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It was one of those very early, sharp spring mornings where a brisk breeze cut icily through boughs that bore only the smallest green buds, as if Mother Nature had not quite made up her mind about the turning of the seasons and might plunge us back into winter at a moments’s notice. A fire crackled cheerily in our grate, lifting the chill equally from the air and from my mood as I looked out of our sitting room window to the street below, where a few brave souls scurried about their business.
“For goodness sake come and sit down. You are blocking my light.”
I stepped back from the window and sat at the breakfast table instead, where I could still turn and resume my observation of the street. “Sorry, old fellow. Anything interesting in the morning edition?”
Holmes, ensconced in his armchair by the hearth, shook out the newspaper to straighten the pages then folded it and dropped it on the floor. He took his first pipe of the morning out from between his teeth and shrugged. “A brace of burglaries, an unfortunate altercation ending tragically, a spate of arrests of unfortunates who paid for goods with bent coins, and a few earnest entreaties for missing persons to declare themselves alive. And the usual complement of petty criminals rounded up by Lestrade of the Yard and his ilk. Those reports are so full of praise for the official police that I suspect Lestrade of writing them.”
I laughed. “Perhaps I ought to write for the newspapers myself. I could give them a few column inches about the Yard’s true contribution to the cases you solve for them.”
“On no account.” Holmes turned his head to glare at me. “If my name was widely known amongst the criminal fraternity then all my sources of information would dry up. In certain areas of this fair city I would have to put on the most cunning of disguises simply to ask for directions. Keep all your column inches between ourselves.”
I grinned back. My desire to expound upon Holmes’s extraordinary abilities had become one of the regular jokes in our private repartee. I was about to reply when three things happened in quick succession: Mrs Hudson brought in our breakfast tray, a very striking young lady of perhaps twenty three or twenty four years, with auburn hair and a lovely green walking dress hurried across the street outside, and someone rang our doorbell so violently they might have pulled it off its chain.
“That will be a woman in search of a missing husband,” Holmes observed as he rose to take the cup of coffee I had poured for him when our landlady had gone to answer the summons. “A case for me, I think. A dull one I’m sure, but—”
“Excuse me, gentlemen, a Mrs Oliver to see you.”
I shot Holmes a look that I hope conveyed be nice and stood to welcome our visitor. The young lady I had seen in the street below entered, appearance heightened by the pink flush in her slightly freckled cheeks and the unhappy yet hopeful look in her clear, hazel eyes. I tamped down the inappropriate compliment on her appearance I had half-formed in my head to use if she happened to be unattached.
“Please sit down, Mrs Oliver.” I gestured at the settee. “May I offer you a cup of hot coffee?”
She sank graciously onto our settee but waved away the coffee. “I could not,” she said in a sombre voice. “I have come to consult Mr Sherlock Holmes. My husband has disappeared and the police have reached a conclusion that I simply cannot accept.”
I saw Holmes’s face light up with interest. The opportunity to prove the police inept was, of course, too much temptation for a man such as he to resist. A missing husband? Dull. Proving the Yard wrong? Delightful.
“I am Sherlock Holmes,” my friend said, perching in his armchair opposite Mrs Oliver. “And this is my friend and colleague, Dr Watson. Please, tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
As I retrieved my notebook and pencil, she removed her white gloves and clasped her hands on top of them in her lap. “My dear Robert left our house in Kensington fifteen days ago and has neither been seen nor heard from since. On Tuesday, he had his breakfast, kissed both me and his mother goodbye, promised to be back in time for a late dinner on Friday, and went to work. He is a metallurgist with London and Midlands Steel and often travels to Birmingham or Coventry or one of those other places filled with the foundries upon which this country is constructed.”
She paused and took a deep breath. I got the sense that she had told the same story many times over the past few days, so I gave her a prompt before Holmes grew snappish. “And he did not return as promised?”
Her worried eyes alighted on me. “No, he did not, Dr Watson. My mother-in-law was against it, but when he had not returned by Monday last week I contacted the police. Inspector Lestrade was most sympathetic, but after a few enquiries he concluded that my husband had bought a ticket for America, boarded a ship and abandoned us.”
“I see.” Holmes raised an eyebrow. “And you think this unlikely? What makes your Robert different from the hundreds of flighty young men every year who set out to seek a different hand from the one they have been dealt?”
“He is hardly a flighty young man. He is forty years old and established in his profession.” Mrs Oliver placed a hand on her belly and I knew before she uttered the words. “I had just the day before informed my husband that we were going to have a baby.” Her eyes filled up. “Oh, he was delighted! I have never seen him so full of joy. Why would he leave? He had no reason.”
I handed the lady a clean handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes. When she spoke again, her anger and frustration were evident in her voice.
“The inspector was rather callous about Robert’s disappearance once he had established his own opinion of events, so I did not give him this most personal information in case he used it to strengthen his argument and call my husband’s good character into question.” She paused and sighed, closed her eyes and regained her composure admirably. “Aside from the two of you, my Robert is the only one who knows.”
“What about your mother-in-law?” Holmes frowned. “Has she no knowledge of this?”
“If she has guessed my condition, she has been the soul of discretion, Mr Holmes. It does not show much, yet, although there are other indications that I have been quite unable to disguise. I will tell her soon.”
I smiled at her and nodded. “That is for the best. You may find her own experience and wisdom useful.”
For the next half hour, Holmes quizzed Mrs Oliver about her husband and I took notes. Robert Oliver had been born into a genteel family of insecure wealth, well-educated but without great standing in society. He had forged enough connections at university to gain a good position as a metallurgist specialising in steel at the peak of Britain’s dominance in that industry. His income provided for the living expenses of his wife and his mother, and their house was left to him by his father on the condition that his mother may reside there for as long as she wished.
“I’ll speak with Lestrade,” Holmes said as soon as the door closed behind his client. “I want to know what erroneous conclusions he drew from incomplete data so that I avoid the same investigative path.” He poked me gently in the chest with a slender forefinger. “In the meantime, if you have quite recovered from the sight of that pretty young woman perhaps you would be so good as to assist me in this case?”
“My dear Holmes, I would be delighted.” I smiled at the twinkle in his eye, glad that as usual my strategy of openly admiring pretty young women had hoodwinked him. I was not ready for Holmes to know the truth that looking and admiring formed the extent of my desire in that direction.
“I am at your disposal. What would you have me do?”
“If a man vanishes and no body is found, then he may be presumed to be alive. If he is alive, he needs money. I believe we will begin with a call upon Lestrade, then Mr Oliver’s home, then his bank once we obtain his accounts.”
Inspector Lestrade, looking harried as usual, was not displeased to see us exactly but his demeanour noticeably lifted when I offered to buy us all lunch in a modest little cafe near Scotland Yard. We sat around a small, square table with sandwiches and tea while the buzz of conversation afforded us some measure of privacy.
“You’re wasting your time,” Lestrade opined between bites of cheese and ham. “The man’s done a runner. He was supposed to take the Birmingham train as far as Coventry, but a fellow fitting his description alighted instead in Manchester where the train terminated, then boarded the next train for Liverpool.” A slurp of tea made Holmes wince. Lestrade didn’t notice. “It is not too far a stretch to assume he then embarked on the White Star ship to New York that left the following morning. Especially when the passenger list contains one Oliver Roberts in steerage. A slip of a ticket clerk’s hand, writing the names the wrong way round, no doubt. I am convinced that the missing Mr Oliver is living under a new name in America.”
“Well, it seems you have the case all sewn up,” Holmes said with a dismissive wave of his hand as Lestrade chose an egg and cress sandwich from our shared platter after offering it to me first. “Oliver Roberts. Robert Oliver. The resemblance is suggestive.” Holmes leaned forwards. “But steerage? I wonder that he did not purchase himself a more comfortable crossing.”
“Parsimonious by nature, I expect.” Lestrade finished his sandwich before continuing. “I suppose you’ll be investigating anyway.”
“Naturally. Even if only to prove you were right all along.”
“Then this lunch is not, after all, free.” He winked at me. “What do you need?”
I smiled at their exchange. For all Holmes disparaged Lestrade of the Yard, I knew he liked the man. And for all Lestrade insulted Holmes’s uncanny abilities, I knew the inspector held deep and fond regard for my friend.
