Warlock Holmes--The Sign of Nine

by G. S. Denning

  In a sense, I was in exactly such a state. My lie was gone. The object of my addiction was stripped from me. I was still in pain, yet there was just enough relief to tinge the feeling, and there was nothing else I could do. I let myself sag to the sitting-room floor.

  I woke some time later to find Holmes had pulled one of the overstuffed chairs next to me. There he sat, with his hands clasped in front of him. He knew I was awake, for his eyes locked on mine, but he made no move and offered no word. Nor did I. I just stared up at him, for as long as he stared down. Some minutes passed. Finally, he drew a melancholic breath.

  “It has to end, Watson. Our partnership has run its course. It is time for you to find new lodgings.”

  “No!” I cried, my voice hoarse and cracking. “I don’t want new lodgings. I don’t want a new life. I want to stay with you and have adventures.”

  He shook his head. “It’s killing you. I’ve been selfish. I let it go too far. You are not a sorcerer, John. Not a warrior. Not a monster. You’re a doctor. From now on, that is what you must be.”

  How can I describe the panic and fury that arose in me? Had I expected my life to take its current course? No. Yet hadn’t I done well? Hadn’t I solved a few cases, triumphed over a few monsters, perhaps even saved Holmes? And now I was to be dismissed like some underperforming clerk? I would not accept it. My mind reeled through possible defenses and settled on a feeble technicality.

  “No,” I said. “On the day we met you said if I gave you a sovereign, I might stay here however long I please. Well, I gave you that sovereign and I still want to stay!”

  Holmes recoiled in horror. “Oh no! Oh, no, no, no! I did say that, didn’t I? Well, but… This is no good! This cannot be allowed to stand! We have to find a way to change what you want. We must modify your desires, because otherwise…”

  As he rose to pace, I stared up at him with defiant exhaustion. That’s right, Holmes: you are bested. How dare you try to get rid of me? Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? John-Bloody-Heimdal-Bloody-Watson, that’s who! This is my right place and my right life and I will not let you take it from me! Ha! In a paroxysm of triumph, I slumped forward onto my face and slept once more.

  The next time I awoke, it had nothing to do with Holmes, but with my preeminent domestic antagonist, Mrs. Hudson. An ear-pounding door-pounding shook me from slumber. Luckily, the assault was quick. Our door latch—which had been a bit derelict in its duties of late—chose to give way. My eyes popped open to reveal the blurry form of Mrs. Hudson standing in the now-open doorway with a female visitor.

  Perfect! Just what was needed: a case to prove my worthiness to Holmes and distract him from this preposterous John-you’re-in-danger-and-we-must-stop-adventuring-together thing he’d concocted. I rose to greet our guest.

  Well… I tried to. As I’d slept I seemed to have worked myself into an awkward head-down, bottom-up position, which was practically optimized to highlight… well… not my finest aspects. My right cheek was pressed against the floorboards in a manner that held my mouth slightly open, resulting in a fairly impressive puddle of drool. As I tried to rise, using my face as leverage, I slipped in this self-manufactured water hazard and tumbled sideways. I tried to stand again, but my legs were weak and I crashed down upon my rump.

  “That is Warlock Holmes?” our guest asked.

  “Nah,” said Mrs. Hudson, reassuringly. “That’s the other one, Watson. He’s a medical doctor, would you believe? Usually, he ain’t the scary one, but… Cor, blimey, Dr. Watson, what have you done to yourself?”

  “You’ll have to forgive Watson; he’s a bit indisposed at the moment,” said a voice from behind me. Warlock Holmes strode past, straightening his sleeves and fiddling with those cufflinks I’d stolen for him. Damn him, he looked impeccable. In a tone of languorous detachment, he asked, “Now, who is this you’ve brought to see us, Mrs. Hudson?”

  “Mary Somefin-or-other. She’s got a problem.”

  “Well, why don’t you step inside and tell us all about it, Miss Mary. Perhaps I might be of service.”

  “Me too!” I insisted, from my spot on the floor. “Imma help!”

  “I very much doubt that, John,” said Holmes, then—in a tone of condescending charity—added, “I mean: I’m sure there will be no need for you to trouble yourself.”

