Warlock Holmes E-Book

G. S. Denning

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Warlock Holmes
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 491

Beschreibung

"If you ever wondered how much better Sherlock would be if people could hurl hellfire at each other, well this one is for you." Starburst Magazine on A Study in Brimstone Warlock Holmes may have demons in his head, but now Dr. John Watson has a mummy in his bloodstream. Specifically that of the sorcerer Xantharaxes, who when shredded and dissolved in an 8% solution, results in some extremely odd but useful prophetic dreams. There's also the small matter of Watson falling for yet another damsel-du-jour, and Warlock deciding that his companion needs some domestic bliss…

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by G.S. Denning and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Adventure of the Noble Arse-Face

The Toymaker

The Adventure of Beppo vs. Napoleon (A Fight in Six Rounds)

The Devil and the Neophyte

The Adventure of Black Peter Blackguard McNotVeryNice

The Gang

The Adventure of the Ring of Red Faction

The Detective

The Sign of Nine

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Acknowledgments

About the Author

By G. S. Denning and available from Titan Books

WARLOCK HOLMES

A Study in Brimstone

The Hell-hound of the Baskervilles

My Grave Ritual

The Sign of Nine

The Finality Problem (April 2020)

TITAN BOOKS

Warlock Holmes: The Sign of NinePrint edition ISBN: 9781785659362E-book edition ISBN: 9781785659379

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: May 201910 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© 2019 G. S. Denning Illustrations © 2019 Sean Patella-Buckley

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To Jill and Clifford McCloewhose kindness I have repaid by ruiningCliff ’s name forever.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE ARSE-FACE

DEAR READER, HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN ME?

If you have followed this dreary tale from its start, you have now consumed the volume wherein my strange adventure began. Thence on to the volume in which I came into my own as an adventurer and detective (and learned something of the nature of the man who had started me upon my path). Most recently came the volume dominated by our foes—when Moriarty and Adler came back into our lives to bring us defeat upon defeat.

And now?

What fresh apocalyptic treat have I for you now?

This is the volume of my shame. Perhaps my own sun has never reached a very high zenith, but in this volume, it is at its dimmest and most flickering. So close to failure, personal defeat, degradation and dishonor. There is nobody to blame but myself. Nobody to thank for my deliverance except Holmes and—oh, I shudder to say it—the hated Mary Morstan. Part of this volume is not even the chronicle of my actions, but merely of my dreams. A strange inclusion, to be sure, but I would not have bothered you with them had they been at all… natural.

How this volume commences depends upon one’s point of view. I suppose it could be said that it starts with me, poisoned by a kiss, splayed unconscious across the sweat-reeking sheets of my bed at 221B Baker Street. Yet, that is not how it seemed to me.

To me, it seemed, I was on a ship. And not just any ship, but the one Britain loved best: HMS Victory, on the finest hour of our nation’s finest day.

Drawing a breath of the clear salt air, I raised the spyglass to my eye and squinted at the wall of wood, guns and sail that lay before me—the entire combined French and Spanish fleet. Poor bastards… I had them right where I wanted them.

“We should turn,” said a miserable little voice from behind me.

“I will not!” I said, with a grim laugh. “You know the plan: we go straight at them. We break their line of battle. This is a new kind of tactic—one designed to guarantee a decisive engagement.”

“But… we’ll all be killed!”

“Your opinion has already been noted, Mr. Lestrade.”

Through my glass, I could see my target clearly: the French flagship Bucentaure. I smiled. “Able Seaman Holmes?”

“Aye, Watson?”

I turned to the tall figure beside me, lowered my voice and said, “You are supposed to address me as ‘Vice Admiral’.”

“Aye, Vice Admiral?”

“Give me seven degrees starboard rudder; I want to come through just behind their flagship.”

“Eh? Seven whats of what, what?”

“Look, just turn the helm that way a little bit,” I said, pointing to my right. “See the big pretty ship over there?”

Able Seaman Holmes’s reverent “Oooooooooooh” gave me to know he did.

“I want to come in right behind it. Her stern is weakest. She is commanding the entire enemy fleet. We’re going to hit them right in the admiral.”

“Aye, aye, Watson!”

Close enough. Scanning the deck for a moment, I located my over-aged, oversized cabin boy and shouted, “Mr. Grogsson!”

“Whut?”

“I know it is not your area of expertise, but I am placing you in charge of the gun crews. The ideal commander for this engagement, I feel, will have exactly your level of discretion.”

“Disc-whut?”

“Exactly. Just down that hatch, if you please. Make ready the guns and await my order.”

“M’kay.”

He jumped down the hatch I indicated and assumed command with a few well-chosen words. “All right, boys! Dis is gonna be great! Stick da guns out!”

The bangs of the wooden gun-ports slamming open told me Victory was ready for battle. And just in time. Since our bow was to the enemies’ broadsides, they were able to fire well before us. I grinned to see how disorganized and ineffective their fire was. Their fleet was already in disarray as individual commanders lowered sail or turned, trying to decide how best to cope with my novel tactic.

My drooping bosun gave a deep sigh from beneath his preposterously large sunhat. “You know,” he said, “there may still be time to turn…”

“Mr. Lestrade!” I thundered. “This is not the hour for cowards! Now for England! Now for Victory!”

“Sure… But I’m just not comfortable—”

“Then here is a task that might suit you better. Get to the signal flags, Mr. Lestrade, and send the fleet the following message: England Expects Every Man to Kick a Fat Load of Arse!”

He paused. Blinked. Muttered, “I’m just not sure we have the proper flags to express that exact sentiment.”

“We do,” I told him. “I sewed them myself. Now off with you, Mr. Lestrade. Hop to!”

To my south, I could see the second column, led by Collingwood’s Royal Sovereign, drawing near the enemy. He’d pulled well forward of the rest of his ships, straining to be first into the fight. Not before me, Collingwood. I looked behind me. Temeraire and Neptune were with me. England’s wooden killers bore down upon their prey.

Below me, I could hear Grogsson’s expansive bass, urging, “Steady, boys… steady…”

And, with a final swish of sail, we blew to our place. To our starboard, the middle section of the combined fleet, pulling up sail, desperate to avoid collision. To our port, the vulnerable stern of Bucentaure.

“Mr. Grogsson! Now!”

From belowdecks came a thunderous “GRAAAAAAH!” By which, one supposes, he meant “fire”.

“G-doom!” went the first of our guns, followed by its fellows. The air filled with smoke and noise and flying embers. The French fleet were in utter disarray, cannonballs bouncing off them in every direction.

