“No! The man I want is Mr. Culverton Smith!”
“Mr. Culverton Smith?” I asked him. “Not Dr. Culverton Smith?”
Holmes stomped his foot. Well… he would have, if he’d been standing. As he was lying in his sickbed, it just sort of whooshed down violently under the covers. “Look here, Watson: I know what I need! I need Mr. Culverton Smith to come here to minister to this sickness! I need you to go to him and express you are powerless to diagnose or to treat this rare disease from China! I need you to give him what he will know to be a false explanation of where I contracted it! And I need you to be utterly fooled by my ruse!”
“Why?”
“Because if you were not completely convinced that all these facts were true, he would see through you in an instant! I am playing a delicate game here. Culverton Smith is a man of dangerous intellect!”
“If that is true, Holmes, do you think you should face him unaided?”
Holmes gave me a withering look, which—I must confess—I deserved. It is always best to be direct with Holmes, but perhaps I’d been a bit too near the mark. I cleared my throat.
“I… er… I only meant…”
“Oh, I think we all know what you meant, Watson. You think I’m perfectly helpless without you.”
“What I intended to express is that I might perhaps aid—”
“It’s all very well and good for you now, isn’t it? With your grand new house and your grand new life!”
“Oh, grand, is it?”
“But what about me, eh? Here I sit! No best friend to go have adventures with. No Moriarty anymore. No Irene Adler, even—not that she was ever much of an arch-nemesis to me. Oh no. Never anything but kindness to me.”
I’ll admit his outburst had me quite taken aback. I stammered, “Are you…? Are you sad you don’t have an arch-nemesis?”
“No! I am glad to have found Mr. Culverton Smith! He’s perfect! He’s savage and cruel—a dual murderer, at least—and he’s not above trading blows with me. Why his very last attempt would have surely ended my life, Watson, but for the timely intervention of a demon or three. But I’ll show him! Ha! Wait ’til he sees what I’ve got cooked up for him!”
What a strange wave of emotions this harangue awoke in me. I had a moment of hurt when I found out that Holmes was trying to replace me—to fill the void I’d left in his life as casually as if I’d been a dead goldfish. Then doubt that a new arch-nemesis was not, perhaps, the best way to go about it. Then indignation that his plan was to rope me into supplying my own replacement. Yet, there was something else as well.
Guilt.
I suppose Holmes was right in a way. I had been rather focused on my own misfortunes. I had not taken the time to consider what effect our parting may have had on Holmes. Though, in my defense, the whole thing was rather his fault.
And yet still…
I was a gentleman, was I not? The proud British school tradition had taught me what good form demanded. A friend was suffering. Despite my own feelings, my duty was plain.
I cleared my throat. “You know, Holmes, given that—as you say—I am only a general practitioner, I am perhaps not the most suitable person to treat this sickness of yours.”
“Really, John?” asked Holmes, hopefully.
“Oh no. You heard me: I didn’t even realize China was tropical.”
“Silly fellow!”
“It seems this Mr. Culverton Smith may be your only hope. I don’t suppose you’ve got his address, have you?”
“It’s just on the corner of the desk, there, next to my teeth.”
“I shall fetch him at once,” I said. Then I leaned in and, in a gentler tone, asked, “You sure you’ll be all right, Holmes?”
“Ha! Don’t worry about me, Watson. This shall all turn out wonderfully. Oh, you should see! Do you want to see?”
A strange little pang struck me.
“I would like that very much.”
“Well…” said Holmes, and he hesitated a moment, as if he knew what he was about to offer was inadvisable. But then familiarity and his own fond feelings overwhelmed him and he suddenly burst forth, “All right! But you mustn’t come with him, John. He must think himself absolutely alone with me. Try and get back before him, all right?”
“I shall do my utmost.”
With that, I turned, marched out of Holmes’s room, down the steps to Baker Street, and off on another of Holmes’s strange adventures. Though, not in my usual capacity, to be sure.
* * *
Mr. Culverton Smith resided at 13 Lower Burke Street—a fine house in that vague no-man’s land between Notting Hill and Kensington. It looked less a den of evil than one of middle-class sensibilities slowly giving way to upper-class ones. Yet if the exterior seemed unpromising in the arch-nemesis department, one ring at the bell was all it took to dispel the illusion.