“Access to his bank records, employment details and…” Holmes examined a beef and mustard sandwich then ate it. “May we see your entire file?”
Lestrade shrugged. “Don’t see why not. I’ll bring it round this evening, if that suits you.”
Holmes smiled and surreptitiously raised an eyebrow at me. “I’ll expect you at six and I’ll tell Mrs Hudson you’ll be staying for supper.”
Lestrade grinned. “You do that, Mr Holmes, and thank you. I can go over the case in more detail with a good dinner in me.”
After we parted company with Lestrade, Holmes and I walked to Mrs Oliver’s address in Kensington. The missing man’s mother received us with the cool formality we might expect of an elderly widow. Holmes explained that he had been engaged to find out more about her son’s disappearance and asked to see his rooms. To my surprise, he made no mention that we were acquainted with the younger Mrs Oliver, who sat stony-faced by the parlour fire, but implied indirectly that he was working with the official police.
The old lady scowled but escorted us to her son’s rooms, which consisted of a bedroom and a dressing room on the first floor, which had a connecting door to his wife’s room, and a small office on the ground floor. After a careful search, Holmes thanked Mrs Oliver for her patience and ushered me out of the house.
“It is a very odd thing to plan to leave the country and yet pack only clothing for a couple of nights,” he said as we turned the corner out of the street. “And a very odd thing to have a well-to-do household yet pay for only a place in steerage. What did you make of the young wife?”
“She did her best not to acknowledge us at all. I take it that her mother-in-law is not aware of her visit this morning.”
“I suspect that to be the case.” Holmes linked his arm in mine. “I believe there is a little more to this than meets the eye. Let’s see what friend Lestrade brings to our supper table.”
Lestrade arrived at six as arranged and gave Holmes a slim file. Holmes sorted through statements and correspondence pertaining to the case and shook his head.
“It won’t do, inspector.” He shook his head. “Even you know better than to rely on coincidences and eyewitness statements that are so vague as to be useless.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Lestrade shrugged. “A man who is neither rich nor poor, fat nor thin, tall nor short goes missing. There’s no actual evidence that a crime has been committed and his own mother couldn’t care less. Unless a body is found or a fraud uncovered, my meagre resources are directed elsewhere.”
“You do not have his bank statements or household account book from his office?”
“We didn’t find anything of that nature.”
“That is suggestive.” Holmes reached for his pipe. “So he kissed his uncaring mother and his pregnant wife goodbye then left the country with luggage for only three days and his accounts. It won’t do.”
“Oh that adds to my assessment of the case,” Lestrade said knowingly. “Running from his responsibilities. Probably ran out of money and burned the evidence. Those poor women will have a shock facing them, especially if he took out a mortgage.”
“I must confirm his financial affairs,” Holmes said eventually. “When all else fails, trace the money and the man will be found.”
“Well, there’s nothing to be done before the banks open tomorrow,” Lestrade said as Mrs Hudson knocked and entered with a large tray. Lestrade smiled at her warmly. “Is that lamb? It smells delicious.”
Holmes ate little and Lestrade did not linger once his dish was mopped clean of gravy. He recognised the signs as well as I did that Holmes would not want to be disturbed for the rest of the evening, and at the front door he suggested that perhaps I might leave Holmes to his deliberations and accompany him for a drink or two at his local pub. I thanked him but refused and returned to my own hearth.
“I hope Lestrade finds himself a wife soon,” I said as Holmes picked up the evening newspaper. His response was a derisive snort. “I mean it, Holmes. He’s not the sort to manage alone.”
Holmes puffed on his pipe and said nothing. I took my place opposite him and read my book. As usual, we each respected the other’s need for quiet and did not speak beyond what was necessary. As usual, our eyes met a few times, but we simply smiled and resumed reading until I felt tired enough for bed.
Holmes was a flurry of activity the next day. “I woke early and sent the boy to the telegraph office,” he said as he walked between his bedroom and our sitting room, slightly more dressed each time he appeared. “To several banks, to Oliver’s employer, and to the London ticketing agents of White Star. And to the immigration offices on Ellis Island. And the Royal Mint. Their replies will direct today’s investigations. As will these.”
I sat. Holmes placed a new file in front of me and squeezed my shoulder. Inside were newspaper clippings detailing a spate of burglaries in which quantities of silverware, pewter dishes and bronze statuary were taken, a report into the decline of the British steel industry and closure of smaller, less profitable foundries since exports to America had shrunk at the same rate as steel production in America had grown, and a map of London with several locations marked in pencil.
“You must have been up all night!” I got up and steered Holmes by the elbow to his seat at the breakfast table. “I insist you rest and eat something.”
“No, I must think.”
Holmes capitulated and drank when I poured him tea with sugar and put the cup in his hand. “The more I reflect on it, the more I think this Oliver Roberts in steerage may be a deliberate misdirection. Our man, Robert Oliver, has not left the country. In fact, I would wager that he has not left London and is illicitly engaged at one of the foundries I have indicated.”
I took the map and looked more closely at it. Sure enough, each precise x sat on a street or a canal where one might expect such heavy and dangerous industry to reside.
“Good Lord,” I said as the contents of the file slotted together in my head. “The stolen metalware, the missing metallurgist, the disused foundries…” I shut my eyes to think harder. “Holmes! He has been abducted and is being made to work for a gang of coiners!”
Holmes took the file from my hands and flashed a grin that made me feel proud of my reasoning. “Something of that nature. You always have the kindest interpretation of the facts.” His face fell. “My dear boy, if today brings events as I foresee them, I would not insist that you accompany me. But should you choose to stay by my side, perhaps you would be so good as to bring your revolver.”
A frisson of excitement ran down my spine and I met his grey eyes openly. “If you think I would allow you to run into danger unprotected, then you don’t know me at all. Of course I will accompany you.”
From the hallway a bell rang but I barely heard it, so rapt was I in Holmes’s gaze. He blinked, then leapt up and met Mrs Hudson at the door, scooping papers from her silver tray. “Ha!” he yelled and waved one reply in the air. “Our missing person was released from his contract of employment six months ago. So he has been lying about going to work. And a Mr Oliver Roberts did indeed purchase passage to New York in steerage - the clerk is convinced he made no error in transcribing the name onto the ticket - but the address is given as Southwark. It is true that coincidence sits badly with me, but it may be that he in unconnected with this case.”
Holmes sat down and ate some toast then took another cup of tea. The bell rang again and this time I collected the message from Mrs Hudson. “The manager of the Southwark branch of the London Bank will see you at three o’clock.”
We looked at each other. “Southwark?” I said. “Coincidence?”
Holmes pointed at me with the corner of his toast. “I would reluctantly accept one coincidence, that of the name. But two? No. I suspect that Mr Oliver Roberts of Southwark and Mr Robert Oliver of Kensington are one and the same. I believe I know why Mr Oliver has disappeared. The bank manager may simply confirm my theory.” He shot to his feet and leapt over the settee to get to his room. “Come along, Watson! No time to dawdle.”
“Should I bring my revolver?”
“To the bank? No.” Holmes reappeared with his shoes on. “On second thoughts, yes. I have some errands to run then I’ll go to the bank. You go to Lestrade and tell him we will need enough men to shut down the foundry where all those counterfeit half crowns are being forged. Then meet me outside the bank.” He sorted through the coins in the dish he kept on the sideboard for his change, selected one and hummed, then he slid the half crown across the table to me. “Tell me what you observe.”
I examined it. “A perfectly ordinary silver half crown, as worn as might be expected since it was minted in 1866 and has been in circulation for some time. There is a score across the ‘tails’ side, perhaps from being pocketed with a set of keys, and a dent in the edge.”
“Oh, my dear boy! You see but you do not understand.” He held out a telegraph paper for me to read. It was his reply from the Royal Mint.
CONFIRM NO HALF CROWNS MINTED 61, 66, 68, 71
I immediately searched my pockets to check that I was not in possession of any such half-crowns while Holmes laughed uproariously at my consternation that I might be guilty of the crime of passing on counterfeit coins, for if caught and judged malicious the penalty could be months of penal servitude with hard labour. Once I had established that all the coins my pockets contained comprised legal tender, Holmes took my hand in his, palm uppermost, pressed the fake coin into it and curled my fingers around it.
