The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by edited by John Joseph Adams

  Jones shook his head and slumped back in the armchair. He looked defeated already, I thought. I wondered what the truth would do to him. And yet I had to bear it myself, so I thought it only right to share. To tell. Holmes, my old friend . . . I thought fondly, and then I told Jones what I had seen.

  He did not talk for several minutes. The shock on his face hid his thoughts. He stared into the fire as if seeking some alternate truth in there, but my words hung heavy, and my demeanour must have been proof enough to him that I did not lie.

  "The different descriptions . . . " he said quietly, but I could sense that he had already worked that out.

  "Disguises. Holmes is a master."

  "Should I hunt Holmes? Seek him through the London he knows so well?"

  "I do not see how," I said, because truly I thought ourselves totally out of control. Holmes would play whatever game he chose until its closure, and the resolution would be of his choosing. "He knows every street, every alley, shop to shop and door to door. In many cases he knows of who lives where, where they work and who they associate with. He can walk along a street and tell me stories of every house if he so chooses. He carries his card index in his brain, as well as boxed away at Baker Street. His mind . . . you know his mind, Mr Jones. It is endless."

  "And you're sure, Dr Watson. Your illness has not blinded you, you haven't had hallucinations—"

  "I am merely sick to the soul with what I have witnessed," I said. "I was fit and well yesterday evening."

  "Then I must search him out," Jones said, but the desperation, the hopelessness in his voice told me that he had already given up. He stared into the fire some more and then stood, brushed himself down, a man of business again.

  "I wish you luck," I said.

  "Can you help?" Jones asked. "You know him better than anyone. You're his best friend. Have you any ideas, any reasoning as to why he would be doing these crimes, where he'll strike next?"

  "None," I said. "It is madness, for sure." I wanted Jones gone then, out of my house and into the night. Here was the man who would hunt my friend, stalk him in the dark, send his men out armed and ready to shoot to kill if needs must. And whatever I had seen Holmes doing . . . that memory, horrible . . . I could not entertain the idea of his death.

  Jones left and I jumped to my feet. He was right. I knew Holmes better than anyone, and after many years accompanying him as he had solved the most baffling of cases, I would hope that some of his intuition had rubbed off on me.

  It was almost dark, red twilight kissing my window like diluted blood, and if tonight was to be like last night then my old friend was already stalking his first victim.

  I would go to Baker Street. Perhaps there I would find evidence of this madness, and maybe even something that could bring hope of a cure.

  The streets were very different that night.

  There were fewer strollers, for a start. Many people had heard of the previous night's murders and chosen to stay at home. It was raining too, a fine mist that settled on one's clothes and soaked them instantly. Street lamps provided oases of half-light in the dark and it was these I aimed for, darting as quickly as I could between them. Even then, passing beneath the lights and seeing my shadow change direction, I felt more vulnerable than ever. I could not see beyond the lamps' meagre influence and it lit me up for anyone to see, any stranger lurking in the night, any friend with a knife.

  I could have found my way to Baker Street in the dark. I walked quickly and surely, listening out for any hint of pursuit. I tried to see into the shadows but they retained their secrets well.

  Everything felt changed. It was not only my new-found fear of the dark, but the perception that nothing, nothing is ever exactly as it seems. Holmes had always known that truth is in the detail, but could even he have ever guessed at the destructive parts in him, the corrupt stew of experience and knowledge and exhaustion that had led to this madness? It was a crueller London I walked through that night. Right and wrong had merged and blurred in my mind, for as sure as I was that what Holmes had done was wrong, it could never be right to hunt and kill him for it.

  I had my revolver in my pocket, but I prayed with every step that I would not be forced to use it.

  Shadows jumped from alleys and skirted around rooftops, but it was my imagination twisting the twilight. By the time I reached Baker Street it was fully dark, the moon a pale ghost behind London's smog.

  I stood outside for a while, staring up at Holmes's window. There was no light there, of course, and no signs of habitation, but still I waited for a few minutes, safe in the refuge of memory. He would surely never attack here, not in the shadow of his long-time home. No, I feared that he had gone to ground, hidden himself away in some unknown, unknowable corner of London, or perhaps even taken his madness elsewhere in the country.

  There was a sound behind me and I spun around, fumbling in my pocket for my revolver. It had been a shallow pop, as of someone opening their mouth in preparation to speak. I held my breath and aimed the revolver from my waist. There was nothing. The silence, the darkness felt loaded, brimming with secrets and something more terrible . . . something . . .

  "Holmes," I said. But he would not be there, he was not foolish, not so stupid to return here when he was wanted for some of the most terrible murders—

  "My friend."