Yep.

Just…

Just bouncing right off.

Every single goddamned shot.

“Oh…” I said. “Oh, I see… erm… We’re sure about that, are we? No holes in anyone’s… No? No damage at all?”

My guns, now empty, fell silent. My sailors fell silent too, staring in disbelief at the perfectly intact fleet that faced us.

The French sailors were quiet as well, mouths agape at their good luck. But only for a moment—then their ships erupted with triumphant cheering, followed by an ominous creak as hundreds of cannons were aimed, pretty much, right at my face.

“I do think I warned you,” Bosun Lestrade noted.

“No!” I cried. “My plan was sound! How could…? I mean…? What kind of wood are they growing in France, nowadays?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Are there any further futile orders you would like me to convey?”

“Um… reload?”

Apparently I intended to lay a second row of non-holes in the French ships. Yet, even as I despaired at my lack of reasonable recourse, I felt a jaunty tap upon my shoulder. Turning, I beheld the smiling face of Able Seaman Holmes, who piped up, “You know, it might be better if you don’t. I know a little trick! Watch…”

Dragging me to the rail, he directed my attention down towards my useless, smoking cannons. He pointed his finger at the nearest of these and said, “Pop.”

Instantly, the empty cannon jerked backwards, emitting a terrible squeal as if somebody were twisting 10,000 nails in half, just beside my ear. A brilliant bolt of purple fire shot forth, catching Bucentaure just above her rudder. The bolt tore through, into the interior of the ship, from which issued cries of dismay and pain.

“Pop, pop, pop!” Holmes added, joyfully. Three more of my guns sent howling purple hellfire tearing into the French vessel. I couldn’t see exactly what happened inside, but it must have been bad, for we could see purple flashes of secondary and tertiary explosions through the remaining windows of her stern gallery. Sailors poured out, jumping from every deck and gun-port. A second later, her magazine went up and the great flagship sagged into the sea.

Holmes paid no attention. Looking down at two of my port guns, he said, “Frip, frip!” and the three-ton cannons effortlessly swung their muzzles, one fore, one aft. “Pop, pop!” Holmes added and both discharged a screaming hellshot. One hit a hapless frigate, just off our port stern. The other arched up and across the battlefield, screaming past fifteen or twenty targets, until it smashed into the very first ship in the French line.

And so it went. “Pop, pop! Frip-pop! Frip, frip, frip, poppity-pop!” until all fifty-two guns on the Victory’s port side were empty. Or… re-empty. Then he traipsed over to the starboard side and did it again.

It took less than two minutes, I am sure. A hundred and four shots. A hundred and four hits. Ship after ship, burning with demonic fires while their crews screamed and threw themselves into the sea.

Able Seaman Holmes had just laid waste to the entirety of the combined French and Spanish fleet. Only one ship remained to them, Redoutable—a notable omission, since it was right off our starboard bow and bearing straight for us. Why she did not run, or strike her colors, I will never know. Perhaps she was commanded by some kind of French Grogsson. As she neared, I could see that her captain had lined her decks and rigging with musketeers—not a bad strategy, at such close quarters.

And, from somewhere far outside my dream, certain thoughts started to intrude. I was meant to be Nelson, wasn’t I? But Nelson hadn’t actually survived the Battle of Trafalgar, had he? No, I seemed to recall he’d been felled by a marksman sat in the rigging of… Oh! Redoutable, wasn’t it? If memory served, he’d been shot in the shoulder. Just like me, in Afghanistan. However, unlike me, he’d also had his spine severed. So, I guess there was that to look forward to.

I believe I began to perspire.

“Um… Holmes?” I said, pulling at the helmsman’s sleeve.

“Yes, Vice Admiral?” he asked.

“Er…” I pointed up at the big French warship.

“Oh, that?” he scoffed. “Never mind that.” Stepping back along the rail, he took up the handle of one of the tiny starboard swivel-guns. Holmes tipped the barrel down towards the sea and began rhythmically spanking the side of the gun, humming a happy little sea-ditty as Redoutable neared. From within the swivel-gun came a soft, rolling, grinding noise as the glorified musket ball within her started to slide forward. At last it fell from the muzzle and plopped into the sea. “Ahha!” said Holmes, then swung the gun upwards and added, “Pop!”

“Pop!” agreed the gun, then “Scrreeeeeeeeeeee!” as a little ball of purple fire arched forth and caught the mighty French ship straight in the center of her bow. The tiny fire tore through and burst, somewhere deep inside. The entire forecastle of Redoutable sagged to one side and fell into the sea. On all three of her now-visible decks, we could see sailors running this way and that in confusion as purple flame ravaged every surface.

The day was ours. Unequivocally, completely, costlessly ours.

No cry of triumph broke from our ranks.

The air was swollen with the sound of five hundred and fifty mariners just gawping at each other.

Then a chipper voice called out, “Three cheers for Vice Admiral Watson!”

Nobody did. Instead, eleven hundred eyes turned to Able Seaman Holmes and silently wondered why anyone would suggest such a thing.

Yet Holmes’s spirits were never so easily dampened. He slapped me on the back and piped up, “Congratulations, Vice Admiral! An inspired tactical maneuver! They never stood a chance!”

“Er… no…” I managed through parched lips. “I suppose they never did.”

“Hurrah for Watson’s victory!” Holmes suggested, to renewed silence.

“Yes. Well… I’m not sure we can call it entirely my victory, can we?”

“Of course we can! And we do! Right, everybody? Watson! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!” cheered Holmes, convincing absolutely nobody.

Through the foggy silence of my sailors, I heard a voice from far away, saying, “Watson, I need you!”

“Eh?” I said, turning to Able Seaman Holmes. “Did you say something?”

“Watson, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?”

“No, no, it sounded like…”

And again, across the great gulf came a voice that sounded just like Able Seaman Holmes, saying, “Watson! Watson! Watson! Watson! I’m sorry to wake you, but everybody with a brain knows you’re not dead. Now, I don’t mind letting you sleep away a defeat—you know I don’t—but a situation has arisen that requires diplomacy, and we both know I haven’t got any! Please, Watson, please! I need you!”

And the ship was gone. I threw aside the heavy veil of my dream and opened my eyes to find Warlock Holmes leaning over my bed, repeatedly slapping my forehead.

“Watson! Watson! Watson! Watson!”

“Ow! Holmes! What are you…?” My voice was weak and hoarse—a barely audible croak. “Oh, I just had the most wonderful, vivid dream!”