A demon answered the door.
Not a very good one, but a familiar one. The door swung open to reveal the doughy, shapeless face of Hilton Soames’s otherworldly butler—exactly the same fellow I’d seen explode into powder during “The Adventure of the Three Apprentices”. I’m sure if I’d had a moment to reflect on the situation, I’d have remembered he was dead, but I had no such chance. My voice burst forth of its own accord.
“Bannister?”
“What? No, sir,” the wobbly-armed demon replied. “Are you asking if my name is Bannister? Is that your meaning?”
I nodded.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” he said. “Nothing so exotic.”
“Well what is it, then?”
“My name is Staples.”
My eyebrow went up. Another wobbly demon named after an everyday object? No, the pattern was too clear. Indeed, he might almost be one of Bannister’s brothers, Railing or Low-Rising Safety Wall, if I had not had it on the best authority that Bannister had eaten them in order to sustain himself in our realm. I had thought the three brothers’ case to be unique, but if this was not one of that trio, I was apparently going to have to revise my thinking.
“I don’t suppose you came to this land in the company of your two brothers, did you?” I asked.
“Very astute, sir,” the demon confirmed. “But… er… nobody has heard from Paperclips or Bent-Metal Stationery-Fasteners for some time.”
“Right. Sure,” I said, eyeing him with growing suspicion. “But it’s a problem for another day. Is your master in? I come to him with grave news.”
“Oh dear! Do step inside and I shall see if he is fit to receive you. Who may I say is calling?”
“Dr. John Watson.”
“Just a moment, Dr. Watson.”
Say what you will, at least he was a vastly superior butler compared to Bannister. He disappeared into the interior of the house. I could hear his muted tones speaking to somebody in the next room. This was followed by a high-pitched, strident voice shouting, “How many times have I told you I must not be disturbed in my hours of study, Staples? Who is this fellow? What does he want?”
I heard Staples sigh, “I have just told you that, sir.”
“Well I won’t see him! I am not at home! Tell him that, why don’t you?”
“Erm… I am not confident that would now suffice, sir.”
“What? Why not?”
“Sir has been rather vociferous, I think, and the walls are not thick.”
“Vociferous? What does that even mean, ‘vociferous’? You made that word up.”
As the embattled butler strove to convince his employer he’d done no such thing, I rolled my eyes and set the matter to rest. I turned the handle, barged into the room and said, “Mr. Culverton Smith? How good to meet you. I am Dr. John Watson and I fear you are the only man who can aid me.”
“Eek! Who are you?” squealed a paunchy gentleman in his early forties. His hair was curly—a shade of unremarkable brown in the process of turning unremarkable gray. He had bushy mutton-chops that dipped down either cheek, shot forward along his lower jaw, then lunged up again to meet in the middle b
eneath his bulbous nose, as if to say, “Ha! I fooled you! I was a moustache all along!”
I rolled my eyes at the man. “I have just told you that. So has Staples. I am Dr. John Watson and I am here on an errand of the utmost importance. I have just come from the home of Mr. Warlock Holmes.”
The name caused an instant reaction. My host lunged forward and demanded, “Holmes? How is he? I mean… he’s probably fine, of course. Most people are, you know, and I certainly do not have any reason to suspect the contrary, but… how did he seem?”
Any concerns that Warlock had picked a quarrel with an intellectual giant he had no hope of besting were dissolving at a rapid rate. In fact—and oh, what a strange thing it was—I was beginning to feel as if Holmes had done rather well for himself. Yes, Culverton Smith was perhaps just the perfect foil for Holmes to tangle with, bereft of my help. Should I not do my utmost to bring them together? Yes, as a gift for my grieving friend, I must help these two bumblers cross swords.
“Holmes is most unwell,” I said. “I fear he is at death’s very door.”
Here Culverton Smith interrupted me to let loose an explosive, “Bwaaaaa-ha-ha!”
Pretending I hadn’t heard him, I continued, “He seems to be suffering from some exotic disease and I am only a humble general practitioner. It would probably take someone very smart to help him. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to take a look?”