  I started, tried to gauge where the voice had come from. I tightened my grip on the pistol and swung it slowly left and right, ready to shoot should anything move. I was panicked, terrified beyond belief. My stomach knotted and cramped with the idea of a knife parting its skin and delving deeper.

  "Is that you Holmes?"

  More silence for a while, so that I began to think I was hearing things. It grew darker for a moment as if something had passed in front of the moon; I even glanced up, but there was nothing in the sky and the moon was its usual wan self.

  "You feel it too!" the voice said.

  "Holmes, please show yourself."

  "Go to my rooms. Mrs Hudson hasn't heard of things yet, she will let you in and I will find my own way up there."

  He did not sound mad. He sounded different, true, but not mad.

  "Holmes, you have to know—"

  "I am aware of what you saw, Watson, and you would do well to keep your revolver drawn and aimed ahead of you. Go to my rooms, back into a corner, hold your gun. For your sanity, your peace of mind, it has to remain between us for a time."

  "I saw . . . Holmes, I saw . . . "

  "My rooms."

  And then he was gone. I did not hear him leave, caught sight of nothing moving away in the dark, but I knew that my old friend had departed. I wished for a torch to track him, but Holmes would have evaded the light. And in that thought I found my continuing belief in Holmes's abilities, his genius, his disregard for the normal levels of reasoning and measures of intelligence.

  The madness he still had, but . . . I could not help but trust him.

  From the distance, far, far away, I heard what may have been a scream. There were foxes in London, and thousands of wild dogs, and some said that wolves still roamed the forgotten byways of this sprawling city. But it had sounded like a human cry.

  He could not possibly have run that far in such short a time.

  Could he?

  Mrs Hudson greeted me and was kind enough to ignore my preoccupation as I climbed the stairs to Holmes's rooms.

  There was another scream in the night before Holmes appeared.

  I had opened the window and was standing there in the dark, looking out over London and listening to the sounds. The city was so much quieter during the night, which ironically made every sound that much louder. The barking of a dog swept across the neighbourhood, the crashing of a door echoed from walls and back again. The scream . . . this time it was human, I could have no doubt of that, and although even further away than the one I had heard earlier I could still make out its agony. It was followed seconds later by another cry, this one cut short. There was nothing
else.

  Go to my rooms, back into a corner, hold your gun, Holmes had said. I remained by the window. Here was escape, at least, if I needed it. I would probably break my neck in the fall, but at least I was giving myself a chance.

  I've come to his rooms! I thought. Fly to a spider. Chicken to a fox's den. But even though his voice had been very different from usual—more strained—I could not believe that the Holmes who had spoken to me minutes before was out there now, causing those screams.

  I thought briefly of Detective Inspector Jones, and hoped that he was well.

  "I am sure that he is still alive," Holmes said from behind me. "He is too stupid to not be."

  I spun around and brought up the revolver. Holmes was standing just inside the door. He had entered the room and closed the door behind him without me hearing. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just been running, and I stepped aside to let in the moonlight, terrified that I would see the black stain of blood on his hands and sleeves.

  "How do you know I was thinking of Jones?" I asked, astounded yet again by my friend's reasoning.

  "Mrs Hudson told me that he had been here looking for me. I knew then that you would be his next port of call in his search, and that you would inevitably have been forced by your high morals to relay what you have so obviously seen. You know he is out there now, hunting me down. And the scream . . . it sounded very much like a man, did it not?"

  "Turn on the light, Holmes," I said.

  I think he shook his head in the dark. "No, it will attract attention. Not that they do not know where we are . . . they must . . . fear, fear smells so sweet . . . to bees . . . "

  "Holmes. Turn on the light or I will shoot you." And right then, standing in the room where my friend and I had spent years of our lives in pleasurable and business discourse, I was telling the truth. I was frightened enough to pull the trigger, because Holmes's intellect would bypass my archaic revolver, however mad he sounded. He would beat me. If he chose to—if he had lured me here to be his next victim—he would kill me.

  "Very well," my friend said. "But prepare yourself Watson. It has been a somewhat eventful twenty-four hours."

  The lamp flicked alight.

  I gasped. He looked like a man who should be dead.

  "Do not lower that revolver!" he shouted suddenly. "Keep it on me now, Watson. After what you think you saw me doing, lower your guard and you are likely to shoot me at the slightest sound or movement. That's right. Here. Aim it here." He thumped his chest and I pointed the gun that way, weak and shocked though I was.

  "Holmes . . . you look terrible!"

  "I feel worse." From Holmes that was a joke, but I could not even raise a smile. Indeed, I could barely draw a breath. Never had Holmes looked so unkempt, exhausted and bedraggled. His normally immaculate clothing was torn, muddied and wet, and his hair was sticking wildly away from his scalp. His hands were bloodied—I saw cuts there, so at least for the moment I could believe that it was his own blood—his cheek was badly scratched in several places and there was something about his eyes . . . wide and wild, they belied the calm his voice conveyed.