“Of course you did. Remember how weird your dreams were after you accidentally smoked part of that sorcerer’s mummy? Being exposed to great magic always causes prophetic dreams. Or shows great secrets. Or other stuff like that. And I don’t know if you know it, but you’ve been flat on your back in a magical coma. I’ve no idea what put you there.”

“Irene Adler,” I said. “She had poisoned lip-rouge.”

“Oh, did she now?” Holmes asked, raising his eyebrows. “Well done, you sly dog, you!”

“Not too well done, I should think. She’s beaten me again,” I muttered. “Wait! Holmes, you said coma? How long have I been out?”

“Oh, two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“But never mind that, Watson! Get up and help me!”

“Get up? Just like that? Certainly not, Holmes! If I have been lying here, unable to take food or water for two weeks, why I must be practically…”

“Dead” was the word I had intended, yet as I moved my limbs experimentally back and forth underneath the bedclothes, I found them to be… fine.

Just fine.

I was a bit thirsty, to be sure, but otherwise I had no complaint. Not even a headache. Gobstruck, I turned to Holmes and wondered, “How is this possible? What have you done to me?”

“Oh, do you want to see? It’s wonderful! Wait right here!”

With that, he ran out of my bedroom and into the corridor. I couldn’t see where he went, but a series of bangs and clatters testified to his energetic activity. Some moments later he returned, clutching a strange brass contraption and—bless him—a glass of water.

“Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Now, drink up and look at this: a real runcible amphigory!”

The device he gave me was queer in the extreme. It was an oblong brass pot, suspended over a single-candle burner. It had an opening at the top, like a teapot, and a handle like one as well. Yet, where one would have expected the spout, there was only a coil of copper piping, from which dangled a rubber tube. A queer set of scales was suspended over the open top, with one side cleverly hinged so as to allow the user to tip its contents easily into the body of the pot. As an instrument for mixing ingredients, I admired the ease with which it allowed its user to achieve precision—admirable in any scientific device. Clearly, no small amount of thought and clarity of design had gone into the creation of… whatever this was.

Holmes must have seen my consternation, for he proudly declared, “What you are holding in your hands, Watson, is the absolute peak of seventeenth-century Moldovan medical and alchemical technology!”

“Indeed? Well, that’s… erm… rather faint praise, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no! It’s marvelous! I saw it down at Brombert’s House of Curios in Covent Garden some weeks ago and I’d been thinking of picking it up for some time. When you fell unconscious… well… I was almost happy to have the excuse. It’s a most useful little device for keeping incapacitated people alive. You just drain some of the person’s blood and pour it in here—”

“What? You’ve been draining my blood?”

“Me? No, no. I’ve no art for it. Lestrade has been draining your blood.”

Holmes pointed. I shifted my gaze in the direction he indicated, pulled back the covers and beheld my right arm. The sleeve of my nightshirt had been messily torn away to expose the full length of my limb to the vampiric administrations of Scotland Yard’s second-least-popular detective inspector. Dozens of horrific fang-marks lined my skin, from my biceps down to the tips of my fingers.

“Aaaaagh!”

“Always nice to have a specialist on hand,” said Holmes. “Once you’ve got the blood, you get whatever you want to infuse into it and measure it in this little scale. Food, medicine, whatever is needed, although you can’t go over seven percent by weight. Then you light the candle and boil the blood until the infusion is dissolved. When it’s ready, it drips out of this hose here, and you just inject it back in.”

Holmes now indicated the hollow of my left elbow, which—in my horror over the fate of my other arm, I had failed to realize—bore a grapefruit-sized swelling.

“Aaaaaagh!”

“Ah, yes… Sorry about that,” said Holmes. “I went out to help Lestrade on a case, last night, you see, and we left you to Grogsson. It turns out that a seven percent solution is quite a bit more than is needed for most medicines, but it isn’t much food. I’m absolutely certain we told Grogsson not to try to inject the entirety of the beef Wellington in one go. But you know how excited he gets. Still, no harm done, eh? Here you are, hale and hearty!”

“There’s an entire beef Wellington in my arm?”

“Oh, I suspect Grogsson may have had a bite or two, but—”

“No, no, no! This is all impossible, Holmes! Blood cannot be made to dissolve beef Wellington. Nor can it be boiled and then returned—still functional—into the human body. And you expect my immune system to digest an entire dinner, which you insist has been inserted subcutaneously? Preposterous!”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Really now, Watson! After all you’ve seen in my company—all you’ve experienced—you’ve still no faith in me? Still no imagination?”

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, if the state of my imagination does not command as much of my concern as the state of my bloodyarms!”

“That isn’t the point, Watson. The point is that you are alive and well and ready to get out of bed, because look who’s coming at four o’clock and I don’t know what to do!”

Holmes removed a card from his jacket pocket and held it in front of my face.

“Lord Robert St. Simon?” I asked. “Who is that?”

“He’s this horrifyingly important fellow I’ve been working for,” said Holmes, throwing up his arms in exasperation. “He’s a lord! And apparently a saint. I’ve been helping with his wedding. Only, there seems to have been a bit of a mix-up with his new bride, who sort of vanished in the middle of the wedding breakfast. It’s in all the papers. I’ve saved a pile of them for you.”

I sighed. “What o’clock is it?”

“I don’t know… about a quarter after two, I should think.”

“We haven’t much time. He’ll be expecting tea.”

“Why?”

“Because four o’clock is teatime, Holmes. I’ll see if I can get myself cleaned up a bit. You run out for scones and a pot of jam, then make some tea, won’t you?”

“But how?”

“You can keep a fellow alive for two weeks via the intravenous administration of beef Wellington, but you can’t make tea?”

He shrugged.

“Fine. Just get the scones, all right?”

* * *

By “I saved a pile of newspapers for you”, Holmes had apparently meant, “I have been reading the newspapers for the last two weeks and leaving bits of them everywhere. Oh, and I made hats out of some of them.” The sitting room was in a dreadful state. Interspersed amongst the newspapers and plates of toast-crusts and soup bowls were numerous scrolls of a magical and distinctly waterlogged appearance.

“Holmes, what are all these?”

“Remember that sea monster who promised me information on soul-binding magics if I could save his wedding from Irene Adler?”

“Yes.”

“Well, those are them. Or… those are they? Anyway, Watson, they are fascinating! Real magic, achievable within this realm, without having to call on the help of outside entities. Can you imagine? To be able to use magic without damaging our world! Wouldn’t that be great? So I’ve been practicing and practicing with them for the last two weeks!”