“That depends,” said Smith, cagily. “Did he tell you where he happened to contract this disease?” He gave me a barely guarded squint of distrust, as if wondering how much I knew and whether I must be the next person to fall mysteriously ill.
I gave a little smile. “He thinks it is due to his repeated contact with tropical-Chinese sailors on one of his recent cases.”
“What? No, no, no! Doesn’t he understand? Damn him!”
“So, you’ll go?”
“Of course! I must drive right down and put him straight!”
“Do you need the address?”
Culverton Smith shook his head and brushed the question aside. “No, I don’t think so. Same as I sent the poison to?”
Staples gave a great sigh, hung his head, and shook it back and forth.
“The same,” I replied.
“I shall come directly.”
“No, no. You must wait twenty minutes.”
“But why?”
“Because… um… those are the rules.”
“Argh!” he fumed. “Very well!”
* * *
How it buoyed my heart to turn onto Baker Street and see that I could still perceive the door to 221B. I breezed up my familiar stairs, across the sitting room, and found Holmes much as I had left him.
“Did it work, Watson? Did you fool him?”
“I have every hope so. I have to say, Holmes, he seemed a perfect fiend!”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Watson! Do you see that little box on the table by the side of my bed? Look carefully, but be sure you do not touch!”
“And why is that?”
“It contains two dozen disease-poisoned needles, designed to shoot straight towards the face of the man who opens it. And not just any disease, Watson! A deadly one! A magical one, I should think. I’m not sure how, but I suspect Culverton Smith may have some contact with the outside realms.”
I nodded. “You are correct, Holmes. I hadn’t mentioned it yet, but his butler was exactly the same sort of demon as Bannister. I have no idea where Britain’s semi-magical idiots keep coming across these creatures.”
“Ah, probably my fault,” said Holmes with a laugh. “In my youth, it came to my attention that an alarming number of humans were attempting congress with demons—a difficult proposition to be sure, but a highly dangerous one as well. My solution was simple: I created an adjacent pocket dimension that was quite easy to break into and peopled it with exceedingly disappointing demons who were made of something akin to biscuit dough and named after boring, everyday objects. That way, most sorcerers who broke through the barriers around our world were likely to encounter one of my rather crap demons and give up on the whole thing in disgust.”
“A very sound plan; I congratulate you on it,” I said.
“Hmm. Yes. I was smarter then. Or… less distracted, I think. I had two hundred years’ less information rattling around in the old noggin. But you know what they say: experience makes us stupid.”
“Er… do they?”
“Something like that,” said Holmes, with a shrug. “Of course, my plan did not keep all dangerous materials away. Case in point: Culverton Smith’s toxin. Why, I’m not sure that any art I know could save a man who’d felt the touch of those needles. Not even I could survive it, I think.”
I gave a low whistle. “Good thing you didn’t open that trapped box, then.”
Holmes nodded. “It was a close-run thing. I was just about to, when one of the thousand demons always babbling away inside my head asked me, ‘Ooh, ooh! Are you going to open the face-stabby box?’ and I said I was, and he said, ‘Why? It’s a face-stabby box!’ Luckily for me, I asked him what he meant by that.”
“Lucky, indeed.”
“Right. And it seems this may be the exact same toxin Smith used just a few weeks previously to kill his nephew, Victor Savage, for having a much manlier name than he had.”
“A dubious reason for murder, isn’t it?”
“Well, I told you: the man is a fiend!”
“Seems like he could have just gotten his name changed…”
“That’s what Lestrade said when we were on our way to arrest him. But there was just something about him… He seemed… so very distracting, you know? That is why I begged Lestrade to leave the case to me. Instead of arresting Smith, I began to nettle him with the knowledge that I had swept aside his shadowy mask and plumbed the depths of his crime!”
“Causing him to repeat said crime, with you as the target.”
“So it would seem, Watson. So it would—”
Holmes did not finish for the ringing of the bell cut him off. The two of us exchanged surprised looks.
“Smith! Early!” Holmes gasped.
“The little blighter!” I hissed. “I told him to wait twenty minutes.”