“Please keep this as a memento of this moment. My dear Watson, you are prepared to walk into danger for me but you balk at spending a half crown made of base metals?”
I laughed and promised, then the warmth of his hands enclosing my fist was gone.
He spread the map across the seat of the settee and beckoned me over. “I think given that Southwark has featured twice so far, we might take a gamble on it featuring a third time. Here.” He pointed at a pencilled x by the side of the Grand Surrey Canal. “Take this and explain to Lestrade. I’ll wire ahead so he will expect you.”
“Will he come?”
I watched Holmes’s face for any sign of doubt, but he met my look with a nod. “He will. You will certainly be able to convince him.” With a lopsided smile, he added, “Especially if you buy him lunch.”
Holmes sent the boy with a message for Lestrade, then set out for Southwark. When I arrived outside the buildings of Great Scotland Yard, Lestrade was already waiting for me.
“What has he uncovered? I don’t appreciate cryptic messages. ‘Urgent. Watson will explain’. Come on, then. Explain.”
I remembered Holmes’s half-sarcastic suggestion. “Have you eaten yet?”
We went to one of Lestrade’s favourite haunts - a rather homely establishment that served good meat and potato pies and mediocre ale. As I set out Holmes’s reasoning and the evidence behind it, Lestrade’s eyes widened. “Coiners! That would be a feather in my cap if he’s right. I know that foundry. When it closed six months ago it put a hundred men out of honest work and made petty criminals out of quite a few of them of them. He better not go in there alone. Coiners are desperate folks for the stakes are high and the punishment severe.”
I suppressed my indignation about exactly whose cap deserved the feather. “Well, I’m going in there with him.”
“You!” He looked me up and down. “No offence intended, doctor, but I don’t want to be pulling what’s left of you out of the canal with a boat hook tonight. I’m not sure one wounded soldier with an old army revolver is adequate.” I met Lestrade’s searching look and waited for him to reach his own decision. After a few moments, he gave a sharp nod. “No. You won’t go in without my help. If I know Holmes, he’ll want to go in for a look-see first. I’ll have six men or more, quiet-like, all within reach. It’s noisy down there with all the factories and such running night and day. We’ll need a signal. A louder one than a police whistle.”
“A gunshot from an old army revolver?”
He laughed and gripped my forearm for a second. “Indeed. You go meet Holmes. We’ll be there when we’re needed. Give me a couple of hours to arrange it. And, doctor?” He rubbed my arm briefly where I could still feel the ghost of his grip. “Promise you will not let that fool rush in without knowing we are ready for his call.”
I shook his hand firmly as we parted. “Thank you, Lestrade. It means a lot that we can rely on you.”
“I’m sure it does,” he said. And as he turned away I thought he looked a little wistful.
I took a cab to Southwark rather than exhaust my war-weakened leg. As I arrived at the bank, Holmes was emerging. He took my arm and we ambled in the direction of the canal. I told him that Lestrade was bringing several men and that a gunshot was his signal to rush to our aid. He told me that Mr Oliver Roberts’s bank account - opened six months previously - had received fortnightly deposits in cash from a man whose appearance was so average as to defy description, then similar sums had been transferred to the benefit of one Mr Robert Oliver.
With a laugh, I commented that surely any astute bank clerk would raise suspicion if asked to deposit several dozen shiny, new half crowns, then I halted in alarm and my face heated up in shame and alarm.
“Oh no. Holmes, that counterfeit half crown you gave me… I think I used it when I paid the cabbie. I could face six months’ hard labour!”
His abrupt bark of laughter could probably be heard over the river in Baker Street.
As we neared the disused foundry, I felt in my pocket for my revolver and was reassured by its heavy presence. As I did when called out on a medical matter, I reminded myself that the vast majority of people around us were simply going about their day as honest subjects of Her Majesty, earning a living and looking forward to an evening at their own hearths, or perhaps a drink with their friends at one of the alehouses near the canal and a few minutes of privacy with one of the gaudily dressed women who plied their trade in such places.
I had once, after too much wine and a generous glass of brandy, confessed to Holmes that in my army days I had occasionally visited that kind of establishment with my comrades-in-arms, but never felt the urge to take advantage of all that was on offer. He’d been very kind about it and had never mentioned my drunken indiscretion since.
The foundry gates were locked and a painted wooden board affixed to the railings advertised the name of a property agent. We took a walk around it from the street down to the canal path and back, trying to look as if we were perhaps considering the building as an investment. We returned to the street and walked on as if we had lost interest, then Holmes stopped, his hand on my arm. We turned and he inclined his head to direct me to look up at the foundry’s roof.
“Now why would a disused foundry be belching smoke?”
“At least one of its furnaces is in operation,” I said quietly. “I believe you were right. This is the one.”
“Then we must catch them at it. If we wait until the crucibles have cooled we risk going in only to find the coop flown.”
“We should wait for Lestrade.”
Holmes tightened his lips into a bloodless line, but he knew I was correct. We descended onto the canal towpath, bustling with activity, and walked slowly back the way we had come. A small, bent over, ferrety man bumped me and mumbled a curse. When I checked my pockets and found that I was still in possession of my watch, I looked back and saw Lestrade grinning at me before he was obscured by a draft horse that passed us pulling a barge laden with goods from the docks at Rotherhithe.
Holmes laughed softly and bumped my shoulder with his. “He’s coming along rather well, don’t you think?”
“I never thought to see him adopt any of your methods,” I replied. I nodded at the side of the building that bordered the canal path. “There’s a door.”
“There is a better one. This one is on the busy waterway. Too obvious. The other is on the path between the street and the canal, and is less overlooked.”
“I suppose two men breaking in to an abandoned foundry might look suspicious.”
“Indeed. We do not want to suffer the indignity of one of Lestrade’s men accidentally apprehending us.”
We separated in case we had been noticed and were being watched. There were few men around who were not in work-soiled clothes and heavy boots, and I supposed we might be taken as factory inspectors here to see that working regulations were being obeyed. This thought did not make me feel any safer. I walked back around the way we had come to find the door Holmes had chosen, while Holmes carried on along the towpath a little way and rejoined the street at a bridge further down. I did not catch sight of Lestrade again and I wondered which of the rough looking workmen I passed might be policemen.
Holmes met me by the door just as an altercation between two men on their way past the factory opposite distracted the attention of others who were passing on their way to or from their shifts. I positioned myself between the door and the edge of the small crowd so that Holmes could get to work with his lock picks obscured by my person. After only a few seconds I felt his grip on my shoulder and I followed him inside.
The interior passage was lit only by a small, round window above the door. Holmes leaned close and murmured in my ear. “It was conveniently unlocked. Be on your guard.”
I grasped his elbow and murmured back, “We should leave and fetch Lestrade.”
He placed a finger over my lips and mimed listening. I nodded. From deeper in the building there were sounds of industry: roaring and clanking, banging and shouts of instructions. This foundry was anything but abandoned. I took my revolver from my pocket.
We advanced slowly down the passage, past a few doors that probably led to offices, to the far end: the entrance to the casting room itself.
At the last door we paused and listened before Holmes opened it a crack then stood back. When no alarm was raised, he peered into the open space then beckoned me forward and stood back so that I could see with my dark-adjusted eyes. Most of the machinery was quiet and cold, but halfway along on the left one furnace was alight and molten metal, glowing yellowish-orange, was being poured from a crucible into a set of moulds by two workmen while a two more steadied the moulds with a device like a large clamp, and a fifth looked on. All wore thick gauntlets and leather aprons, and their faces gleamed with the sweat of exertion and heat. At a shout from the fifth man, the men who had been steadying the moulds bore their burden out of the way and returned with new moulds, waiting for the crucible and its contents to be heated again.
I retreated. “I wonder which of them is the missing man?”
Holmes scoffed. “I believe he may be the one in charge.”
I looked at Holmes, shock evident on my face for he merely said he would explain later if I failed to draw my own conclusions from the evidence. Clearly the situation was not as I had assumed. This was no longer a rescue mission to liberate an innocent man fallen on unfortunate circumstances.
“We must retreat and find Lestrade,” I said and took Holmes by the hand to lead him back to the outer door. He came without complaint, but as we neared the door, it burst open and a man blocked our way. I tightened my grip on my revolver. Holmes elbowed my arm to prevent me from raising it.