  "You're mad," I said, unable to prevent the words from slipping out.

  Holmes smiled, and it was far removed from that maniacal grin he had offered me as he crouched over the dying man.

  "Do not jump to conclusions, Watson. Have you not learned anything in our years together?"

  My hand holding the gun was starting to shake, but I kept it pointing at my friend across the room.

  "I have to take you in, you know that? I will have to take you to the station. I cannot . . . I cannot . . . "

  "Believe?"

  I nodded. He was already playing his games, I knew. He would talk me around, offer explanations, convince me that the victims deserved to die or that he had been attacked . . . or that there was something far, far simpler eluding me. He would talk until he won me over, and then his attack would come.

  "I cannot believe, but I must," I said, a new-found determination in my voice.

  "Because you saw it? Because you saw me killing someone you must believe that I did, in fact, kill?"

  "Of course."

  Holmes shook his head. He frowned and for an instant he seemed distant, concentrating on something far removed from Baker Street. Then he glanced back at me, looked to the shelf above the fire and sighed.

  "I will smoke my pipe, if you don't mind Watson. It will put my mind at rest. And I will explain what I know. Afterwards, if you still wish to take me in, do so. But you will thereby be condemning countless more to their deaths."

  "Smoke," I said, "and tell me." He was playing his games, playing them every second . . .

  Holmes lit a pipe and sat in his armchair, legs drawn up so that the pipe almost rested on his knees. He looked at the far wall, not at me where I remained standing by the window. I lowered the revolver slightly, and this time Holmes did not object.

  I could see no knives, no mess on his hands other than his own smeared blood. No mess on his chin from the masticated flesh of the folks he had killed.

  But that proved nothing.

  "Have you ever looked into a mirror and really concentrated on the person you see there? Try it, Watson, it is an interesting exercise. After an hour of looking you see someone else. You see, eventually, what a stranger sees, not the composite picture of facial components with which you are so familiar, but individual parts of the face—the big nose, the close-together-eyes. You see yourself as a person. Not as you."

  "So what are you trying to say?"

  "I am saying that perception is not definite, nor is it faultless." Holmes puffed at his pipe, then drew it slowly away from his mouth. His eyes went wide and his brow furrowed. He had had some thought, and habit made me silent for a minute or two.

  He glanced back up at me then, but said nothing. He looked more troubled than ever.

  "I saw you killing a man, Holmes," I said. "You killed him and you laughed at me, and then you tore him open and stole his heart."

  "The heart, yes," he said, looking away and disregarding me again. "The heart, the brain . . . parts, all part of the one . . . constituents of the same place . . . " He muttered on until his voice had all but vanished, though his lips still moved.

  "Holmes!"

  "It has gone quiet outside. They are coming." He said it very quietly, looked up at me from sad, terrified eyes, and I felt a cool finger run down my spine. They're coming. He did not mean Jones or the police, he did not mean anyone. No man scared Holmes as much as he was then.

  "Who?" I asked. But he darted from his seat and ran at me, shoving me aside so that we stood on either side of the window.

  "Listen to me, Watson. If you are my friend, if you have faith and loyalty and if you love me, you have to believe two things in the next few seconds if we are to survive: the first is that I am not a murderer; the second is that you must not trust your eyes, not for however long this may take. Instinct and faith, that is what you can believe in, because they cannot change that. It is too inbuilt, perhaps, too ingrained, I don't know . . . "

  He was mumbling again, drifting in and out of coherence. And I knew that he could have killed me. He had come at me so quickly, my surprise was so complete, that I had plain forgotten the gun in my hand.

  And now, the denial.

  Doubt sprouted in my mind and grew rapidly as I saw the look on Holmes's face. I had seen it before, many times. It was the thrill of the chase, the excitement of discovery, the passion of experience, the knowledge that his reasoning had won out again. But underlying it all was a fear so profound that it sent me weak at the knees.

  "Holmes, what are they?"

  "You ask What, Watson, not Who. Already you're half way to believing. Quiet! Look! There, in the street!"

  I looked. Running along the road, heading straight for the front door of Holmes's building, came Sherlock Holmes himself.

  "I think they will come straight for me," Holmes whispered. "I am a threat."
>
  "Holmes . . . " I could say little. The recent shocks had numbed me, and seemed now to be pulling me apart, hauling reality down a long, dark tunnel. I felt distanced from my surroundings even though, at that moment, I knew that I needed to be as alert and conscious of events as possible.

  "Don't trust your eyes!" he hissed at me.