Much as I dreaded the prospect of Holmes teaching himself new magics, I had other matters at hand. I dug into the pile of discarded newspapers, searching for background on my pending visitor.

The first thing I found was a column from a few Wednesdays ago, stating that Lord Robert St. Simon would wed Hatty Doran of San Francisco, California, a week from Saturday at the Church of St. George, Hanover Square. That was all. Given the illustrious parentage of the groom, the announcement was brief, to say the least. One might be tempted to say “clipped”. One might also note the suspicious proximity of the announcement to the event itself. This, perhaps, was an attempt to stop the local wags from commenting on the possible motivations of the groom.

Which it had absolutely failed to do. The next bit I found was a rather opinionated opinion piece wherein the writer could not help but wonder what was wrong with England’s ladies that our eligible titled must be forced to the act of importation. Were there not sufficient twenty-three-year-old beauties to please the forty-one-year-old, as-yet-unmarried second sons of our dukes? Might Lord St. Simon’s particular choice have something to do with the rumors of his family’s failing finances and the fact that Hatty’s father—Aloysius Doran—owned about half the gold that had ever been found in California? The writer felt guilty for having assigned such a base motive to so illustrious a personage and had sought clarification from Lord St. Simon’s father, the Duke of Balmoral. Sadly, the old fellow could not be reached for comment as he was otherwise engaged: selling off the family’s art collection as fast as was humanly possible.

And then the papers fairly exploded. There was not a single London daily that did not hover—with salacious abandon—over the strange events surrounding Lord St. Simon’s nuptials and the subsequent brevity of his wedded bliss. From what I could gather, the wedding was carried off without a hitch, St. George’s being open to the public at the time (which may have said something about the state of the duke’s finances). Following the service, the wedding party retired to a furnished house—rented by Aloysius Doran—for the wedding breakfast. Apparently, there were two signs of trouble. First, the bride—who had previously appeared happy and eager for the union—displayed considerable consternation once the vows had been exchanged. Secondly, the gates of the house were besieged by a mysterious woman of low character, who said she had some claim on Lord St. Simon. This lady was escorted away with considerable alacrity and the wedding breakfast began. Just a few minutes in, the new Lady St. Simon had begged a moment to freshen up, stepped away from the table, and disappeared.

Her long-time maid claimed to have seen her mistress slip upstairs, throw a duster over her wedding dress, pop a Stetson on her head, and jump out of the upstairs window. Then again, the maid was American so her opinion was disregarded, in accordance with the acknowledged best practice regarding all American opinions.

The English public was quite taken with the story and had joined in with careless abandon. The missing bride had been spotted several times, in locations ranging from a merchant steamer bound for Calais, to a shallow grave in Dublin. One overenthusiastic gentleman claimed to have found her disembodied fingers in a tin of pickled herring. He even displayed the proof. Yet, as the gentleman in question had three freshly missing digits, his evidence was regarded as little more than a desperate and medically inadvisable plea for attention.

I had got thus far when I was interrupted by an imperious knock on the door of our rooms and the voice of Mrs. Hudson, stridently shrieking, “Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon, scion of House Plantagenet and of House Tudor, wronged, slandered and possibly single, to see Mr. Warlock Holmes!”

From her tone, I could tell she had heard of Lord St. Simon’s recent misfortunes, become just as obsessed as the rest of the general public, and was more than willing to personally assuage any loneliness his Lordship might be feeling. I rose with a sigh, went to the door, swung it wide and said, “Ah, Lord St. Simon, do come in.”

Lord St. Simon was… well… one hates to say it, after only one brief glance at a person, but… Lord St. Simon was rather horrible. He had sallow skin and milky, lazy eyes brimming with judgment. His clothing was impeccable: a black frock coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, lightcolored gaiters and golden spectacles dangling by a cord from his right hand with a particular air of moneyed nonchalance that I’m sure he must have practiced in the mirror. He had absolutely no jawline and no chin. It was as if these two features had one day declared, “We are traditional symbols of manliness and therefore wish nevermore to be associated with this awful, awful fop.” They had then buggered off, leaving the featureless expanse below Lord St. Simon’s lower lip to slope gently away, until that point—unique to each observer—where it must cease being “face” and start being “neck”. He had that aristocratic habit of holding his head high, which would not have been so bad if he had not also possessed one of those short, piggy little noses that angles up at the bottom. The combination ensured that anybody who was speaking to him was forced to stare directly into his nostrils the entire time. He had a tangled, thorny profusion of nose hairs that bristled aggressively at me. I was almost glad for them; otherwise, I think I might have been able to see all the way to the back of his skull. He regarded me for the barest instant, then said, “Who are you?”

“I am Warlock Holmes’s companion. My name is Dr. John Watson.”

“And what exactly is wrong with your arm?”

Though I had managed to force my shirtsleeve over the unwanted Wellington-lump, I had no means of concealing it. The seams bulged and strained.

“A passing malady,” I said.

He hesitated upon the threshold.

“And by ‘malady’ I mean ‘injury’,” I said. “It is assuredly not contagious.”

He gave a snort of grudging acceptance, which made his nose hairs waggle straight out at me, and stepped inside.

“Will you take tea?” I asked.

“I will.”

At this point, Holmes emerged sheepishly from his room and muttered, “Oh, Saint Lord! So good to see you again. Um… what brings you by?”

Lord St. Simon gave a sideways glance at the pile of crumpled newspapers and replied, “I believe you know.”

“Oh yes! I heard about that,” said Holmes. “Bad luck. Yes, just… bad luck, indeed.”

“Luck, you say? Are you sure it wasn’t the work of evil spirits?”

“What? Hey! Why would you think that? No, no, no!” Holmes stammered.

With a polite cough I wondered, “Lord St. Simon, do you have reason to suspect the involvement of evil spirits?”

“Only that I hired this buffoon to keep them away and he cannot seem to do anything right!”

“Yet why hire anybody to so strange a purpose, if there was no perceived danger?” I pressed.

“Oh, it is a family tradition. Always have a clever solicitor examine any addition to the family to make sure it is legally advisable. Always have your most trusted accountant make sure it is financially sound. Always have a sorcerer on hand to make sure no invisible forces are arrayed against you. Silly, I know. But my distant relative, Queen Elizabeth, kept John Dee about and if it was good enough for her, well…”

“Indeed,” I acceded.