“Oi, who are you?”
Holmes strode forward, a dangerous smile on his lips. “You might call me an interested party. And you might call me sir. My client has a significant investment in this operation and I have come to make sure that I will not be short changed, as it were. Now, my good man, will you please let Mr Roberts know that his backer’s agents are here.”
The man frowned, then lumbered onwards, barging me out of his way. “You’ll let ‘im know yourself, sir. I ain’t no errand boy no more. Mr Roberts made me the engineer in charge of trimming and filing.”
As he reached the door, he took a deep breath, burst into the foundry room, yelled SCARPER! and whirled around to face us with an ugly leer on his blotchy face and a knife in his fist.
I brought my revolver up and fired once, aiming at his knife arm as I had no desire to kill a man. How I wish I had been less principled! He rushed at us as we pelted for the door. I turned to fire again but he was upon us. I went down hard and my bullet knocked a chunk of red brick from the wall.
The rough was soon outside and running. I struggled to my feet and turned to help Holmes up. As the door swung on its hinges and light flooded in, I paled. Holmes lay still and prone with a spreading pool of red under his hips.
All thoughts left me other than Oh, God, please don’t die.
He was breathing.
I knew objectively that the amount of blood on the floor, although distressing, was considerably less than a fatal loss. But I had to ascertain where the wound had been inflicted and staunch the bleeding. My army medical experience came rushing back to me. I rolled him onto his side and found an oozing, ugly gash on his thigh. I pulled off my tie and used my handkerchief to fashion a method to apply immediate pressure to the wound and thanked God that the knife had missed the femoral artery.
“It’s a flesh wound. You will recover from this and have a scar to show for your troubles. I think you knocked your head on the flagstones, so you will be woozy and it will hurt later, but your heart is beating and you are breathing and you are not going to die today.”
I spoke mainly to reassure myself. I fancied he groaned and shifted, but he did not awaken. I took a few deep breaths and examined the blood-soaked emergency dressing. “I’m going to make a more effective bandage to cover this. I’ll use my shirt. Won’t take a moment.”
I struggled out of my coat and my jacket and my waistcoat then pulled my shirt off, buttons plinking on the stone floor in my haste to remove it. I tore strips and joined them, then folded the rest into a pad when I judged that I had enough to bind it.
“If you were awake I would ask you to help hold this in place,” I said in a jovial manner I did not feel. I applied the pad and pressed on it, then wrapped the makeshift bandage around Holmes’s thigh, tying off the ends away from the wound. I caressed his head, feeling for bleeding and bumps, checking his ears and nose for fluids. Glad to find none, I settled my dear friend on his uninjured side.
Only then did I take in my surroundings. I shivered from the cold and pulled my waistcoat and jacket back on, then folded my coat as a pillow for Holmes. There was a great deal of shouting outside but the clamour from the foundry had ceased.
I rubbed Holmes’s shoulder and mentally prepared to pick him up. “Come on, old fellow, let’s get you home.”
“Get him to a hospital, more like.” I looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. Lestrade smiled grimly at me. “We got them all, including the one who did that. Caught red-handed. He’ll want to know that. Let’s get him into one of the four wheelers.”
I thought of the atmosphere of the casualty area of a London hospital and the conditions of the people within and shuddered. “I’m his doctor. I have everything I need at home. He’ll be better off at Baker Street.” Lestrade looked at me for a long moment. I met his doubt with steel. “As soon as possible.”
He nodded. Between us we manhandled Holmes into the first of the four wheelers that were arriving. He yelped in pain once but did not otherwise stir. I arranged his legs to be elevated and sat cradling his head in my lap.
Lestrade closed the door and called, “I’ll come later to see how he is.”
“Thank you,” I called back. “I will be up with him, so don’t worry about the hour.”
As the four wheeler jerked and rumbled over the cobbles, Holmes peered up at me. “Are we going home, Captain Watson? My leg is on fire and my head throbs.”
“Holmes!” I let my head fall back and I laughed. “How long have you been conscious, you rogue?”
He smiled and closed his eyes again. “Thank you for not letting Lestrade take me to a hospital. The last thing I want is to be surrounded by sick people.”
“My dear Holmes, you are impossible. Well then, since I am to be your doctor and your nurse, we are going home where I will clean your wound properly and stitch it as neatly as I can before dressing it in something other than my shirt. That knife looked nasty. Holmes?” I patted his cheek until he opened his eyes again. “Tell me your theory about Oliver. Or Roberts. Or whoever he is.”
“Robert Oliver. Metallurgist specialising in steel and other alloys. Lost his job and saw an opportunity. Invented Oliver Roberts. Six months ago. No imagination. Pretended to go to the Midlands every other week, but came to a disused foundry in Southwark to make counterfeit silver coins out of an alloy of bronze and tin with a little arsenic to whiten it. That rough who accosted us showed signs of chronic arsenic poisoning. Oliver was following that path too. He had various remedies for digestive upsets in his bedroom.”
I realised that I had been unconsciously stroking Holmes’s cheek and hair while he spoke. My hands stilled. “The hyperpigmentation and the unsteady gait. Of course. Might also explain the aggression if his brain was affected.”
“Possibly.” Holmes reached for my hand and I gave it gladly. “My theory is that he was laid off from his position but he knew which foundries would lie vacant and how to make an alloy that would pass well enough for silver to anyone who didn’t look too closely. He chose a small coin because they escape scrutiny and do not generally make it back to the bank, but remain in circulation. He must have had some arrangement to convert his counterfeit half crowns into cash the bank would accept. I suspect some of the local businesses might have offered him an agreeable exchange rate. Lestrade should look for merchants giving out an unusually high number of half crowns in change.”
I squeezed his hand. “You are sounding more coherent by the minute, my dearest. How is your head?” I bit my lip and looked at the opposite wall of the carriage, wondering if he minded that I called him my dearest with such feeling. Not my dear boy or my dear Holmes or my dear fellow but simply my dearest.
If he noticed, he did not react. He guided my hand to his skull. “Here.”
I felt carefully where the side of his head felt warm and slightly swollen. “Oh, you’ll have a duck egg there for a few days. You must have cracked it on the floor when you went down.”
“It hurts less with your hand on it,” he said, pressing my hand back onto his head when I moved it away.
“Then there it shall remain.” I stroked his hair back from his forehead and let my hand rest gently over his bump. He sighed and closed his eyes. “But you must not sleep yet. Keep talking to me so that I know you are lucid.”
He gave me a mournful look. “Oliver. Or Roberts. Spent some time fashioning moulds of half crowns but he wanted to make them look old and worn because shiny new ones might attract scrutiny. So he made a fair copy of a genuine coin to use a master, but added scratches and scuffs and altered the date from 86 to 66 before making impressions of both sides in his moulds. It’s his own fault that he did not choose a suitable date.”
“And why the disappearance? Why the White Star ticket? Why did he not simply return home on Friday night?”
Holmes shivered and I hoped we were almost home. “Perhaps London was getting too hot to hold him. He wanted the coiner Oliver Roberts of Southwark to vanish. I expect he bought the cheapest ticket he could. Travel documents in that name could be obtained easily enough for a man with an unlimited supply of half crowns. As could the services of a man who looked as ordinary as he did to travel to Liverpool. He may even have found a man willing to emigrate. There may be a telegraph from New York waiting for me at Baker Street that will answer that question.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” I said as our conveyance juddered to a halt. “We’re here.”
The driver and I carried Holmes upstairs and laid him on the settee while Mrs Hudson rushed ahead to open doors and lay blankets and light fires and generally fuss in a surprisingly efficient and helpful manner. She took my coat and jacket then brought a bowl of hot water to bathe Holmes’s wound and another for me to wash my hands. She disposed of the ruined clothing when I cut Holmes’s trousers and drawers off him and carefully soaked and peeled my torn up shirt from where drying blood had made it adhere to his skin. I used the carbolic acid atomiser I kept in my medical bag to sterilise the surroundings as best I could and examined the injury for signs of dirt.
“I’m sorry, old fellow, but the iodine will sting. Hold my knee.”
