We passed through Chelsea and into Fulham – or West Kensington as its residents insisted it be called. When we reached the hospital, I handed the reins to Perry who guided the horses with a happy smile on his face. We were proceeding more slowly now. It would be hours before the gaggle of inspectors at Scotland Yard could mount anything that resembled a search and there was no point drawing attention to ourselves. I called out to Colonel Moran and received a grunt by way of reply. It seemed he was still hanging on.
It took us the best part of an hour to reach Richmond Park, entering through Bishop’s Gate which I had chosen as it was not actually intended for public use. I wanted an open space and the park seemed ideal for what I had in mind. We drove into the largest field we could find with views all around us, the river concealed by the rise of the hill but the village clearly visible and the city far beyond. It was a glorious day, the spring sun finally shining and only a few puffs of cloud floating above the horizon. At last we stopped. Colonel Moran climbed down and walked round to the horses, at the same time stretching his arms.
‘Did you have to go so damned far?’ he demanded.
Ignoring him, I went to the back and opened the door. Clarence Devereux knew what his fate was to be. Even as the glare of the sunlight burst into the interior, he huddled away, hiding in a corner, covering his eyes. I did not speak to him. I climbed inside and dragged him out. I was certain that he carried no weapon and once he was in the open, he would be helpless, no better than a fish on dry land. Finally, I signalled to Perry who led the horses over to a clump of trees where a second carriage stood waiting. I had, of course, concealed it there earlier. It would now be his task to unhitch the horses and then to reconnect them. We had a long journey ahead of us, all the way to the south coast.
I stood there with my enemy grovelling on his knees. I knew that he could feel the breeze upon his cheeks. He could hear birdsong and understood well enough where he was even if he didn’t open his eyes. I still had the gun that I had used to kill Athelney Jones. Perry, too, was armed. There was little chance that we would be disturbed by strollers for the park was huge – two thousand three hundred and sixty acres, to be precise – and I had deliberately chosen an area that was remote. Nor did I intend to be here long.
Moran stood beside me, examining our prisoner with his usual blend of cruelty and contempt. With his bald forehead and huge moustache he did rather unfortunately resemble a villain out of a pantomime, but he was quite unaware of his appearance or perhaps indifferent to it. It struck me that although he had not been a pleasant man when we first met, he was getting worse, more irascible, as he grew older.
‘So what now, Professor?’ he asked. ‘I imagine you must be quite pleased with yourself.’
‘It all worked out very much as I expected,’ I admitted. ‘There was a moment when, despite everything, I thought the minister was not going to give his secretary over to us. Why do these people have to be so officious? Fortunately, the late Inspector Jones was able to circumvent this with one last display of genius. I will be forever grateful to him.’
‘I take it … this nasty little man … you’re going to kill him?’
‘Of course not! Do you really believe I would have gone to such extremes had that been my intention? I need him very much alive. I have always needed him alive. Otherwise my task would have been a great deal easier.’
‘Why?’
‘It will be some years before I can operate again in England, Colonel. First, I have to rebuild my organisation and that will take time. But even when that is done, I have a problem …’
‘Sherlock Holmes?’
‘No. He seems to have left the stage. But as surprised as I am to admit it, I must learn to beware of the police.’
‘They know who you are.’
‘Precisely. It won’t take them very long to work out what happened – even Lestrade might be able to bring the pieces together. And they’ve all seen me.’
‘You’ve sat amongst ’em and they’ve seen your face. You’ve killed one of their own. They’ll search for you, high and low.’
‘Which is why I must leave the country. The Vandalia leaves the port of Le Havre for New York in three days’ time. Perry and I will be on board and Mr Devereux will come with us.’
‘And then?’
I looked down at Devereux. ‘Open your eyes,’ I said.
‘No!’ He was a criminal mastermind, the greatest evil to have emerged from America. He had almost destroyed me. But at that moment he sounded like a child. His hands were pressed against his face and he was rocking back and forth, moaning to himself.