“The only problem is,” said Lord St. Simon, with a wet, hairy sniff, “it’s getting rather hard to find sorcerers! Not so many lying about as there used to be, are there? One is forced to make do with whatever second-rate refuse one can find!”

“Hey!” said Holmes.

“And you are now convinced evil spirits have crossed your marriage?”

“What other explanation is there?” he demanded. “I am a prize, sir. Everybody knows my older brother shall never marry. My father is elderly and will not live long. What is the result? Any who think to wed me know that they will presently be wife to a duke. Why should any woman chase such a prize, obtain it, and abandon it in the instant of her purest happiness?”

“Why indeed?” I asked, somewhat dryly. I’ll confess that only a few minutes in Lord St. Simon’s company had been quite enough to suggest one or two motivations for spousal withdrawal that Lord St. Simon himself perhaps lacked the perspective to observe. “And it is your intention, I presume, to secure Mr. Holmes’s aid in discovering the fate of your wife?”

“It is my intention, sir, to see justice done!” He turned to Holmes and sneered, “I’ll see you hang for witchcraft.”

“Oh, no, no,” I said. “Surely that law is not still on the statute.”

“Sir,” said Lord St. Simon, haughtily, “this is England!”

Holmes gave me a look of some urgency.

“Yes, well… it’s so hard to prove evil demonic influence in a court of law, you know?” I said. “And there are so many mundane explanations as to what might have occurred. Perhaps the machinations of a jealous rival? Perhaps the severity of her sudden happiness overcame her wit and plunged her into madness!”

“I have considered that,” Lord St. Simon admitted.

“Yes, I’ll bet you have,” I said. “You know, Holmes and I have unraveled more than a few mysteries such as this. Would it not be wiser to see if we can determine the fate of your bride before we involve the courts?”

Our visitor hesitated, his nose hairs waving doubtfully back and forth.

“And of course we must consider the public exposure of your belief in evil spirits, which such a trial would involve. Imagine the mockery by the common rabble!”

Lord St. Simon went white.

Well…

Whiter.

“I am not accustomed to sharing the intimate details of my personal misfortunes…”

“Of course, yet these are desperate times, are they not? Here, just sit down, Lord St. Simon, and tell me about Lady St. Simon, née Hatty Doran. What kind of woman is she?”

“Not… not the type of woman I expected to wed,” he said with an uncomfortable wince as he settled into one of our chairs. “And yet, not without her charms. Be assured, gentlemen, I would not have bestowed upon her the name it is my honor to bear if I did not think she were—at heart—a gentlewoman. Yet she is American, you know. The daughter of a mining baron. And her father’s rise to prominence is so recent that she grew to adulthood in mining camps and the wilderness, rather than in a proper genteel environment. I have a picture of her here…”

Lady St. Simon’s face could hardly have provided a greater contrast to her new husband’s. Here was a woman in the flower of youth and happiness. True, the unrelenting California sun had placed a few premature wrinkles, yet they were clustered at the corners of her mouth and eyes and told that here was a woman who liked to smile. Indeed, she had eschewed the custom of staring dourly at the camera and had given the photographer a funny, one-sided grin. It was as if the camera had snapped just as she’d finished saying, “Hey, wanna play catch?” I found the lady irresistibly charming.

“And how did a person such as this come to your attention?” I wondered.

“Through our fathers,” Lord St. Simon said. “You see, as a young man, her father, Aloysius Doran, was… well, he was named Aloysius Doran. It’s rather a hard name to bear in a mining camp. All the other fellows were running about with names like Jack Bootstrap and Dick Puncher, from what I gather. Everyone always expected Mr. Doran to be a great deal fancier than he actually was, and once he’d made his fortune, matters got worse. He had the name and he had the money, but he had no manners, no breeding, and no connections. He needed to join his family to another so illustrious that his status would be beyond reproach.”

“Enter your own father,” I said, “whose money troubles are no longer concealable. He can trace his lineage to both the Tudors and Plantagenets. What he cannot do is promise he’ll be able to pay for groceries next week.”

“That is salacious and scandalous, sir!” Lord St. Simon thundered. His nose hairs lunged angrily towards me.

“Do the papers have it right that Hatty Doran’s dowry ran considerably over six figures?”

“No more than is normal for my family,” Lord St. Simon insisted. “No more than is called for.”

“And—in view of the fact that the wedding was held—this much, at least, will be retained by your family?”

“Thank God, yes!” said Lord St. Simon, expelling a sudden, involuntary sigh of relief. “It looks like the courts are on our side, there. There’s really no way Mr. Doran can get it back. But what of the rest of it? He isn’t a young man, you know, and Hatty is his only heir!”

“Yes, well, I believe his Lordship has made his position clear,” I said. “But tell me: the disturbance at the gate of Doran’s house, the woman who had to be led away—what do you know of her?”

“Oh, that’s just Flora; spare her no thought!”

“So you know her?”

“As we are being frank with each other: yes. I know her rather well. But what of it? She has no basis for complaint. I’ve been more than generous. Yet I have always made it clear that she who cannot have a child certainly cannot have a duke. And let’s not even talk about the difference in social standing, shall we? No. Flora’s not above making a scene—if she didn’t have a theatrical streak, she wouldn’t be in the theater, would she?—but she’d never hurt anybody.”

Holmes gave an uncomfortable look as if he’d rather be helping Flora than Lord St. Simon. I couldn’t say I blamed him.

“Did Hatty display any previous signs she might be averse to the marriage?” I asked.

“None! Why up until the night before, she was chatting away about what we should do together in our future lives… places we should visit…” The disdain with which his Lordship spat that last part out made it pretty clear he had no interest in visiting anywhere at all, apart from the bank.

“When was the first time Hatty seemed reticent?”

“During the ceremony itself,” said Lord St. Simon, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Halfway through, she flushed bright red and started looking about as if something had upset her. By the time we were done, she was so nervous that she dropped her bouquet as we walked down the aisle. Fortunately, it was not damaged. Some gentleman in the first pew picked it up for her.”

“Oh, disregard him,” Holmes suggested.

“A gentleman?” I asked.

“I use the term as a politeness,” said Lord St. Simon, airily. “If the man had any rank, it would come as a shock to me. He was nobody we knew. Probably a reporter. He’d been scribbling away furiously a few moments before.”

“Disregard him,” said Holmes, with a nervous laugh. “He’s a reporter! What do reporters deserve? To be disregarded, everybody knows it!”

“Quite right,” said Lord St. Simon.