I placed his hand on my knee and took my bottle of iodine solution. I used a dropper to flush and saturate Holmes’s wound, watching it dye his skin and seep into the cut. Holmes’s hand tightened on my knee and he groaned through gritted teeth. His other hand gripped tightly to the back of the settee. After a full minute his eyes opened wide and he gasped.
“You have a particular gift for understatement, doctor.”
“Sorry. It will help kill any infection. I’m going to stitch the wound closed. I would normally offer laudanum or chloroform, but you have already been unconscious and it would be unsafe to knock you out again.”
“Will it hurt as much as the iodine?”
“No. At least the pain will be in a more localised area.”
He lay back and flexed his fingers. “You had better get on with it, then.”
I set out my suture kit and re-examined the wound edges. I removed with sharp scissors and heartfelt apologies a few ragged flaps of skin and flesh that might not survive, lest their later decay infect the healthy, healing skin.
“Try to relax.” He looked at me with such a sardonic expression that I almost laughed at his plight. “At least, if you feel the need to tense your leg, tense your stomach or your arms or grip my knee again instead. That one is actually useful because it lets me know immediately if I am causing more pain than you can bear.”
His hand grasped my knee. I threaded a suture needle and laid out the needle grip then misted the air around the wound, and my suture kit, with carbolic once more.
“Hold still old boy or I’ll have to sit on you.”
“Promises, promis—OWW!”
I worked quickly. I had always been good at stitching wounds and I made a neat job of Holmes’s thigh. He would scar, of course, but it would not be tight or uneven. In time it would heal to a pink line, then silver.
“All done. Now for a fresh dressing.”
“I want to see.”
“Let me get the mirror. Don’t struggle to sit in case you pull on the stitches.”
I fetched the mirror from the mantelpiece and angled it so that Holmes could see his thigh. He made a face. “I suppose it could have been worse. It feels worse. How does something three inches long have the audacity to cause so much pain?”
I smiled and squeezed his hand. “It’s deep and the blade wasn’t sharp so it tore on the way in and on the way out.” I sighed. “I have done my best with germicidal substances, but I expect the knife was not clean. You can expect some infection, and that will be painful.”
“Ugh.”
“Holmes…”
“Watson.”
“I could have protected you better. I aimed to injure, not kill. It wasn’t enough. I should have shot him in the chest, not the arm.”
Holmes reached his hand out to find my shoulder. He held on tightly. “It was enough. If his knife had been higher he might have done worse to me, so you prevented that. If you had killed him you would always think you made the wrong decision and there is no coming back from that.”
The thought that Holmes was comforting me when he was the one injured almost brought me to tears. I put a clean dressing on his wound and bandaged it securely. “I’ll check that in the morning. Let me help you to bed.”
“I can walk.”
“I forbid it. You are not allowed to burst open all my neat stitches!” I smiled and pointed at his violin case. “If you cause me to have to stitch your wound again, I will use the catgut from one of your violin strings.” He laughed and I knew I had won this argument. “Do NOT attempt to move. I am going to get your bedroom ready. You will bear no weight on that leg until I say it is safe to do so.”
“Yes, doctor,” he said meekly. “I am entirely in your hands.”
I patted his shoulder and struggled to my feet, stiff after spending so long kneeling at his side. Mrs Hudson had already turned down his bed, laid out a clean nightshirt and lit his lamp, so there was little for me to do. I returned to the sitting room to find Holmes attempting to get up.
“It hurts,” he said.
“I expect it does, if you disobey your doctor,” I replied. “Did I ever tell you about the various makeshift splints and restraints I fashioned for injured soldiers in my army days? I could demonstrate how to immobilise an entire leg from hip to ankle using nothing but a few strips of fabric and the back of a dining chair.”
He gave me a scornful look, then an uncertain one, then lay down again. I had just got my arms under his spare figure and was lifting him carefully when Inspector Lestrade arrived. Holmes, nude from the waist down, lay in my bare arms and his arms were around my neck.
“I can come back in the morning,” Lestrade said by way of a greeting, averting his eyes.
“Stay!” The order came from Holmes before I could agree that Lestrade ought to leave. “I want to know what you got out of the coiners.”
I carried Holmes into his bedroom. “Holmes, you should rest. The morning will be soon enough.”
Undeterred, Holmes called out, “Have a seat, Lestrade. Help yourself to brandy from the tantalus on the sideboard.” He winced as I laid him on his bed. “Pour a large one for Watson too, and one for me.”
“A small one for Holmes. He has had a little blood loss,” I called through, then swatted my own forehead as I realised I had implicitly agreed that Lestrade could stay. Holmes gave me a smug smile. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “If you give me any more trouble, I will invite the inspector in here to help you into your nightshirt and put you to bed.”
He studied my face. “I believe you would, too. Very well. I will consent to being put to bed by you alone while Lestrade informs us of what became of the gang.”
At my instigation, Holmes removed his remaining clothing and I shook out his nightshirt ready to put over his head.
“We caught them all,” Lestrade called through. “I had two men posted at each exit. One of the coiners ended up in the canal and had to be dragged out and one brandished a knife and tried to run. But we soon rounded them up. Including the missing man.”
“Have you informed his young wife?” I asked.
Lestrade glanced into the room and judged it safe to stand in the doorway. “Not yet. Morning will be soon enough for that mixed news. He begged me to wait until he had explained his actions, but a sob story won’t get him out of trouble. He says he was pressed into it two weeks ago and doesn’t want to bring shame upon the family.”
“He’s lying,” Holmes said flatly.
“Well, yes. Men in handcuffs lie to me all the time,” Lestrade agreed. “But we’ll take it from here, Holmes. You must listen to your doctor’s advice and get well. I’ll drop in when I know more, if you’ll pass on any more information you receive in return.”
Holmes agreed with a grunt and a wave. Lestrade finished his brandy, shook my hand and left. I returned to Holmes’s bedside. “I’ll bring my armchair and stay in here tonight in case you have any nausea or dizziness.”
Holmes reached for my hand. “You really are the paragon of kindness, my dear. I’m sure it is unnecessary.”
I tutted. “That may be so, but I won’t take the risk. I intend to keep you under my direct observation until tomorrow evening.”
He gave me a doubtful look. “You will get bored and fall asleep.”
“And that is why I will ask you to entertain me with stories.” I patted his hand and released it, then went back into the sitting room to drag my armchair from its usual location by the hearth to Holmes’s bedside. As I did so, I saw Mrs Hudson’s silver calling card tray on the sideboard with some papers on it. I sorted the messages and took one to Holmes.
“From US immigration - No immigrant of that name.” I sighed and sat down. “So it was a ruse to throw the police off his trail.”
“It worked.” Holmes’s eyes glittered in the lamplight. “Lestrade gripped the first plausible explanation and bent all the facts to fit.”
I bristled at Holmes’s criticism of our friend. “That‘s unfair! Lestrade must have dozens of cases to work. You usually take on one at a time. While he has to secure a conviction, you are free to chase the truth at leisure.”
“Of course you defend the little inspector.” Holmes did not disguise the petulance in his voice. “He’s your pet. He’ll do anything if only you ask him.”
I stared, agape. “What do you mean? Holmes, this is beneath you. I will ascribe this mood to shock and say no more about it.”
“I mean it.” Holmes raised his head and groaned softly. Despite my anger at his words I hurried to help ease his head down onto an extra pillow. “You have not noticed. Not even suspected?”
“Noticed what? Holmes, what are you implying I should suspect?”
“You don’t suspect a thing, do you?” He laughed softly. “You said he needs a wife. Oh, my dear boy, must I spell it out to you? Blame the knock on my head if you like, but for weeks I have observed the way his eyes follow you. I fancy our little Lestrade has taken a shine to you, and he interprets your natural amiability as encouragement of his intimate nature, despite your insistence on pointing out the merits of every moderately decorative woman you see.”
I frowned and shook my head. “A ridiculous notion. I regard him as a friend and occasional colleague, no more and no less. And there is nothing wrong with admiring beauty.”
“Whatever you say.” He took a deep breath. “Can’t you do anything about this damnable pain in my leg?”
“I can’t give you laudanum. Blame the knock on your head.” I sighed and took his hand between both of mine. “I’m sorry if I seem out of sorts. Seeing you hurt gave me a shock. I can’t help thinking about what worse might have happened.”