‘Open your eyes,’ I repeated. ‘If you wish to live, you will do it now.’ Very slowly, Devereux did as I said but he remained still, staring at the grass, too afraid to lift his head. ‘Look at me!’
It took him a huge effort but he obeyed and it occurred to me that he would continue obeying me for what remained of his life. He was crying. The tears were streaming from both his eyes and his nose. His skin was completely white. I had read certain papers about agoraphobia, a condition that had only been recognised quite recently, but I was fascinated to see its effect at such close quarters. Had I handed Devereux my revolver, I am not sure he would have been able to use it. He was paralysed with fear. At the same time, Perry reappeared from behind the trees, dragging with him a large steamer trunk. It was in this that Devereux would be making his journey.
‘Is he going in?’ he asked.
‘Not yet, Perry.’ I turned to Devereux. ‘Why did you have to come here?’ I asked him. ‘You had wealth and success in America. The forces of law, both public and private, were unable to reach you. You had your world and I mine. What made you think that by bringing them into collision you would cause anything but harm?’ Devereux tried to speak but could no longer formulate the words. ‘And what has been the result? So much bloodshed, so much pain. You have caused the deaths of my closest friends.’ I was thinking of Jonathan Pilgrim but also of Athelney Jones. ‘Worst of all, you have forced me to descend to your level, using methods which frankly I found distasteful. That is why I feel nothing but hatred for you and why one day you must die. But not today.’
‘What do you want?’
‘You wished to take over my organisation. Now I will take over yours. You leave me with no choice for, thanks to you, I am finished here. I therefore need to know the names of all your associates in America, all the people you have worked with, the street criminals and their masters. You will tell me everything you know about the crooked politicians, the lawyers, the judges, the press, the police – and about the Pinkertons too. England is a closed door for me for the time being but America is most certainly not. The new world! That is where I intend to re-establish myself. We have many days of travel ahead of us. By the end of it, you will have given me all the information I need.’
‘You are a devil!’
‘No. I am a criminal. The two are not at all the same … or so I thought, until I met you.’
‘Now?’ Perry asked.
I nodded. ‘Yes, Perry, I am already sick of the sight of him.’
Perry fell on Devereux with glee, binding and gagging him, then bundling him into the steamer trunk and closing the lid. Meanwhile, I spoke again with Moran.
‘I trust that you will come with us, Colonel,’ I said. ‘I am aware that you do not hold the country that is our destination in particularly high regard, but even so I will have need of your services.’
‘Will you pay?’
‘Of course.’
‘My fees will be doubled, if I’m to work abroad.’
‘They will be good value even at that price.’
Moran nodded. ‘I’ll join you in a month or two. Before that, I’m slipping out to India, to the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans. I’ve heard there are plenty of tigers at this time of the year. You’ll leave a message for me in the usual place? Once I’m back, I’ll wait to hear from you.’
‘Excellent.’
/> We shook hands. Then the three of us lifted the steamer trunk, now well secured, and placed it in the carriage. Finally, Perry and I climbed up together and, with the boy holding the reins, we set off down the hillside, heading for the River Thames. The sun was shining. I could smell the meadows all around and at that moment I was not thinking of crime, nor of the many triumphs that surely awaited me in America. No. For some unfathomable reason, my attention had turned to something quite different. I was considering the different solutions applicable to the Korteweg de Vries equation, a mathematical model I had long been intending to examine but for which I’d never had the time.
We bumped over the grass and came to a track. Perry was sitting happily beside me. Our guest, in his trunk, was in the back. And there was the river; a crystalline twist of blue in the soft green fields. With the different variables – x, t and ø – spinning in my head, I made my way down towards it.
ONE
It has never been my desire to write very much about my own affairs for I am well aware that it is only my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr Sherlock Holmes and the many insights that I have been afforded into his deductive methods that are of interest to the public at large. Indeed, it has often struck me that, but for our chance introduction, when I was looking for inexpensive lodgings in London, I would simply have followed my calling as a doctor of medicine and might never have set pen to paper at all.
