Hatherley gave a little sigh as he said the name. I’ll admit it surprised me. I was willing, in the interest of gathering every useful clue I could, to let the story unwind how it may. I’d been patiently waiting for the moment it all went bad, leading up to the loss of Hatherley’s thumb and his doubt that the police would believe his story. What I had absolutely not been expecting was that he seemed utterly smitten.
“Magerzart, eh?” I said. “Tell me about her.”
Hatherley blushed. “Well, she was German, like her father. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Colonel Stark spoke with an accent.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “And yet, why not? Suits him, really. Did he also happen to have a long black moustache he could twist through his fingers as he stared at you nefariously?”
“No, no, no,” Hatherley scoffed. “It was brown. Ah, but what should I tell you about Magerzart…? She just had this look in her eye… Care? Concern? Maybe a bit of guilt? She had the most striking eyes; they just popped right out at you, you know?”
“Because she was so emaciated?”
“Right. And her hair… She had this long blonde hair. I remember thinking how sad it was that it was falling out in chunks.”
“Malnutrition?”
“Yeah…” he sighed. “Well Stark and Ferguson went off to get the machine ready. They said something about how long it took to load up hundreds of empty bottles. Stark said his daughter would be happy to guard me. But then he said he thought he’d got the English wrong and asked me what the right word was. I said ‘entertain’ and he said yes, that must be right. So, there I was. Alone with her.”
“With her eyes bulging out all over the place, and hair wisping off like autumn leaves?”
“Ah, Magerzart… I had no idea what to say. I told her my name was Victor Hatherley and she told me she already knew that. So then I started telling her about hydraulic engineering, but she had no interest in it.”
“Nobody does,” I noted.
“So then I just started telling her what it was like to live alone. At first she had no interest in that, either. But then I mentioned it was kind of sad to take all my meals by myself.”
“Ah!” I said, failing to hold back a bit of a laugh. “I bet that got her interest!”
“Oh yes,” Hatherley agreed. “She wanted to know what it was like to live in a house with food in all the cupboards, just knowing you could have some whenever you pleased. And someone must have told her about crumpets once, for she wanted to know if they were as good as everybody said. And I said they were pretty good, actually, and then I asked her to marry me.”
“Wait! What?”
Hatherley threw up his free hand in exasperation and cried, “Well, I told you I had no idea how courting works! What was I supposed to do? There we both were, you know, facing lonely lives, trapped in our little worlds and… I don’t know… it just seemed like a chance for us both to break out!”
“Mr. Hatherley, there are a thousand steps a young lady expects between meeting a gentleman and being proposed to.”
“I know that! But I don’t know what those steps really are. And I realized I had this one small chance. So I took it.”
“She rejected you, I suppose?”
“Er… she didn’t say yes,” he confirmed. “I do think I surprised her a bit. She said she was a stranger to such things, too, as the young men she met never stayed long. I told her that sitting about doing nothing was a bit of a specialty of mine, so I wasn’t going to go away any time soon. She said she thought I probably was. Then I think we both felt bad and we sat there in silence a while. But then—and oh, it gave my heart such hope—she leaned in and asked if she should wed me, might she try a crumpet. I laughed and told her we could have crumpets every day! The look she gave me was just…”
Victor Hatherley trailed off, lost for words, so I suggested, “Hungry?”
“Yes! That’s it! Hungry! But then her father returned and said they were ready for me to see to the machine. So I picked up my tools and went to see the juice press.”
I gave a knowing nod. “Rather large, was it?”
“Really large! The whole room, in fact. The ceiling and floor are steel and sort of crossed with small, triangular nodules that look like they’re made to interlock.”
“Like the head of a meat tenderizer?” I asked.