“So you saw this ‘gentleman’ too, Holmes?”

“Oh? Er… yes. Well, I was sitting a bit behind him, you see. Warding off evil spirits and the like. He was directly between me and Saint Lord, so it’s only natural I would have seen him. Hey, do you know what? Let’s disregard the fellow.”

“Mmm hmm,” I said. “And after this, Lord St. Simon, you went to the wedding breakfast?”

“Yes and Hatty had hardly sat down before she went upstairs, and was never seen again!”

“Very well, Lord St. Simon. I feel that is sufficient information to begin my investigation. Do let me know if—”

“But, no! Are you sure you—?”

“Quite sure, yes. Holmes knows where to find you, I trust? Good, good. We shall call upon you the moment we have news.”

I bustled Lord St. Simon out a bit faster than I should have, as chance would have it. If I had not let him forget his hat and gloves—which he had hung from the coat rack—the whole case might have turned out very differently. But, ah well… hindsight.

No sooner had I heard the Baker Street door close than I rounded on my friend and demanded, “Why did you do it, Holmes?”

“Do what?”

“You know perfectly well!”

“Yes, but… how do you?”

“Because I reasoned it out, Holmes, and it wasn’t hard! Egad, you’re practically transparent! You’ve got a face like a crumb-covered puppy next to an empty biscuit tin and if that were not enough, what about your words? ‘Oh please, disregard him! Disregard him!’ Something happened with that man in the front pew, Holmes, and you know exactly what it is!”

“All right, but you don’t!”

“Maybe I wouldn’t, if I hadn’t just spent the last hour tidying up all your notes on soul-binding magic! Why did you do it, Holmes? Why did you bind the soul of Hatty Doran to the gentleman in the first row?”

He wrung his hands and gave me a look of pure anguish. “I didn’t mean to, Watson! You’ve got to believe me: I didn’t! It’s just… well, there I was sitting in the church, making ‘oooh-ooooooh’ noises and waving my hands about, as if I were banishing evil spirits. Only there weren’t any. So I was bored. So I started looking at people’s souls and the bonds between them. And there was Hatty, trying to put a brave face on things but it was clear she had no attachment whatsoever to the groom. And how could she? He’s an absolute arse-face.”

“Holmes! You cannot speak about a man like Lord St. Simon in such terms! His position is above reproach! He is noble—”

“Then he’s a noble arse-face, Watson! Please, if that man is not an arse-face then there is no such thing as an arse-face!”

I wished I had grounds to refute him, but… instead, I fell silent.

Holmes continued, “Well, I thought Hatty might like it better if there was some kind of bond between the two of them. So I started looking around for the purple stringy things of his soul, so I could tie them to Hatty’s. But it wasn’t easy! You remember what a mess souls are! So many people in the same place with so many strands reaching out from them. It was like sitting in a room full of lavender spaghetti! Let me tell you it wasn’t easy finding St. Lord Robert’s strands—the little arse-face has barely got a soul at all. Well, at last I found some and I tangled them all up with Hatty’s, but…”

“But as there was another gentleman seated directly between you and Lord St. Simon…”

“…I might have mistaken some of the other gentleman’s strands for his…”

“And now Lord St. Simon’s new bride finds her soul and destiny intimately linked to a man she’d never met before. Well done, Holmes. Really, just a whole new level of achievement for you, isn’t it?”

“It wasn’t my fault, Watson!”

“Well… it was.”

“All right, but I didn’t mean to.”

I sighed and looked at my friend. “Regardless of your intent, Holmes, the damage is done. I suppose the best we can do is try to track the lady down and gauge how best to ameliorate the situation. Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“St. George’s, Hanover Square.”

* * *

My hope had been that someone at the church might know the gentleman Holmes had bound Hatty Doran’s soul to. We asked around, but the only information we got was from the vicar, who had a vague memory of the man in the front pew. He’d been around a few times in the past two weeks, but had not been back since the day of the wedding. He was a handsome young man, the vicar recalled, but sad-looking, with a strong jaw and large, lonely eyes. They’d exchanged greetings only once. The man had had some form of foreign accent—Australian or American, probably.

“Could you understand even a single word the man said?” I asked.

“Quite easily,” said the vicar.

“Then he was no Australian. Officially, Australia was begun as a penal colony, but I have long suspected this to be a lie. More likely, there was an extra question on the 1785 census: Can you speak English? Any man who responded, ‘Of course I can,’ was welcome to stay. Any man who said, ‘Wolla! Ronza turolla rei,’ found himself with a bag over his head, being trotted onto a prison transport with no recourse to further appeal.”

So, we hadn’t gotten far. Our man was likely American, and definitely in possession of a rugged jawline. But, really, aren’t they all? I’ve often wondered who the saddest person in the world is: the only Eskimo girl who loves fancy shoes, or the only man in Montana with a normal, human jaw. Dejected and defeated, we turned our steps towards Baker Street.

As we opened the door, who should we find coming down the stairs but Detective Vladislav Lestrade. The stunted Romanian had traded his usual dour black suit for a blue pea-coat, white shorts, white knee socks and a jaunty little sailor cap. In his hand he had a sodden canvas bag and on his face he had his usual expression of tired hatred for the entire world. When he saw us, he exclaimed, “Hello, Holmes. And… um… hello, Dr. Watson. How’s the arm?” He gave me the look of a young debutant who’s just been discovered in a broom closet, snogging a handsome undergraduate: sorry indeed to have been caught; not at all sorry to have done it.

“Practically shredded by a vampire,” I replied. “Yet, if the infection processes I’m sure are underway are kind to me, I might manage to keep it.”

“Oh, no, no. There will be no infection. My saliva has not only anti-coagulating characteristics, but it’s quite cleansing as well. You should remember that, in case you ever need to seek employment as anybody’s blood doll.”

I think he was on the very point of telling me I was delicious, and only the extreme iciness of my gaze stopped him. Finally, I drew a measured breath and asked, “And exactly why are we dressed like Bucky the Little Sailor Boy?”

He gave a sigh. “Because I am assigned to the St. Simon case. I’ve been dragging the Serpentine and Lord St. Simon insists that anyone with a nautical job dress the part.”

“Nautical?” I scoffed. “He made you dress as a sailor to look in a pond?”

Lestrade gave a pained look. “I’ll be glad when this is over. Speaking of which: let me show you what I’ve found!”

