Footsteps, distant sounds of scurrying feet and boxes being shifted. They were hurrying. Why?
"He doesn't look too good, does 'e?" His primary jailor, the one he had almost – had been so close! – lured near enough two days ago. "Think I hit 'im too hard yesterday?"
"Meh, at this point nobody cares," the other returned – an unfamiliar voice, but the gang had several members he knew nothing about.
Two of them. That made the odds about even, then.
"Just give the stuff to 'im. Boss said to hurry it up. He thinks Holmes got wise to the lad we dumped in the river; the man's been out of 'is flat all morning and nobody knows where 'e went."
Holmes? A man in the river?
Wait. They were going to drug him.
He slitted one eye open just in time to see a syringe coming at his neck. Unable to form a more strategic plan, he gritted his teeth against the pain and jerked his knees up and around, straight into the man's stomach; then kicked more out of blind instinct than real aim. The syringe clattered to the floor accompanied by a satisfying howl of pain as the man doubled over, clutching his stomach.
He peripherally saw the other man's upraised gun-butt, but not in time to block the falling blow.