  Damn him! He was helpless at this sort of thing without me, and it galled me that he didn’t know it. I shook my head a few times to clear it, and focused all my observational powers on our guest.

  It was as if she were being average on purpose. Her height was normal. Her build, perhaps just on the slim side of utterly nondescript. She had a face that could only be described as face-ish and hair exactly the color of… you know… hair. Her dress was of an unremarkable cut and—I swear this is true—of a grayish beige material. Someone must once have walked into a fabric shop and declared, “I am going to make a dress. My goal is to never have anybody remark that it is attractive, that it is ugly, or that it is anything except just a dress. Now, what sort of material can you show me?” Indeed, the only thing that stood out about her was her expression. It was disapproving, bordering on contemptuous. Which—now that I put it to paper, I realize—is precisely what I deserved.

  Nevertheless, she presented me with a chance to prove my worth—a chance I had no intention of wasting. With Herculean effort, I drew myself to my knees and crawled towards our kettle. It was time to get this pinch-faced shrew onto the couch and find out what her problem might be.

  2

  AH, TEA! HOLMES HAD ONCE TOLD ME ABOUT THE GIFT the goddess Hestia had given him: whenever he ate toast and soup, it brought him some relief from the fact that he was an outsider to the human experience and that everyone he loved had died two hundred years ago.

  Never had I received any such boon. The closest thing I had was my profound connection to tea. By God, it was nearly a panacea to me. Each sip brought with it just a tiny swell of sanity and strength. Thus I sat, seeking my lost humanity in the bottom of a Hammersley cup, as our visitor began her tale.

  “My name is Mary Morstan. My father was Captain Arthur Morstan, an officer in one of Her Majesty’s Indian regiments. My mother being deceased and my father abroad, I spent most of my youth at boarding school. Just before my seventeenth birthday, I had a letter from my father. He seemed excited, as if our lives were about to undergo a great change. He gave me few details, but said he had a furlough of twelve months and I must meet him in London. I hastened to the address he gave—the Langham Hotel. I found he had secured us rooms, but was told that he had left the night before. Sure enough, his luggage was in his room, but there was no sign of my father. I found this paper on the desk. It seems he must have laid it there before he went out.”

  On our table, she placed an old map—fragile and oftfolded. It appeared to show a section of an old fort. “The Sign of Nine” was written in the lower corner, followed by the names Mahomet Singh, Dost Akbar, Abdullah Khan and Jonathan Small.

  “What a strange phrase, ‘The Sign of Nine’. Can you make anything of it?” I asked Holmes.

  “Erm… perhaps none of these four men knew how to write the number nine?” he offered.

  “You know, Holmes, I actually can’t think of a better explanation. Well done, I suppose.”

  Still, I must confess that—after the previous night’s dream—any reference to the number nine made me uneasy.

  Mary Morstan cleared her throat, pointedly, to make it known that she’d like our attention again. “Gentlemen, my father never returned. There was some thought that he might have gone to the home of his old compatriot, Major John Sholto, who lived in Norwood. Yet Major Sholto was contacted by the police and they were convinced he had not seen my father. Nor did he even know my father had returned to London.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Holmes, “and you wish us to see if we can find out what became of your beloved dad!”

  “Of course not,” said Miss Morstan, brushing aside familial
love as if it were a troublesome gnat.

  “No? Then what do you want us to—”

  “Perhaps you should listen. Then you might find out,” Miss Morstan suggested, adding, “It is very rude to interrupt. Now, that was ten years ago. With my father missing and probably dead…”

  I boggled at the casual callousness with which she said it.

  “…my own prospects were greatly diminished. I had enough money to finish my studies but after my education concluded, I was forced into a life of drudgery and servitude. I settled at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Forrester in Lower Camberwell, to be governess to their wicked little children. There I remain. Seven years ago, an advertisement appeared in the pages of The Times, inquiring if anybody knew the whereabouts of Mary Morstan.”

  “Did you?” Holmes asked, forgetting our guest’s injunction against interruptions. She reminded him with a withering gaze.