And yet some aspects of what might be called my private life have, necessarily, appeared in these pages. Readers will, for example, be aware of the wound that I received at the decisive Battle of Maiwand and the frequent troubles that it caused me in my career. I believe I have had reason to mention my older brother, Henry, who having disappointed everyone in his life, none more so than himself, took to drink and died young. On a happier note, my marriage to Miss Mary Morstan, as she was when I met her, has been central to at least one of my narratives for I would never have met her had she not first presented herself as a client of Sherlock Holmes. I loved her from the very start and made no attempt to disguise the fact from my readers – and why should I have? We were married soon afterwards and, although our union was not to be a long one, we were as close to each other as it is possible for a man and a woman to be.
Our first home was in a quiet street close by Paddington Station: not perhaps the most elegant part of town, but one that was conducive to my return to civil practice. It was a pleasant house with a large, airy consulting room at street level and two further floors above, which my new wife decorated with both modesty and good taste. And yet I will confess that to find myself surrounded by all the hallmarks of domesticity, with everything in its right place and almost nothing surplus to requirement, caused me at first an uneasiness which was hard to define. Even the maid, a neat little creature who seemed determined to avoid me, inspired in me a vague sense of threat. It was a strange sensation. On the one hand I was completely happy, but at the same time I was uncomfortable, missing something without knowing exactly what it was.
It embarrasses me that I was not able to diagnose more quickly the source of my disquiet. The many months that I had spent at 221b Baker Street had of course left their mark on me. Quite simply, I was missing my old rooms. I might have complained often enough about Holmes’s abominable habits; his refusal to throw away a single document so that every surface was piled high with papers of one sort or another, his extraordinary untidiness with cigars in the coal scuttle, test tubes and flasks scattered amongst the breakfast things, bullets lined up along the window sill and tobacco stored in the toe of a Persian slipper. Well, I missed them now. How often had I gone to bed with the sound of Holmes’s Stradivarius winding its way up the stairs, or risen to the scent of his first morning pipe? And added to this was the bizarre array of visitors who beat a path to our front door – the grand duke from Bohemia, the typist, the schoolteacher, or, of course, the harassed inspector from Scotland Yard.
I had seen little of Sherlock Holmes in the year following my marriage. I had stayed away perhaps purposefully for there was a part of me that worried that my new wife might take it amiss if I went in search of a life I had left behind. I was also, I will admit, concerned that Sherlock Holmes himself might have moved on. There was a part of me that dreaded to find a new lodger in my place, although Holmes’s finances were such that he would have had no need to continue such an arrangement. I said nothing of this, but my dear Mary already knew me better than I thought for one evening she broke off from her needlework and said, ‘You really must visit Mr Holmes.’
‘What on earth makes you think of him?’ I asked.
‘Why, you do!’ she laughed. ‘I could see that he was on your mind a moment ago. Do not deny it! Just now, your eye settled on the drawer where you keep your service revolver and I noticed you smile at the recollection of some adventure you had together.’
‘You are very much the detective, my dear. Holmes would be proud of you.’
‘And he will, I am sure, be delighted to see you. You must visit him tomorrow.’
I needed no further prompting and, having dealt with the few patients who had come to my door, I set off the following afternoon, planning to arrive in time for tea. The summer of ’89 was a particularly warm one and the sun was beating down as I made my way along Baker Street. Approaching my old lodgings I was surprised to hear music, and moments later came upon a small crowd gathered round a dancing dog that was performing tricks for its master who was accompanying it on the trumpet. Such entertainers could be found all over the capital although this one had strayed some distance from the station. I was forced to step off the pavement and make my way round in order to enter the familiar front door where I was greeted by the boy in buttons who led me upstairs.