“Genius! Fiend!” cried Holmes, clenching vengeful fists towards his ceiling. Nevertheless, his delight was clear. “Quick, Watson, hide behind my headboard!”
“Erm…”
“What? Hide! Quickly!”
“Right, but I am a grown man, Holmes, and that gap seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of one inch wide.”
“Do not let it concern you, Watson. Just hop in.”
“Except, I can’t.”
“No, I promise you, you can. There’s… well it’s not a proper smiff, you understand, but a failed little experiment of mine. Sort of a localized distortion is all. It should minimize you quite effectively. It’s painless, I swear. Quick, Watson, quick! Jump in!”
Giving Holmes a doubtful eyebrow, I attempted to wedge my foot into the one-inch gap between his headboard and the wall. To my surprise, my foot fit perfectly well. Even stranger, as I stepped down, I just… kept going. Instead of descending a foot or so to the floor, my shoe kept going down and down and down. For hundreds of feet, it seemed, as the back of his headboard loomed taller and taller up above me. It’s not as if I were falling—my other foot never left the floor—it’s just that the rest of the world grew up past me. By the time I came to rest on the floor behind Holmes’s bed, I’m sure I could not have been even one quarter of an inch high.
“Oh, well done, Holmes!” I shouted in a squeaky, tiny voice. “How long has this been here?”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” he countered, then threw the covers up around his chin, turned to the wall and loudly moaned, “Oh! Oh! The fever! And also, something about oysters!”
I could hear Mrs. Hudson escorting Smith through our front door but, curious as I was about the day’s main adventure, I had other concerns. The realm I fo
und myself in was utterly strange. Huge boulders of dust and hair lay everywhere. Holmes seemed to have dropped an impressive collection of dishes back here—none of them very clean. The shrinking effect had spared these inorganic components, leaving me in a strange forest of plates, which, from my diminished perspective seemed to be several hundred feet high and covered in precariously balanced crusts of discarded toast that might easily fall and crush me.
Oh, and apparently, we owned a cat. “We”, I say, because it was clear she’d been back here long enough to have gone feral. She seemed to be of proper cat size to me, which is to say she must have been absolutely itty-bitty. She had a gray coat, that muscular but uncared-for look of a stray that lived by what it could hunt, and the eyes of a killer. She regarded me with open distaste. I think she could have simply stepped from behind Holmes’s bed at any time and rejoined the world of reasonably sized creatures, but the fact I hadn’t seen her before testified that she never had. And why would she, really? It was clear she was queen of this strange domain. Though there was sufficient toast-and-soup waste to sustain her for many years, her main source of nutrition was plain: the shrinking magic seemed to have had no effect on the local dust mites. Several of their semi-translucent corpses lay all around—bigger than my foot and possessed of an alien countenance that horrified me to my core. Me, but clearly not the cat, for the shattered carapaces that lay on all sides testified that she must have slain thousands of them.
I decided I’d call her Dusty.
I was just about to make a peace overture of some kind, when she suddenly hissed and leapt up onto a discarded crust of bread. An instant later, I discovered why: as Hudson led Smith back through the hall, the floor bucked and pitched sickeningly. I had never considered what footsteps must feel like when you’re less than a quarter-inch tall, but it turns out they’re quite awful. I just caught an accusatory sneer on Dusty’s face, as if to say, “It’s normally your footsteps that do this, you know,” before she scrambled up the toast crust onto a pillow Holmes had dropped back there, and disappeared into a dark crevice.
That explains why she didn’t like me, I suppose.
No sooner had she gone than all the local dust mites came to meet their new neighbor. They scuttled forth in their hundreds, waving their little antennae as if to say, “Oh! Hello. What are you? You don’t have exoskeleton all over you. How interesting. You’re all soft. Say, are you made of protein? You look like you’re made of protein. That’s quite fortunate, really. Are you going to die back here? You should die back here. Then we’ll eat your soft protein body. Do you think it will take long? Maybe too long? Would it be easier if we just swarmed you and carried you off? We could do that, if you want. Look how many of us there are! Would that be easier? It would, wouldn’t it? Sure. Okay, new friend, here we come!”
The Finality Problem Page 6