  “Mr. Cecil Forrester—who has been against me from the beginning—took the extraordinary liberty of replying to the article. No doubt he hoped that the person who wished to know my whereabouts might effect my removal from his house. I tell you, the man has absolutely no regard for the fact that I am an orphan, with nothing to shield me from this wicked world.”

  “Except the fact that you were an educated and self-reliant adult, at that point,” I wished to add, but did not. To the more discerning reader, it may be telling that, in only the fifteen minutes since I’d met her, Mary Morstan had already cowed me sufficiently that I dared not give voice to such thoughts. It seems she’d overmastered me nearly as quickly as she had the Forresters.

  “Well, it turned out against him!” Miss Morstan scoffed. “For, the very day his reply was printed, I received this box in the post. You have my permission to look at the contents, but you must not touch!”

  She held a rather plain and battered cardboard box out towards Holmes and raised the lid so he could see inside. I could not. Yet, whatever lay within caused Holmes to give a low whistle.

  “I have had it examined and appraised. It is a pearl of the highest quality. Ever since that day, I have—on the anniversary of the first pearl’s arrival—had another box each year, containing another pearl to match the first. I have them here, in case you need to see them.”

  She withdrew a second box, set it upon our coffee table, and pulled away the lid. Within lay five small chicken eggs.

  Damn it.

  My heart sank. What I’d needed was a real client with a real case, not some addle-brained unfortunate with a wealth delusion. Why had I let her get my hopes up? Well… not that it was her fault, of course. She couldn’t help it if she was a simple madwoman. Poor thing. I struggled to find some polite way to tell her she was crazy and her story was nothing but the fabrication of a diseased mind. As I searched for the proper words, my eyes chanced across the box a second time and I realized:

  No, those actually were pearls.

  “Holy God!” I cried.

  Mary Morstan turned to me and narrowed her eyes. “Dr. Watson, are we interrupting again?”

  I felt the accusation somewhat unfair, for the dual reasons that I had not been the fellow to interrupt the first time and because nobody else had actually been speaking. Yet my shock was such that I could only mutter, “So… you own all six of these pearls? And you are still a governess?”

  “Why not?” said Miss Morstan, with a shrug. “The children are older now. Since they are all away at boarding school, my duties are light.”

  Ah. So less a governess and more of a person who continued to live with the Forresters, doing no work, drawing a governess’s wage, and trading on the fact that they would not dare to put a poor orphan girl out of their house, despite the fact that the orphan in question was twenty-seven, and quite capable of purchasing the entire neighborhood. Or perhaps New Zealand. Yes, the situation was becoming clearer.

  “So…” Holmes reflected. “You wish for our help because you are terribly wealthy and… er… Help me out here, Watson. Why does she want us?”

  “Because today I should have received the seventh pearl! And all I got was this!”

  Miss Morstan slammed a wrinkled letter down upon our table beside her box of gigantic pearls. It was written in loopy, self-important script in—oh how I hate to say it, given my personal history with this particular affectation, but—violet ink. A cursory comparison of the handwriting and the address that was still visible on the first pearl box gave me the firm conviction that the two had been sent by the same person. I leaned in to examine the letter, which read as follows:

  To the estimable Miss Mary Morstan,

  You do not know me, but I know you. You are a wronged woman! I regret the misfortunes you have suffered and blush when I think of my family’s role therein. Will you meet with me and allow me to repair the vicissitudes of fate?

  If you will be so good as to go to the Lyceum Theater at seven this evening and meet my representative at the third pillar from the left, we can try to put right some of the wrongs you have suffered.

  I know this is an unusual request and must seem suspicious. Therefore I invite you to bring two companions to ensure your safety. My only injunction is this: given the sensitive nature of the matter we must discuss, they must not be police. My representative will ask for such assurances before he brings you to me.

  Yours with an eye to a future, superior to our past,

  A friend

  I think I became a little smug. I looked over at Holmes and noted, “Two companions, eh? Perhaps my services might be required, after all.”

  “Not necessarily. I could always bring Lestr—”

  “No police,” I reminded him.

  “Well then, Grogsson is—”

  “Also a policeman.”

  Holmes opened his mouth to offer a third suggestion, but I gave him no chance.