“Very like that, yes. We went in one door, through the press room, and out a door on the other side to the machinery. They ran it for me, and I instantly detected the problem: one of the India rubber seals had burst and the resulting leakage robbed the machine of all force. Luckily, it was a standard size, so I had one with me and quickly replaced it. Oh, they were so happy. Mr. Ferguson kept jumping up and down, clapping his little hands and shouting, ‘Juice! Juice! Juice!’ Colonel Stark said I had certainly earned my fee, then he picked up my toolbox, opened the door to the press room, and gestured me inside. I thought he meant to follow me through, but a moment later I heard the door swing shut! I heard the clicking of the lock! I heard the machine come to life! Slowly, the ceiling began to press down towards me! By God! And over it all, the muffled cries of Ferguson: ‘Juice! Juice! Juice!’ I threw myself at first one door then the other, crying for mercy, trying to force my way through, but they were locked!”
“How did you escape?” I asked.
“Well, just as I’d given up hope—just as I’d begun to wonder if I should try to stand up to make it quicker, or lie face up, or face down, or what would be least painful—I heard the lock click at the other door. It creaked open, and I heard Magerzart’s voice say, ‘I don’t want you to die.’”
“That must have made you happy.”
“Oh! For two reasons! She took me by the hand and led me down this corridor and that, but we knew we’d run out of time, for we could hear the machine grinding to a halt and Mr. Ferguson’s cry of ‘Juice! Juice! Awwwww…’ She stopped by one of the windows and gave me a guilty look. ‘It is two stories to the ground,’ she said, ‘but I think you can make it.’ I climbed out on the ledge and started lowering myself down, yet I had no time. Colonel Stark came bursting in through the door, waving a cleaver about and demanding, ‘Magerzart! What have you done with the ingredients? Aren’t you thirsty?’ And she stomped her foot and said that what she was was hungry, and that she wanted a crumpet and didn’t think that was too much to ask. And he got really mad and started talking about how hard it is to raise a daughter on your own.”
“All this while you were dangling out the window?” I asked, picking up my bandages and beginning to wind them around his hand.
“Yes,” he said sheepishly. “I know I ought to have dropped down and escaped, but once I was out there, looking down, it seemed rather far to the ground. I was trying to make myself let go, but it was hard, you know? Then Ferguson burst in and pointed out that they could work this out later and Stark said he was right and came over and chopped my thumb off.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, I think he was aiming at my head, but I moved it. And there was this ‘thunk’ and I was falling—which was sort of a relief and sort of wasn’t. Luckily the flowerbed was pretty soft, so I hit it and rolled over a few times, then got up and started running. It was dark and I had no idea where I was, except ten or twelve miles from Eyford. I was confused and I didn’t even realize I’d been hurt. I just ran off into the woods. Well soon my hand was throbbing badly enough that I took a moment to look down and see what was the matter.”
“Probably a mistake,” I noted.
Hatherley nodded. “As soon as I saw what had happened… well… I think I was already a bit light-headed.”
“Blood loss. Adrenaline. Fear. Just fell off a house,” I explained.
“And when I saw it, I fainted.”
“Of course you did.”
“Which was extra inconvenient, for it turns out I’d been standing near a bit of a cliff at the time.”
“Ouch.”
“I had the sens
ation of falling—of bumping and bashing over and over down the hill—and then nothing. Nothing until morning. Oh, but what a morning! I woke some time after dawn to find one of the local dogs licking at my thumb stump.”
This was enough to make me pause my bandaging and reflect, “Yes. Er… maybe I’ll just disinfect this again, shall I?”
“And I struggled to my feet,” Hatherley continued, with an expression of utter wonder on his face. “And do you know where I was? In the rose bushes, just behind the train station! All I had to do was buy a ticket for London, and here I am. Bless me, but I don’t know how it happened! Did I run twelve miles before I fainted? Did I fall down a twelve-mile hill? Or Magerzart? Did she come and find me where I’d fallen, and carry me back to the station?”
I smiled. “Mr. Hatherley, from what you tell me I’m not sure Magerzart could lift that crumpet she wants so badly. I suspect there is a much more direct reason you woke up where you did.”
“But how can you explain it?”
“I think I’d start my reasoning by asking how a horse could pull a carriage ten miles by night and arrive with no hair out of place for the return trip. But come, enough of this for the moment. Let me get this hand bandaged up and I’ll take you to just the right fellow to help you out.”
