VI
There was a certain uncomfortable smell that permeated the stagnant air above the Thames. Sherlock Holmes lifted his hand to his nose and left it to linger there, its permanent scent of dry ink mingling with the familiar, putrid odors of fish and people. He had never before felt so bourgeois as in this swarm of dour-faced fishmongers and sailors, loose women, and dirty children playing with one another underfoot. Alarmed by the stark, Dickensonian realities of London, he squinted his eyes through the crowd and occupied himself with the identification of the curiously triangular gaps that consistently appeared among the members of the unwitting crowd. Between bodies and necks, elbows akimbo, the ever-morphing angles between two feet and two legs over the cobblestone streets…These things drew his attention, and he obsessed over the inexplicable prevalence of that particular shape in all of nature. What possible secret could the triangle guard? Those three sides and three angles binding up a comprehensive understanding of nature and reality—how could one solve such an abstract puzzle?
Watson, walking by his side, appeared equally burdened with thought. His forehead had resumed the bizarre corrugated texture of the previous afternoon; in fact, it seemed ever more likely that his expression of intense concentration was destined to become permanent. They had packed their things earlier that morning and had scheduled to meet with the coach at the ninth carrel of the port, not far from the boarding house where the contracted crew was awaiting their arrival. Watson cleared his throat abruptly and shook his head as if to rouse himself from an unwelcome distraction.
"Cheer up," said Holmes.
"This is so foolish. We could die."
"It's an adventure."
"You're mad…You really are mad, Holmes. How can you think this expedition has anything to do with your mystery? Do you realize we're going to the other half of the world, Holmes? These murders—they've all occurred in London."
"I've already told you," he said. "I'm accompanying you because I owe it to you. I have a conscience, Watson. It aches for you."
"You're lying," said Watson. He shook his head again, his bloodshot eyes rimmed with swollen pink skin for lack of sleep or worse. It was dreadful to look at him. "The truth is that you've truly lost your mind."
"And if I have lost my mind," said Sherlock pleasantly, "how strange that you're the one who looks it! I'm a lucky lunatic indeed to have a friend who'll absorb the ghastly physical consequences of my misadventures. I ought to lock you in my attic and exploit this paranormal coincidence—"
A pale, foppish-looking Irishman with long dark hair paused and squinted at them. He lifted a small notebook from the inside pocket of his morning coat and began to scribble furiously.
"Did you see that man?"
"Strange," said Watson. He tugged at his cravat and began to walk even faster than before.
When they arrived at the ninth carrel, they were greeted by an aristocratic gentleman seated over a modest black chest. He held a cane in his hand and wore a top hat. The buttons of his coat had recently been polished, and his shoes also gleamed in the faint sunlight of the early morning. His manner of dressing was incredibly antiquated, but the combination of his aged, patrician features and his admirable bearing allowed him an incomparable air of distinction. He rose to shake Watson's hand and waited with a defunct sense of propriety to be introduced to Holmes.
The change in Watson's countenance was fantastic. His face relaxed and the pinched ridges on his forehead vanished entirely apart from the faint lines that only hinted at their former stark pronunciation. He smiled, allowing for the rare exposure of his gleaming white teeth, and Holmes was startled by the sincerity of the expression (certainly he'd never managed to provoke Watson's elusive smiles; he'd forgotten he'd had teeth at all). The red, bulging eyes relaxed noticeably and in fact had never seemed bluer than when circled by so much pink. Holmes glanced from Watson to the old man and struggled to identify the favorable variables at work in their pairing.
"Holmes," said Watson, "this is Mr. Francis Euler—the only other investor, besides myself, with any interest in this spectacular voyage—"
"Is not Mr. Holmes himself an investor in zhis—vhat you say?—spectacular voyage?" interrupted Mr. Euler, betraying at once that he had not yet achieved much of an acquaintanceship with the peculiar cadences of the English language. He was almost certainly German.
"Well, nominally yes," said Watson. He continued hurriedly, "Mr. Euler is an intriguing character, and like you, he feels an obligation to participate first-hand in the recovery of the lost cargo of The Landlord's Daughter."