As soon as we got upstairs, Lestrade upended the canvas bag over our dining table and disgorged his treasure. A sopping-wet wedding dress, two bridal slippers, a veil, a bouquet and half of a soaked and torn note poured forth. Last came a gold wedding band, which pinged off our table and landed in the much-abused posies of the bridal bouquet with a wet thump.

“I think we can use these,” Lestrade said. “I am building a case against Flora Millar, the woman who made the disturbance after the wedding.”

“Why?” Holmes asked. “Is it your opinion she lured Miss Hatty away and did her harm?”

Lestrade gave him a sideways glance. “No. I have no idea what happened, Holmes, but I’m sure it will prove to be all your fault and I just assumed I’d need to have a scapegoat ready. Millar is harmless, but I’m sure the public will easily believe she was driven mad by jealousy of her lover’s younger, prettier, richer new bride. Murder cases have been built on less. We’ve no body, but we’ve got the clothing and that’s something.”

“Well done, Lestrade! Bravo!” Holmes crowed.

But I shook my head. “No. It makes no sense. If this were the work of a murderer, why strip the body and hide the clothes separately? It would mean two incriminating bundles instead of one. And a woman in a wedding dress found floating in the river might have wound up there by accident. But a naked corpse, with all her belongings bundled up separately? Well… that’s less likely to be coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Of course I do,” Lestrade agreed. “But judges never worry about such things, nor do bloodthirsty mobs. Really, the biggest problem is the note. I’d like to destroy it and pretend I never found the thing. Alas, two constables have seen it, so it must remain. Still, it’s torn and the part we possess has no signature. Unless the other fragment should turn up and dash our hopes, my plan to hang Flora Millar can proceed, unhindered. That note cannot lead anybody to its author. As long as it is incomplete, it is untraceable.”

Fortunately for Flora Millar, Lestrade was incorrect. I took the note in my hand and examined it. On the one side, it said:

I must see you again! I must speak with you! Please, won’t you come to th—

Turning it over, I saw it had been written on a fragment of a hotel bill. The hotel name was missing. All we had was a few fragmentary charges. 22 June 1883: rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s. 6d., glass sherry 8d.

“Ha! Wonderful!” I crowed.

“Eh?” said Holmes and Lestrade together.

“Don’t you see, Holmes? The fellow in the front pew! What was he writing? This note! He must have flashed it at Hatty when she and her bridegroom turned to the congregation after the ceremony. She made sure she dropped her bouquet right next to the man, so he’d have a chance to slip it in when he handed the flowers back! Ha! I’ve got him now!”

“How?” asked Lestrade. “Just because you know he was staying at a hotel? There must be hundreds in London!”

“Possibly,” I laughed. “Possibly. But how many are there who would dare to charge eightpence for a single glass of sherry? Four? Perhaps five? No, no, gentlemen. I intend to start my search at Northumberland Avenue, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I conclude it there, as well. Holmes: please order a nice cold supper for you, me and two guests. We’ll be expecting company at nine this evening. Cold pheasant and bisque might do.”

“But what will I e—”

“Bisque is soup. You must wait here for it to arrive and make ready for guests. Lestrade: thank you for the help, but you must go.”

“Why?”

“Because our visitors are likely to find your maw full of glistening murder-fangs off-putting. Or if not that, at least they might notice that you don’t eat food. And now, I will bid you gentlemen adieu. This shan’t take long.”

* * *

It didn’t. Luxury hotels are not afraid to charge grotesque fees for the most humble of items, but that does not mean they are in the habit of passing any of that money on to their employees. Thus, for a one-shilling bribe, the front desk clerk at the Hotel Northumberland agreed to show me the visitors’ book. In no time at all, I found the 22 June entry that matched the fragment on the back of the note Lestrade had recovered. The items had been billed to a Mr. Francis Hay Moulton—an American visitor of notoriously strange habits. Well… he hadn’t been, at first, but a number of days ago he had taken to his room and refused to emerge. His only contact with any of the staff had been his repeated orders of huge amounts of food. At this, I raised an eyebrow and asked the clerk if perhaps Moulton had anybody in the room with him. I was haughtily assured this was not that kind of hotel. After which, I counter-assured the clerk that there simply was no other kind of hotel, then asked him how else he could explain such large quantities of food. The man shrugged and gave me a better answer than I had expected.

“Well, he is American.”

Begging the use of a pen and a sheet of hotel stationery, I dashed off a quick note, sneaked upstairs and slipped it underneath the door of Francis Moulton’s room. I gave a quick little knock, then hid around the corner of the nearest corridor. The cry of alarm I heard a moment later gave me to know my impromptu invitation was unlikely to be disregarded. A minute later, I was on the street with my hand in the air for a cab. Two miles after that, I was back at Baker Street, happy to see that my orders had been carried out. Lestrade was gone and Holmes had successfully procured supper.

Nearly.

“Holmes, why are there five settings?”

“Because that is how many people are coming.”

“Holmes, look: you and me—” I held up two fingers “—and two guests—” two more fingers “—makes four.”

He frowned at this. “I must say, Watson, your mathematics seem sound. And yet… It’s five, I’m sure of it!”

I had no time to argue with him, for other matters pressed. Though I had spent the day in pursuit of this case, I knew a portion of it must also be directed towards my own continuing survival. I went to my room, cleared my writing desk, fetched my surgical bag and undertook the task of ridding myself of one unwanted beef Wellington.

It was easier than I’d expected. Wincing and cursing Torg Grogsson, I made a small test-incision in my left arm. Probing inside with my forceps, I easily located my target. The whole thing felt squishy and gelatinous. It was so slippery I had trouble getting a grasp on it. Yet, when at last I did, the whole thing slid forth out of the incision in one gooey wad. I had hardly expected it to emerge in pristine and appetizing condition, yet still, I found its current state just… weird. I poked and prodded at it with great fascination. Though it was recognizable, its texture shared no trait with either pastry or meat. Clearly, its trip through the runcible amphigory had changed it significantly.

Still, I had little time for inquiry, magical or scientific. I pushed the disgusting thing aside and set to stitching my arm. I had just got myself cleaned up and had buttoned my shirt when the bell rang promptly at nine.

“Oi!” came Mrs. Hudson’s voice from just outside our door. “Couple o’ unescorted young people, lookin’ somewhat pie-eyed and dehydrated, but who am I to judge, eh?”

With my customary sigh of distaste, I went to answer the door, saying, “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, you may go now.”

To say either of my visitors looked at ease would be utter falsehood. How they had ever imagined they wouldn’t be caught is beyond me, but now they looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Um… Yes. Hello. We were invited to come here to dinner, I believe. I am Mr. Francis Moulton and this is Miss Hatty Doran.”