Sherlock Holmes was languishing in an armchair with the blinds half drawn and a shadow across his forehead reaching almost to his eyes. He was evidently pleased to see me, for he greeted me as if nothing had changed and as if I had never really been away. Slightly to my regret, however, I saw that he was not alone. My old chair on the other side of the fireplace was taken by a burly, sweating figure whom I recognised at once as Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, the detective whose wrong-footed assumptions and subsequent actions had caused us both irritation and amusement when we were investigating the murder of Bartholomew Sholto at Pondicherry Lodge. Seeing me, he sprang up as if to leave but Holmes hastily reassured him. ‘You have timed your visit quite perfectly, my dear Watson,’ he said. ‘I have no doubt you will remember our friend, Inspector Jones. He arrived just a few moments before you and was about to consult me on a matter of the greatest delicacy – or so he assured me.’
‘I am quite happy to come back if it is not, after all, convenient,’ Jones demurred.
‘Not at all. I confess that I have found it increasingly difficult to rouse myself without the friendship and good counsel of my own Boswell. Take the Trepoff murder, for example, or the strange behaviour of Dr Moore Agar – in both instances it was only through purest chance that I prevailed. You have no objection, Watson, to hearing what the inspector has to say?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Then it is agreed.’
But before Jones could begin, the door opened and Mrs Hudson bustled in carrying a tray laden with tea, scones, a small plate of butter and a seed and currant cake. The pageboy must have informed her of my arrival, for I noticed that she had included a third cup but, casting his eye over the spread, Holmes came to a very different conclusion.
‘I see, Mrs Hudson, that you were unable to resist the charms of the street entertainer who has chosen our doorstep for his performance.’
‘It is true, Mr Holmes,’ the good woman replied, blushing. ‘I heard the music and did watch for a while from an upstairs window. I was going to call out to them to move on but the dog was so amusing and the crowd so good-natured that I thought better of it.’ She scowled. ‘But I cannot see what it is on my tea tray that could possibly have given you any informati
on concerning my movements.’
‘It is of no great importance,’ Holmes laughed. ‘The tea looks excellent and, as you can see, our good friend Watson is here to enjoy it.’
‘And a great pleasure it is to see you again, Dr Watson. The house isn’t the same without you.’
I waited for Mrs Hudson to leave before turning to my friend. ‘You will forgive me, Holmes,’ I said. ‘But I cannot see how you could have drawn such a conclusion from a plate of scones and a seed cake.’
‘Neither of them told me anything,’ Holmes replied. ‘It was in fact the parsley that Mrs Hudson has placed on top of the butter.’
‘The parsley?’
‘It has been placed there only a minute ago. But the butter has been out of the pantry and in the sun. You will see that it has melted in this warm weather.’
I looked down. It was indeed the case.
‘The parsley has not sunk into the butter, which suggests an interval of time during which Mrs Hudson was interrupted in her duties. Apart from the arrival of my two visitors, the only distraction has been the music and the applause of the crowd outside.’
‘Astonishing!’ Jones exclaimed.
‘Elementary,’ Holmes returned. ‘The greater part of my work is founded upon just such observations as these. But we have more serious business at hand. You must tell us, Inspector, what it is that brings you here. And meanwhile, Watson, might I inveigle upon you to pour the tea?’
I was happy to oblige and, while I set about my work, Athelney Jones began his narrative, which I set down as follows.
‘Early this morning, I was called out to a house in Hamworth Hill, in North London. The business that had brought me there was a death by misadventure, not a murder – that had been made clear to me from the start. The house was owned by an elderly couple, a Mr and Mrs Abernetty, who lived there alone, for they had never had children. They had been woken up at night by the sound of breaking wood and had come downstairs to discover a young man, darkly dressed, rifling through their possessions. The man was a burglar. There can be no doubt of that for, as I would soon discover, he had broken into two other houses in the same terrace. Seeing Harold Abernetty standing at the doorway in his dressing gown, the intruder rushed at him and might well have done him serious harm. But as it happened, Abernetty had brought down with him a revolver, which he always kept close by, fearing just this eventuality. He fired a single shot, killing this young man at once.