The Fifth Heart
Page 66
Again that flicker that never quite resolved itself into an actual smile. “If you want the blunt truth, Harry, I’ve been in my cabin puking my kidneys out and trying not to scream like a gorilla on fire for more than four days and nights.”
James took half a step back along the rail at the crude language. “But the crossing has been so smooth. The ocean’s been a mill pond. Even the old ladies who get seasick looking at a large cup of tea have been healthy and busy on this crossing.”
Holmes nodded and James could see that his forehead was beaded with sweat despite the pleasant coolness of the evening and the ship’s movement through the fresh air.
“I decided that I had to go off that heroic medicine that I was injecting into myself several times a day there in America,” Holmes said softly. “Did I mention that heroin substance by name?”
“No,” said James. “I thought you . . . I wasn’t sure what I thought . . .”
“Anyway,” said Holmes with that smile, “even two months’ use of that stuff makes stopping the use of it a terrible experience. I may see Dr. Watson in the coming months, and he would be most disappointed in me if I came back to England addicted to some new poison.”
“So you’ve quit this heroic drug for good?”
“Oh, yes,” said Holmes. “But that’s not why I came up to find you, James.”
“Why did you?”
“Because, after my four and a half days and nights of vomiting, my head was suddenly clear and I realized why you were so out of sorts and brooding those last days in America.”
James looked away and felt the bile rise in his own throat. “It’s what I did,” he said at last. “I shall never truly get over it.”
“And what do you think you did?” asked Holmes.
James rounded on Holmes with some of the old ferocity in his gray eyes. “I killed a man, Holmes. I shot and killed a human being. He was a villain and deserved to die . . . but not by my hand. I’m an artist, a creator, not . . .” He trailed off.
“That’s what I thought you thought,” said Holmes. “And you’re crazy, Henry James. You should have been at the debriefings with Drummond and Colonel Rice and the others after the unpleasantness, rather than wandering away.”
“What are you talking about, Holmes?”
Holmes held up his bandaged right hand and wrist. “Your rifle didn’t kill anyone, James. It passed through Lucan Adler’s shirt sleeve . . . and perhaps brushed him enough to make him flinch and save my life from that blade . . . then it burned its way across the back of my hand and went on its merry way into the lake. You . . . shot . . . and . . . killed . . . no . . . one.”
James felt like crying from a sense of relief that almost made him sick, but instead gripped the wooden rail harder and stared into the disappearing sun behind the ship.
“Oh,” said Holmes, “when I was finished with my little drug withdrawal adventure, I realized that I forgot to tell you about two relevant telegrams that I received in New York shortly before we sailed.” Holmes took the flimsies from his breast pocket.
James, even though he felt that he could take his first deep breath in weeks, listened with some dread.
“The first one was from our friend Agent Drummond and is purely informational,” said Holmes, unfurling the folded flimsy with some difficulty with his bandaged hand. “I quote:
PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT IRENE ADLER ESCAPED CUSTODY AT THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION INFIRMARY THE DAY AFTER YOU LEFT CHICAGO STOP GUARD MEMBERS FOUND THAT SHE HAD CUT HER HAIR OVER THE SINK QUITE SHORT WE BELIEVE, AND THAT ONE OF THEIR OWN GUARDSMEN HAD BEEN OVERPOWERED, STRIPPED OF HIS OUTER CLOTHING, TIED AND GAGGED, AND STUFFED IN A CLOSET STOP IRENE ADLER MAY HAVE ESCAPED IN A COLUMBIAN GUARDSMAN UNIFORM POSING AS A MAN STOP BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR A WOMAN WITH HER LEFT ARM STILL IN A SLING STOP SHE MAY BE ARMED AND IS CONSIDERED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STOP DRUMMOND”
James hadn’t meant to but he started laughing and found it difficult to stop. Holmes joined in and it only made James laugh the harder. He really couldn’t have said why he was laughing so hard. It’s just that everything unreal finally felt . . . over.
“This telegram I received in New York right before we sailed will sober you up fast enough, James. I assure you.” Holmes unfolded the flimsy and read carefully, in a slightly deeper voice than usual. “From my brother Mycroft, who never concerns himself about the cost of extra words in a telegram. Neither of us does. From Mycroft:
SHERLOCK IMPERATIVE THAT YOU CONTINUE ON TO GENOA ABOARD THE SHIP UNITED STATES AND THEN MAKE YOUR WAY NORTH TO LUCERNE SWITZERLAND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN STOP I WILL BE THERE IN TEN DAYS STOP THIS IS A CONFERENCE OF INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE STOP YOUR PRESENCE IMPERATIVE STOP MYCROFT
Holmes tucked away the telegram flimsies and the two men looked bleakly at each other.
“Your older brother and my older brother both in Lucerne,” said Henry James in a disbelieving, stunned voice. “And us there with them? Inconceivable.”
“I agree,” Holmes said glumly.
Suddenly a young man with his heavy coat thrown over his shoulders and an oversized derby pulled down absurdly low walked past. The youthful voice said, “Good evening, Mr. Holmes.”
James jerked his head around but caught only a glimpse of the young man’s strong chin, high cheekbones, and dark hair clipped American military-short on the sides and in back.
“Friend of yours?” asked Henry James.
The sun had disappeared. All the ship’s electric lights came on suddenly, brilliantly, the way they had at the Chicago World’s Fair that Opening Night. Before the lights came on like fireworks, in the gloom and instant of the youth’s passing them, Sherlock Holmes had seen the young man’s left arm in a black sling under the open, caped overcoat.
Holmes passed his good arm through Henry James’s and leaned with the older man over the railing. The sea air was so fresh as to be intoxicating.
“We’ll deal with Lucerne and older brothers when we come to them,” Holmes said, sounding happy for the first time since Henry James had first met him that rainy night along the Seine two months earlier.
“In the meantime, my friend,” said Holmes, “this could turn out to be a very interesting journey after all.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge the following people for their help in allowing me to write The Fifth Heart.
My wife, Karen.
My agent, Richard Curtis, to whom this book is dedicated. “I wish I had a better book for so good a man.” (Robert Louis Stevenson’s inscription to Henry James.)
My publishers, Reagan Arthur and Michel Pietsch, who encouraged me to go ahead with this rather odd pairing of Sherlock Holmes and Henry James.
My new editor, Joshua Kendall, whose understanding of the best complexities I can produce and whose suggestions were wonderfully helpful.
Also Gretchen Koss, chief of publicity; Catherine Cullen, senior publicist; Peggy Freudenthal, executive production editor.
To my much-needed and respected copy editor, Susan Brandanini Betz, whose self-proclaimed “obsessive compulsion disorder” (on getting words, facts, dates, names, and such right) served me and the novel wonderfully well.
Finally, thank you again to my good friend and excellent sociologist, Dr. Dan Peterson, who provided the many mixed CDs of “Music to Listen to While Writing Good Novels.” The CDs were superb. Any failure to provide “good novels” is completely my own.
Thank you all.