"Vhat delightful euphemisms!" laughed Euler, tapping his cane against the street in time with the hiccough-like convulsions of his diaphragm. "Zee English—you are notoriously duplicitous users of language, aren't you all? Zee vord Mr. Vatson is circumventing, Mr. Holmes, is 'exzentrisch'. I'm an excentrisch old man vit a tardy desire to see zee vorld and travel zee sea!"
"Commendable," said Holmes distractedly. He felt no genuine interest in this strange old man, though it was certain that he must have a great deal of money invested in the voyage. There was no other explanation for Watson's gratuitous courtesy.
"Zis crew?" asked Euler. "Vhen can vee anticipate zeir arrival?"
Watson's colorful effusions quickly lost Holmes' attention. He began once again to examine the gaps between bodies, following lines and identifying angles. Every moment, the tessellating shapes changed their particular configuration, and he continued to identify the ever evolving patterns. At last his eyes settled over the sharp triangles framing a narrow, corseted waist. There was a remarkable symmetry to the space surrounding such a feminine body, and he followed the lines from the waist to the hem of the dress. With every footstep, pointed little shoes darted out over the cobblestones and then disappeared again beneath the hem. He studied the changing lines, each angle a novel one, until suddenly he realized that the body was approaching him. More compelling even than the space surrounding it was the space that it occupied; he glanced up from her waist and saw at once that she was a beautiful girl, perhaps eighteen years old, with bright eyes and a hesitant smile playing at the corners of her lips.
"Gentleman," declared Euler, tapping his cane again over the street. "Allow me to introduce to you my daughter, Hypatia."
At last the riddle of Watson's absurd behavior had resolved itself. The young woman seated herself beside her father and nodded politely at her new acquaintances. She took Euler's hand in her own with a dutiful smile, and repeated—in excellent English—his question regarding the missing crew.
Watson, flushed, recalled the explanation he had just delivered; but he had no sooner begun to speak than they were joined by a man who, much more than Euler, could be described only as eccentric. His skin was so dark that there was no supposing his race or origins, though there was something decisively angloid about his aquiline features; and his hair, which was short, appeared to have been cut with blunt sheep shears. The skin at the back of his neck was smooth and white, and Holmes deduced that he had only recently cropped his hair, which had hitherto protected the only recognizably English feature of his swarthy complexion.
"Mr. Sparrow!" exclaimed Watson. "Mr. Euler, Mr. Holmes, this is Captain John Sparrow. He'll be directing this salvaging expedition. He's come highly recommended to us, and I assure each of you that we're in very good hands."
Sparrow, smiling, nodded. His eyes conveyed a singular blankness, and Holmes was disturbed by their misty, vague quality. They gave no impression of intelligence; but likewise, no inkling of duplicity. He had never seem such a queer, misplaced person, and he was further disturbed by the inordinate attention Sparrow's soulless eyes appeared to direct toward Euler. It would have suggested some manner of conspiracy were it not for the irreconcilability of the two figures, though he soon realized that it was probably the young Hypatia whom Sparrow was admiring, not her father.
Sparrow's manner of speaking was vulgar and harsh. But for his sophisticated diction, there would have been no profit listening to him. As it was, the irony was not lost on Holmes, and he quite liked the eccentric sailor who directed them toward the modest steamboat that would bear them to Bermuda.
Without much difficulty, they boarded the Abuelo and settled themselves in the guests' quarters above deck. Holmes shuffled from one end of the boat to the other, his spine bowed forward with the weight of his thoughts. There could be no way that Watson was right. He was not mistaken. The bizarre happenstances at Bermuda were confined to a very specific shape, and that shape was a triangle. Pythagoras was pointing him there. There could be no mistaking it. And even if he were wrong—even if he were mad—what else could he do? There was no other way. To wait in London would be to invite the climactic massacre to commence. But what Pythagoras wanted was not to terrify the English people with the threat of random murders and general pandemonium. There had never been a more precise killer in history, and his intention was as clear as the cursive letters Holmes has spelled out with his graphs: S.H.
Wherever Holmes went—whatever he did—Pythagoras would meet him. That was quite simply the game, and Holmes was obliged to comply with its mysterious rules.