He huffed. “I concur. You mustn’t mind my mood tonight either. We are not in our right minds.”
In the quiet minutes that followed I thought back over the way Lestrade usually behaved towards me - the friendly touches and kind invitations to join him for a drink - and decided Holmes’s conclusion was probably incorrect. But his displeasure that it might be true gave me pause for thought. Lestrade was always made welcome at our rooms, often at Holmes’s invitation. Had his regard for Lestrade changed? And if so, was it because he suddenly thought the man immoral? But he can’t have done. He said this had been going on for weeks and if anything the frequency of Lestrade’s visits had increased. What was he up to? Did I have cause for hope that Holmes might be harbouring jealousy? And if, as he said, we were not in our right minds, could I broach the subject of my own intimate nature, with no fear of recriminations later?
“Holmes?” I waited for his eyes to meet mine. “Put this question down to the shock of the day’s events if you like. But if I did happen to be the kind of man who would seek an amorous attachment to someone like Lestrade, would you find it morally objectionable?”
“My dearest, I would certainly object if you were amorously attached to a policeman. Set your sights higher, my boy.”
I bit my lips to keep from giggling like a child, but when I saw the expression of mischief on his face I snorted and he laughed with me. I felt lighter, and I was sure the emotional maelstrom of the day was responsible.
“What about another doctor? Surely that would be respectable enough.”
“Absolutely not. Have you any idea what you medical men are like when you get together? You would be sitting at dinner in Simpson’s, loudly discussing bodily excrescences to the detriment of the appetites of all within range. You’d be banned from all our favourite restaurants within a fortnight.”
I nodded as if in thought. “Very well. No doctors. What about a city man? A financier?”
“Oh, no.” He shook his head. “Crooks, all of them.”
“An engineer?”
“Dull. He’ll talk about pistons and stroke rates constantly.”
I suppressed a laugh. “An actor?”
“Absolutely out of your reach, old boy, sorry.”
I scoffed, then went quiet for a moment. “It appears that I am doomed to failure in my quest to find a suitable paramour. Unless… what about a consulting detective?”
Holmes closed his eyes. I was on the point of rousing him in case he was asleep when he said, “I suppose that would be acceptable, but there is only one of those in the country that I know of, and I am very well informed. You would have to ask him if he would have you.”
He remained silent and still but did not withdraw his hand from mine. I could laugh and call him conceited and that would be the end of some lighthearted teasing. I could tell him I was too tired for further discussion and perhaps when we were both feeling more like ourselves we might choose to have a conversation. Or I could recognise that I had never felt more like myself than when in his company, and follow where my thumping heart wanted to leap.
“Well,” I said, squeezing his hand once. “If there is only one, then I suppose he will have to suffice. If he is available and willing, of course.”
I could feel Holmes looking at me although I was reluctant to return his gaze. I concentrated my attention on the hand clasped between mine.
“John.”
I looked at him.
“You only have to ask.”
Suddenly nervous, I gave him a weak smile and threaded my fingers between his. “When we have both recovered from the turmoil of today,” I said quietly. “Then I’ll ask.”
Despite my resolve to remain awake and to keep Holmes alert, I woke stiff-necked and cold in the small hours. Holmes was in a natural sleep and woke briefly when I shook his shoulder, he dozed off and woke again when he tried to turn and the pain of his wound made him gasp and hiss. I helped him to get into a more comfortable position then moved my armchair right up against the side of his bed, almost boxing him in as if he was in a crib. I settled with my blood-soaked, stiffened trousers discarded on the floor and his dressing gown around me. Since he had slept and no harm had occurred because of it, I decided that natural sleep would be beneficial for the healing process.
I remained at his side so that I would wake when he did. To my deep shame, I woke to find him watching me in late morning sunlight.
“I didn’t get out of bed,” he said. “Mrs Hudson opened the curtains for me and took your trousers to see if anything can be done about them. There will be tea.”
I groaned and slowly rose to stretch. A quiet clatter from the sitting room alerted me to our landlady’s presence. “Tea,” I said, suddenly desperate for some. “You stay in bed. I’ll bring it. And after that I’ll check your wound and put a clean dressing on it.” I paused at the door to close Holmes’s dressing gown around myself. “How does it feel?”
“Like I have been stabbed in the leg.”
“You may have laudanum today, but only if the pain is unbearable.”
He muttered something about boredom being unbearable as I went to fetch the tea. Mrs Hudson was tidying the room as an excuse to remain and ask about Holmes. I reassured her that he would make a complete recovery given rest and time, and she ordered me to make sure he ate all his bacon and eggs.
I took Holmes a cup of tea and helped him to sit up enough to drink it. With his permission, I pulled the blankets down and lifted his nightshirt to examine the condition of the bandage. Some blood had seeped through during the night, enough to make a browning stain the size of my palm on the bandage and transfer a few spots onto his nightshirt, but not enough to alarm me. I told him not to be concerned about the blood for it would help flush out infection, then fetched my side table and brought the tea tray through. “I wonder if Lestrade will visit today,” I said, thinking of the coiners and how much Holmes probably wanted more data to refine his conclusions about the case.
He arched his eyebrows. “Of course Lestrade will visit.”
The previous night’s conversation came crashing back and my face must have shown it because Holmes sighed and looked away.
I wanted to dispel the expression of hurt on his face. “If there is a suitable opportunity, I will let him know that I am not… not open to any advances.” He smiled at the wall. “Although goodness only knows how I am going to do that.”
“Indeed.” He looked at me, amused. “And you make a living from words. It’s a wonder you’re not married already because you’re too polite to disappoint.”
“What should I say, then?” Anger flared. “I’m terribly sorry, Gilbert, I can’t blow your bugle today because I’ll be too busy frigging my flatmate. Will those words do?”
Holmes looked at me, eyes wide and jaw slack. Part of me triumphed that he had no witty retort, but most of me died a little at my use of barrack room language. I covered my face with both hands. “I’m sorry, Holmes. Please disregard my crude outburst. I am a little overwrought.”
“I say, Captain Watson!” he let out a soft, breathy laugh. “I don’t think I’m quite recovered enough for that, but the general sentiment is sound.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth and laughed until I cried. My outburst of mirth receded to leave me simply weeping as I left the room. I stood by the window, looking out without seeing anything until I had my emotions under control. Mrs Hudson came in with breakfast, squeezed my arm, said, “He’ll be right as rain in no time with you looking after him, you know,” and set me off weeping again.
“Watson? Waaat-sooon!”
I wiped my face with a napkin, closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then returned to Holmes’s room. “Please forgive this maudlin old fool,” I said. “You’re the one that got injured and I’m the one crying about it.”
“You do seem to be in a turbulent state this morning,” he replied. “I’m sorry my dear boy,” he added with a resigned expression. “But the drinking of tea has had an inevitable consequence. I may need your assistance.”
“I am at your service,” I said, my professional calm returning. “I’ll bring the bed-bottle.”
“You can assist me to the privy,” he said with determination. “There are some indignities to which I will not willingly submit.”
I gave him my most commanding frown. “No. Today you will lie where you are and put no weight on your leg. From the location and depth of the stab wound, The vastus lateralis and rectus femoris of the quadriceps muscle group are both partially cut and must be given time to knit together. If you put strain on them now, you will rip open any healing that has taken place overnight.” I sighed at his expression. “If you are to make a complete recovery, you must have no misplaced shame, Holmes. Simply accept that this is how things are for now and comply with the needs of your healing body.”
I gave him the privacy he needed and asked Mrs Hudson to bring hot water. She informed me that she was no stranger to the sickroom and she would see to it that Holmes ate breakfast while I had a bath and put on clean clothes. Since I was still wearing Holmes’s mouse-coloured dressing gown over what remained of yesterday’s clothing, I was deeply grateful for her kindness.
The combination of a bath, clean clothes, bacon and eggs, and the sound of Holmes demanding the morning editions restored my good humour. If my patient had been silent and meek, I would have feared for his survival. If Holmes was well enough to complain, then he was on the mend.
I carefully removed his dressing and bathed the wound with a dilute iodine solution while he lay still, pretending he felt no pain.
“It has bled somewhat overnight, but is not weeping unduly,” I said, discarding the soiled dressing and bloodstained bandage. “That is a healthy sign. You can expect some localised heat, itching and swelling over the next few days as the surface infection develops. It may feel tight. This is a normal sign of healing.”
