper.
"You can at least," Holmes continued, his tone barely short of an outright shout, "permit me to examine the cause of his murder. And if that is not acceptable to you, rest assured that I will gain access without your leave. You have not the means to stop me!"
Lestrade remained still for several seconds in the wake of this verbal attack, not watching as Holmes stalked out of range for a second time and all but flung himself into the carriage. Once Holmes was no longer visible, and presumably out of earshot, Lestrade looked up and met Watson's eyes, expectant and brimming with disapproval, yet reserved in his judgment.
Watson tried to convey some sort of nonverbal apology for his friend's behavior, but a shrug was hardly adequate to the task.
"I will only excuse him so far," Lestrade warned lowly. "He has his methods, and for the most part, I can overlook the small crimes he commits in the name of the greater good. But if I discover that he has forced his way into an evidence locker… I will not shield him from that. It would mean my career if I did."
Watson knew very well that such a thing would never be sufficient to stop Holmes from a set path. "Then I suggest, Inspector, that you grant him access to the body and the evidence in this case. That boy was very dear to him, though he will never admit as much. He won't be deterred by any threat either of us could offer."
"I have no intention of barring him from this investigation," Lestrade countered. "I'm just making the boundaries clear."
Watson nodded. "As you must, Inspector."
This clearly was not the kind of response that Lestrade had been after, as he pursed his lips and gave a faint sigh through his nose. "Let's get this over with, then."
~TBC~