  “And so is Hopkins,” I said. “Face it, Holmes, just about everybody else you know—or have the least amount of trust in—is associated with the police.”

  Holmes grimaced.

  “It seems you must tolerate my help a little longer.”

  “Hrmph! Very well, Watson! But I’m going to have to insist you put some trousers on!”

  “Your terms are acceptable,” I said, “though it seems like a condition I would have been more likely to ask of you…”

  “And therein we see how far you have let yourself slip,” Holmes said acerbically. “Miss Morstan, please return no later than a quarter past six this evening. Watson and I shall be ready to accompany you then.”

  “Bring guns!” Miss Morstan urged. “If this fellow has my pearl and tries to get out of giving it to me, you may need to shoot him!”

  “All right,” said Holmes.

  “What? No!” I cried. “Miss, we will not be murdering anybody just to secure you some mysterious jewels we don’t even understand your right to.”

  “Then what good are you?” Mary Morstan growled at me.

  “Well, I’m a doctor. I can prescribe medications and—”

  “Interrupting!”

  “I wasn’t! You asked me a question!”

  * * *

  When at last we got our visitor on her way, Holmes urged me to spend the time until her return making myself presentable.

  “Regrettably I cannot, Holmes. I have other plans.”

  “Erm… are you sure?” he asked, gesturing at me. I went to the mirror.

  “Eeyugha! Well… I can’t spend the whole time making myself presentable. I have business to attend to.”

  “What business?”

  “The kind by which I might prove my worth! I shall be back before Miss Morstan returns and I hope to bring news that may illuminate her situation.”

  It is an advantage of my personal and family history that I know a few helpful facts about the military. I know, for example, that the two most universally popular topics of conversation for old men who used to serve in the army are how old they are getting, and the fact that they used to serve in the army.
Several gentlemen’s clubs exist where doddering military coots can go to drone on for years and years about these two subjects, and no others. Given that Miss Morstan had said her father’s friend kept a house in Norwood, I resolved to head in that direction and ask after old Major Sholto. Being a retired officer myself, I could be reasonably sure I would find myself invited into any club I cared to inquire at, for a healthy dose of brandy and gossip.

  I hadn’t even cleared Brixton before I had what I needed.

  I returned to Baker Street just after five that afternoon with a spring in my step, though my body was still weary from the treatment I’d given it last night. My bruised knees were aching, but my heart was full of triumph. Setting my hat and coat upon their hooks, I called out, “Success, Holmes; I believe I’ve plumbed this mystery nearly to its bottom. It shouldn’t be too complex a matter, I think.”

  “Oh? What have you found out, Watson?”

  “That the now deceased Major John Sholto was quite the character. He was a famous curmudgeon, and for the circles he moved in, that is saying something. He was never one to part with a shilling, though he was quite wealthy. Loved playing cards, but never for money, which disappointed those who knew him abroad; when he was stationed in India he had not only a reputation for gambling, but also for losing. Once back in England he seems to have sworn off it for good. He had two sons he viewed as utter disappointments and a wife he was terrified of, to the point he could hardly be drawn to speak of her. His health was never very good and it seems he passed away of natural causes. Here’s the key fact: he died seven years and four days ago.”

  “Hmm,” said Holmes. “Why is that important?”

  “Why? Holmes, the whole narrative hangs on it! Look here, just a few days after this man’s death, an advertisement appeared in The Times, asking for the whereabouts of Mary Morstan. As soon as it is answered, she begins receiving treasure by post. Now, the same person who has been sending that treasure wishes to contact her and describes her as a ‘wronged woman’. What wrong can they be speaking of but the untimely loss of her father? I would say that the overwhelming balance of probability is that John Sholto knew a great deal more than he let on about the disappearance of Arthur Morstan. His sons or wife must have known about it and feel their family is culpable, as the letter Miss Morstan received today implies. While the old man was alive, they dared do nothing. But as soon as he died, they placed an advertisement and began sending a king’s ransom to her. It is unclear what further financial gains our client may receive tonight, but I think it is plain she will know more about her father’s mysterious fate. I mean… not that I’m sure she’ll care, but there it is. That is my assessment.”