He grunted at me, which was as much as I expected. I admired my tidy needlework and dressed the wound with a clean linen pad and bandages. After that, Holmes put on a fresh nightshirt and his dressing gown and consented to be carried to the settee and propped up on the cushions in the corner of it with his injured leg stretched out along the seat. We passed the rest of the morning reading the newspapers, smoking, and going back over my notes on the strange case of the missing metallurgist.
“The more I think about it,” I said, “the more suspicious I become of the older Mrs Oliver’s behaviour. According to her daughter-in-law, she did not want the police involved and she seemed most put out when we called at the house. I wonder if she did not want her son to be found.”
“I think you have hit on the truth,” Holmes said, pointing his pipe at me. “I think we will find that the older Mrs Oliver knows much and says little.”
“Well, it is out of our hands now.” I closed my notebook. “You fulfilled your obligation to locate Mr Oliver. The rest is Lestrade’s problem.”
Holmes looked at me so mournfully that I almost wished for the bell to ring an a new client to appear. Of course such a thing was out of the question until Holmes was well enough, but I knew boredom would set in to his detriment. When the bell did ring, for an instant I thought I had temped fate. However, we both clearly heard Mrs Hudson downstairs saying, “Come in, Inspector Lestrade,” and our eyes met.
“I will tell him,” I said quietly.
Lestrade came in to our sitting room bearing a large hamper of fruit and preserves. “Compliments of the Yard,” he said, placing it on the sideboard. He set down his hat, reached into the basket, under the oranges and pears, and brought out a half-bottle of whisky. “And compliments of Inspector Lestrade.”
Holmes perked up. “You are most kind! Have you brought me any news of the case?”
Lestrade nodded. “Oliver did not secure the loyalty of his men. Once they were made to understand that a full and honest confession might mitigate their circumstances somewhat, they separately gave me statements that agreed in enough details of timings and events that Oliver’s fate was sealed. The most enthusiastic help came from the man who stabbed you and will not now face a charge of wounding with intent to murder, which generally carries twenty years’ penal servitude, but merely wounding. He’ll get seven to ten years.”
Mrs Hudson brought a tea tray and our conversation paused for reflection. I got up to pour for us all. Lestrade accepted his cup and saucer from me with a warm smile and seemed to be trying to hold my gaze for a second or so longer than might be considered polite.
“The coiners will face a few years each. But their ringleader will receive harsher judgment. Counterfeiting silver coinage could be classed as treason if the courts decide it, and I know of at least one old judge who would give him the trouble of appealing against a sentence of the hempen collar.”
“Have you found out anything about the old woman?” Holmes asked abruptly.
Lestrade sighed. “I don’t think pursuing that line of enquiry is in the public interest. However, I have been overruled. Oliver’s address is being searched thoroughly with a warrant as we speak. Gregson will have every floorboard up if need be. If he finds any loose change, it’ll be used in evidence.”
I pondered whether Lestrade would be as enamoured of me if I was arrested for having uttered a counterfeit half crown. Part of me wanted to wait a few days before the awkward conversation I knew I had to initiate in case I needed a favour from him, but as Lestrade stood up and reached for his hat, Holmes caught my eye and raised an eyebrow. I returned a tight smile.
I joined Lestrade by the door and put on my own hat and coat. “I’ll accompany you as far as the tobacconist on the corner. I trust, Holmes, you will not try to walk anywhere in my absence?”
He grinned at me. “I wouldn’t dream of disobeying my doctor.”
I followed Lestrade downstairs and out into the street. “I say,” I said, “Holmes has got the oddest idea in his head.”
“Wouldn’t be the first odd idea he’s found up there,” Lestrade replied with a laugh. “What is it this time?”
“It’s rather embarrassing, but I wanted to tell you in case he says something about it. You know how unconventional he can be.”
“Indeed. He is an unconventional man.” We were almost at the corner by now. Lestrade stopped and looked at me. “Don’t keep me in suspense, doctor.”
I looked away. “He has got it into his head that over the past few weeks you have had ideas about forming a… an attachment to me. Of a… romantic nature.”
“Oh!” Lestrade frowned and stared at the tobacconist’s window. “Obviously, that would be ridiculous.”
“Quite. Just because you are a bachelor doesn’t mean—”
“As you say.” He sighed. “And the same is true of you, I suppose. Just because you are an unmarried gentleman it does not follow that you are in want of an attachment.”
I offered a handshake. He clasped my hand and gave me a rueful smile. “I count you amongst my true friends, doctor. Him too. Unconventional men ought to stick together.”
“You are always welcome at 221B Baker Street.”
He released my hand. “Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
I turned to go into the shop and patted my pockets. As I searched through the palmful of change I found, I laughed in relief at the discovery of a scuffed and scratched half crown, dated 1866.
Holmes was exactly where I had left him. I took off my hat and coat, then placed the counterfeit coin on the mantelpiece. I turned to face him and sighed. “That was every bit as uncomfortable as I anticipated.”
“You put him off? Good.” He held out his hand. I took it and knelt on the floor beside the settee. He squeezed my fingers. “Do you remember what we said yesterday, John?”
“Of course I do.” I looked into his steady grey eyes. “You said I only had to ask. Well, this is me asking. Will you have me?”
“Oh, my dearest, you have me already.” He smiled. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”
I stroked his hair, careful of the purpling bruise, leaned in and pressed my lips to his. My nervousness was soon replaced with a strange, electric excitement as he brought both hands up to cradle my face, and his lips chased mine when I held back. I closed my eyes and kissed him again, my lips parting at the slip of his tongue across them. I lost all sense of time, my existence contracting to this one sensation of joyful indulgence, until a sharp tap at the door warned us that our landlady was about to come in.
I sat back and pretended to be examining Holmes’s bandage. “Yes, that is perfectly secure,” I said as Mrs Hudson entered to clear away the tea tray.
As soon as the door closed, I leapt up to lock it then returned to Holmes’s side. “I rather think I would be more comfortable in my bed,” he said, a slight smile gracing his lips.
I gathered Holmes in my arms again and carried him to bed. I laid him down gently. “You’ve had an exhausting experience. Do you want to sleep?”
He eased himself over and held his hand out to me. “No. Lie beside me. I can think of any number of delightful things we could do to entertain each other.”
I actually considered refusing, but the sight of my dear Holmes with his hair in disarray, his eyes half-lidded and sporting a smile that I can only describe as wolfish proved too much for my weakened sense of propriety. Within a second or two I had convinced myself that having shared our living space for so long meant we might skip a few of the steps I might expect if courting a lady. I removed my jacket and my shoes.
“Don’t stop there,” Holmes said. “You will be far more comfortable without your waistcoat and trousers.”
“Would you have me strip?”
His hopeful grin was answer enough. I removed all but my undershirt and drawers, then lay at his good side, facing him. We kissed, slowly and deeply, hands roaming where we each had new permission to explore. I indulged my fascination with his face. He patiently allowed me to trace his features, to kiss his fine eyebrows and his sharp jawline, to stroke his slightly stubbled cheek with the backs of my fingers. In return his hands stroked and squeezed my deltoid and my biceps, my pectorals and my abdominal muscles. He found and felt the difference between healthy right and damaged left, fingers kneading at scar tissue that held no sensation for me.
I moved my hands down to his throat, his shoulders and his prominent collarbones. I followed my finger-trails with soft touches of my lips. He tensed, gasped and laughed as I discovered a spot below his ear and another in the hollow above his clavicle that gave him a pleasurable sensation when I teased with the point of my tongue.
“John,” he said at last. “If you are still up for frigging your flatmate, I am a more than willing participant.”
His reference to my earlier outburst affected me with a mixture of embarrassment and mirth. We both giggled for a few seconds. I was raised up a little, supported by one elbow on the mattress. We held each others’ gaze for a few seconds, smiling. “You want that?” I asked, heart hammering, a familiar hot tingle encouraging my own member, already half-hard from the delight of allowing my mind to wander to more lustful imaginings whilst kissing him.
“More than anything,” he replied.
“Then lie still, my dear. You must not strain your injury.”
“I place myself, literally, in your hands.”