“If only that were so, we would find ourselves in a much improved circumstance,” I chided, “but in fact you are Mr. Francis Moulton and that is Lady St. Simon! Now, step inside, if you please, and let us find the way to handle this situation that involves the fewest deaths and incarcerations.”

I was perhaps not the ideal person to comfort our guests. Holmes, as always, outdid me. He gave a dismissive snort and said, “Oh, don’t mind him, he’s always like that. That’s Dr. John Watson, and my name is Warlock Holmes. He’s right that you’ve got yourselves in a bit of a spot, though. It got me in a spot, too. But come have dinner and we’ll put it all to rights. Look, there’s soup and present, and I made everyone a big pile of toast!”

Sure enough, before I could even say, “Pheasant, Holmes,” my friend whisked the silver cover from one of the serving dishes to reveal a towering wad of toasted bread. I threw my hand to my brow and shook my head. One simply does not present visiting millionaires a plate of twice-warmed bread. Yet Holmes’s words—and even his pile of toast—proved to be just what was needed. Both our guests broke into broad smiles.

“Wonderful!” said Hatty. “Toast and soup is the best, but I’ve yet to meet the Englishman who’ll serve it for dinner.”

“Then I apologize for the ignorance of my countrymen,” said Holmes, beaming. “But come, sit down and tell me all that has occurred since the wedding!”

Which they did. Francis and Hatty, scared as they were, seemed happy to have an ally. Their description of what had happened since the wedding was brief. And, I suspect, heavily censored. Yet the most interesting part of the tale, to me, was Hatty’s description of what had happened at the wedding.

“There I was, standing at the altar with Lord St. Simon feeling… well… I’d already made my peace with it. Really, compared to what my fate should have been as the daughter of an uneducated miner, I was about to enter a world I’d no right to dream of. Yet… I just kept thinking, Let it be anyone but him. And then, as I was looking about at the congregation, there was—”

“Anyone but him!” Francis Moulton cut in, and the two of them laughed.

“Such a strange moment,” said Hatty, with a smile and a shake of her head. “It was like a rush of familiarity, but not quite the same. Not the feeling that I knew this man, but the feeling that I ought to know him. That my love somehow belonged to this perfect stranger and my heart’s true home was a place it was now forbidden ever to go.”

“And you, Mr. Moulton?” I inquired.

“Well, I was just sitting there feeling down in the dumps. I wasn’t even there for the wedding. I’m a Boston inventor, you see. I’d come to England because I’ve devised a new machine for weaving cotton into cloth, similar to your Raveling Nancy.”

“Except it’s three times as fast,” Hatty interjected, supportively.

“And it doesn’t break as much,” Francis added.

“Or even cost as much.”

“Or pull quite so many people’s arms off. It’s done quite well for me in America and I suppose I’ve already made my fortune. But… I don’t know… Honestly, I thought it would do very well here, as soon as the English manufacturers saw how much better it is. But nobody wanted anything other than a Raveling Nancy and I was taking it a bit personal, I guess.”

“I suppose we Englishmen can be a bit set in our ways,” I admitted.

“So I was just moping in the church,” Francis continued, “and I looked up and I saw this girl and I just… I realized that it didn’t matter! My machine didn’t matter! If I’d come all the way to England and didn’t sell a damned one, that didn’t matter. I should count myself lucky—count myself blessed—because I’d seen her! I didn’t know who she was, but I knew she was perfect for me. But then I looked around a bit more and realized I was watching her get married. I didn’t know what to do! So I grabbed a slip of paper out of my pocket and scribbled down a note. And she was looking at me, just like I was looking at her, so I waved my note a bit so she could see it.”

“And when I came down the aisle, I dropped my bouquet.”

“And I just slipped the note right in there and went back to my hotel to think of her. God, I was just on the edge of going crazy! I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t come. But not two hours later, there was this knock on my door and…”

“And there I was!” said Hatty, beaming.

“Your souls had become entwined,” I noted, then fired a rather hard look at Holmes and added, “Just incredibly, powerfully and—one is tempted to suspect—irreversibly entwined.” Holmes gave me a guilty little shrug. “Well done, Holmes,” I said. “Well done, indeed.”

“What was that?” Hatty wondered.

“Never mind. The important thing now is to find a way for this situation to be corrected.”

Hatty took Francis’s hand in her own, gave it a firm shake and said, “No. This particular situation will not be corrected. It is correct, Dr. Watson, and I shall not allow it to be changed in any way.”

“That’s right! You tell him!” crowed Holmes, through a mouthful of toast. He looked quite happy to settle in and cheer on his chosen side. Which, it appeared, was not me.

“But, Lady St. Simon,” I said—and Hatty bristled at the name, “Scotland Yard is treating this as a disappearance. They’re on the case. There is simply no way to stop them revealing what has happened.”

From the corner of her mouth, she growled, “All this new education that’s been thrust on me has taught me the value of investing in social infrastructures, so perhaps I’ll just have to buy Scotland Yard and have them all arrest themselves.”

“Madam, I have no doubt that in many countries, your money could solve this problem, but England is no such place. Propriety matters! The idea of what is right matters!”

“Not to me,” she said. “At last I have found happiness and I am disinclined to surrender it so easily.”

“She’s right, by God!” Francis cried. “Lose Hatty? Never! I’ll die first!”

“Well put!” Holmes cried, spattering the tablecloth in a light dusting of soggy crumbs.

“All right,” I said. “All right. Clearly, something must be done. We simply need to take some time and find a way to—”

Yet time was to be a luxury we could not afford. At that moment there was a knock at our door, which—since I had failed to fasten it properly—slowly swung open. Just behind it stood Lord St. Simon, looking disinterestedly down at his shoes. “I hope you gentlemen will forgive the intrusion,” he said, “but when I was here earlier, I left in such a hurry I fear I forgot my…”

He looked up, saw the scene before him, let his jaw dangle stuporously for a moment or two, then breathlessly concluded, “…wife.”

“Ha!” shouted Holmes, leaping from his seat and triumphantly directing my attention to the empty place setting. “Five!”

Hatty’s face lit to its most defiant red. “I am not your wife!”

“By God, you are!”

“She says she isn’t and she’s not!” Mr. Moulton thundered.

“She’s really not,” Holmes added and—to my chagrin—he had this peaceful, happy little look on his face as if all our problems had just dissolved.