I lay on my side, tucked against him, one hand resting on his chest, feeling the slight rise and fall of his breathing. He shifted under me so that I could use his shoulder as a pillow then curled his arm around my back, holding me against his side. I slowly slid my hand southwards and touched him through the thin fabric of his nightshirt. His hand stroked my cheek and he angled my face up for a kiss. I pushed myself up onto my elbow once more, thinking of his comfort as well as my own, and kissed him deeply as, one-handed, I pulled up his nightshirt and stroked his uninjured thigh. His silken skin was cool under my hand. I hoped my hand was not roughened and dry from the carbolic and iodine. He uttered only encouragement as my fingers crept higher until, as the tips of my fingers caressed his ballocks he let out a breathy, shuddering sigh.
I stilled. “Is this not—”
“Oh, for the love of God, don’t stop!”
Had he not been incapacitated, I would have thrown my leg over his to straddle him and taken both our members in hand. The thought of feeling his hot, hard length rubbing against my own sent such a surge of arousal through me that I may have whimpered.
He laughed. “My darling, my hot-blooded lover, don’t be shy. Oh, kiss me again! Use your barrack-room language.”
I blushed at his words. This was Holmes, the man I had admired - pointlessly I had thought - for years, not some comrade in need of a little mutual comfort. I resumed my gentle massage, his ballocks in my palm and my fingers teasing the sensitive seam of skin behind them. But I could not bring myself to use coarse words at such a moment, so I moved my hand to clasp his lovely prick and kissed away his gasps and moans as he clung around my shoulders.
Afterwards, he lay limp in my arms for about a minute, then repaid the favour with more enthusiasm than skill. I would not ask so personal a question even of my lover, but as we lay together sated, my head on his shoulder and my arm across his ribs, I wondered if this was the first such encounter he had experienced.
“You are thinking,” he said.
I realised he was peering comically at me from mere inches away. “I am thinking,” I replied, stroking his face and hair. “I am wondering what you like.”
“What I like? You know me better than anyone, my dear.”
“I meant… in bed. What gives you pleasure.”
He closed his eyes. “As you may already have concluded, my knowledge of carnal acts is almost entirely theoretical whereas you have experience that spans three continents. I rather think I will trust you to discover my desires through exploration.”
His smile turned impish and he regarded me through one barely-open eyelid. I scoffed. “Are you ever going to let me forget I said that?”
“Never. You are John of the Three Continents. Well now, there are a number of acts I think I may find pleasurable, and several that fill me with confusion as to why someone would willingly participate. For example…” he regarded me slyly again. “You alluded to blowing one’s bugle. I understand that is a barrack-room term for the stimulation of a certain very private part of a partner’s anatomy with the mouth. In due course I would like to experience that.”
He then described with precise anatomical details two acts that left him mystified as to their merits. Hearing Holmes describe acts of erotic pleasure in phrases that sounded like entries in a medical encyclopaedia cooled my ardour enough for me to realise that I was hungry.
“We should discuss this later. Do you think supper will be ready?”
“Not for another hour or so. I wonder if Lestrade will arrive in time for a share of Mrs Hudson’s curried lamb?”
“I doubt it after the embarrassing exchange we had in front of the tobacconist’s. Holmes… Sherlock.” I sighed. “If you thought Lestrade was your rival for my affections, why were you so encouraging of his visits?”
He laughed. “I did not for a moment consider him a rival. It was plain to me that you were uninterested in his advances. I assumed you were politely ignoring all his flirting at first, then I realised that you simply had not noticed it. I thought it kindest to put the man out of his misery.”
“Am I really so unobservant?”
“You are, my dear.” Holmes held me close and murmured in my ear, making my skin prick up with a delightful shiver. “How many times have I contrived to have us share a room at some out of the way inn or country house only for you to be the perfect embodiment of gentlemanly good manners?”
I looked at him with dawning comprehension.
“Five, at least,” he supplied.
“Oh my dearest… Why did you not simply say so? If I had known you were so inclined I would have been overjoyed.”
“For the same reasons as you did not simply say so, I expect.”
We lay in quiet contemplation for several minutes until Holmes became restless. I dressed myself then helped him through to the sitting room, acting as his crutch since he absolutely refused to be carried, claiming that wounded soldiers have walked on worse and lived. He was correct, of course, which weakened my argument to perhaps I simply like to show that I am stronger than you think. At this, Holmes made some uncharacteristically complimentary observations about my physical attributes and I suffered from an odd feeling of pride and bashfulness.
I brought a footstool to support his injured leg and we sat together on the settee. He rested his arm first upon the back of the settee behind me, then across my shoulders. I leaned against him and we soon fell into quiet conversation and soft kisses. I am sure we would have indulged one another again right there by the fire had there not been a sharp rap on the door and an equally sharp call of, “If you two want your suppers, you had better unlock your door!”
Lestrade did not call round that evening. Nor the next. By the third day, Holmes was thoroughly bored of being cooped up in our rooms and his brain chafed for exercise. His wound was healing as expected, with some inflammation and signs of a normal amount of infection that his own body was fighting off admirably - putting my persistent nightmare that I would have to amputate my lover’s gangrenous leg into perspective. I confess that there was one moment, when I was trying to write and Holmes was complaining vociferously about the lack of interesting scandal in the newspapers, that I was tempted to offer him a whiff of chloroform for his pain. He must have intuited my intent from my expression, for he gave me an hour of silence after that.
The morning of the next day brought a windswept Lestrade to our door. He had been in our sitting room for a mere minute when he looked from Holmes to me and back again, then smiled knowingly and shook his head. “I won’t stay long,” he said, accepting a cup of tea from Mrs Hudson. “I just thought you’d like an update. About the women.”
“So this was a family business?” Holmes asked, eyes alight with interest.
“The Mrs Olivers - older and younger - are coming to terms with the situation as best as can be hoped. The young wife was utterly unaware of her husband’s double life. The older woman, who knew her son as only a mother can, suspected him of some kind of illicit activity. She claims that she did not know what until Gregson’s men uncovered equipment for striking sovereigns concealed in a cavity within the walls of the house. She had readily agreed with my initial conclusion that he had gone abroad to find work because she did not want a police investigation to look too deeply into her son’s affairs.” Lestrade glanced at Holmes’s expression. “Yes, well. I expect she is still lying to us, but I am confident her only crime is in not reporting what little she knew. The two Mrs Olivers plan to move out of London, change their name and live quietly as two widows. The child young Mrs Oliver is carrying will be quite grown up before the father is released.”
“Thank you, inspector,” Holmes said. “Excuse me if I don’t get up to shake your hand.”
“Not at all.” Lestrade gave Holmes an informal salute. “I’ll see if there’s anything in my files that would benefit from your methods, if that is agreeable.”
I saw Lestrade to the street door and shook his hand. “Thank you. The sooner he has another case, the better.”
Lestrade smiled with warmth and squeezed my arm. “He’s lucky to have you, doctor. I hope one day I find a friendship like yours.”
With that, he held onto his hat and set off across the road, into the spring sunshine and away from 221B Baker Street. I returned to our cosy sitting room where the fire crackled merrily in defiance of the wind that howled across our chimney pots. Holmes sat with his pipe and the newspaper. Since his wound was healing nicely and there was no burning sensation or fever indicating a deeper infection, I had agreed that he may walk around our rooms with a cane for support. He joined me at the window and put his arm around me as Lestrade hurried around the corner.
“No hard feelings? Has the little inspector recovered from the loss of his hopes and dreams?”
“Really, Holmes.” I shook my head. “Gloating is beneath you.”
He laughed. “Confess that you were flattered to discover you had two admirers.”
“I flatter myself that I know you well enough to tell when you are simply looking for an argument,” I replied with a gentle prod to his ribs. “And I won’t be drawn into this one.”
He kissed my cheek, released me and walked carefully back to his armchair by the fire. I smiled at my skin’s memory of the fleeting touch as I watched the people hurry back and forward along our street. One person caught my eye: a man of perhaps fifty who might have been called well-dressed had it not looked like he had slept in his clothes and set off with no one to remind him to brush his wiry hair. He looked up and down the street then his eyes alighted on our door.
I sighed in relief as the unkempt man hurried across the street. “Look sharp,” I said to Holmes, meeting his enquiring gaze with a smile. “I think you have another client.”