* * *
Except I couldn’t. I found Baker Street with no problems, but 221B remained invisible to me. I paced up and down the street in a rage, howling my frustration to a stunned-looking Victor Hatherley. I assured him that the address I was looking for ought to be right here. I showed him 335 and 339 and insisted that the missing address was not—as one might assume—337, but was in fact my old residence 221B. I cursed the missing door for some minutes, while Hatherley stared at me as if I were an utter madman.
Finally, he cleared his throat, pointed at a blank stretch of wall and softly said, “You mean that door?”
“What? What? You can see it?” I shouted, clutching at his sleeve.
He gave me a slow, careful nod, as if he were very afraid of me.
“Open it,” I said.
He did. Baker Street bowed, wobbled, and expanded by thirty feet. I could feel it happening—sort of a sweeping, stretching, bending of the fabric of reality. My head swam and I vomited in my mouth a bit, but then swallowed it back down in triumph.
“Erm… are you all right?” Hatherley asked me.
“Fine. I’m fine. Just flush with victory, that is all. Let’s go in.”
“After you,” he said, which made me realize I still had a problem.
I couldn’t see the doorway. I could see part of the door held in Victor’s hand, but if I tried to look at where it connected to the building I got freshly nauseous. Which is not to say I did not attempt to go in anyway. Indeed, I vomited two or three times trying to determine where the disembodied hunk of door in Victor Hatherley’s left hand connected to the blank wall. But I just could not. The damned thing was all shimmery and elastic and made no sense. I got sick from staring at it. I tried to walk in, though the doorway was invisible to me. I stood just by the door Hatherley held open and walked forward, only to smack face first into a stretch of the Baker Street building, some fifteen feet away, by the entrance to 339. Victor stared at me, incredulous, then pointed into a stretch of frustrating, distorted reality and said, “It’s here.”
“I’m going to try again.”
“Right… well… what if I just went in without you, Doctor?”
“No! I’m coming too!”
Whatever Hatherley was going to say was interrupted by a familiar voice, calling, “I say, is there somebody there?”
“Holmes?” I crowed. “Yes, it’s me!”
“Watson? Go away!”
“No, I’ve got a case for you, Holmes. This is Victor Hatherley; he needs you!”
“Very well, but you don’t.”
“Yes I do! My life is terrible!”
Holmes gave a frustrated sigh. “Mr. Hatherley, do come up and join me.”
“But… er…” Hatherley dithered.
“Watson will be just fine. Now come on up and let’s see if we can get to the bottom of your problem, eh?”
Hatherley hesitated a moment, his gaze shifting from his shoes to the open door he held in his hand.
“Don’t you dare,” I told him.
With a guilty shrug, he lunged through the invisible door out of my perceptible reality. As soon as he shut it, Baker Street snapped back to its right shape. Or—as I knew in my heart—its wrong one.
“You little bastard!” I shouted, then slumped down to the sidewalk with my back against the wall where 221 ought to be. I took a moment to gather my thoughts and let my reeling stomach settle. Holmes was doing an altogether effective job of shutting me out, that much was clear. And he was likely right to do it. It’s true I had endangered myself terribly, trying to understand his mystic world. It’s true that my safest course of action was likely to return home to Mary and the life of wealthy domesticity that awaited me.
But dash it all, I didn’t want to! I wanted to go with Holmes! I wanted to solve a mystery! I let my head fall back against the wall. And suddenly, I could hear them—Holmes and Hatherley. Just faintly. I could not tell what they were saying, only hear their muted tones filtering through the wall. Hatherley sounded earnest. Holmes concerned. Where were they in Hatherley’s story? Was he giving Holmes all the crucial details?
“Did you tell him Stark kept saying, ‘We are what sustains us’?” I shouted.
No answer.
So a few minutes later, I shouted, “Did you tell him about the fresh horse?”
This time my efforts were rewarded. From within, I heard Holmes’s exasperated sigh, then footsteps clomping towards me. Suddenly, Baker Street expanded again – sending my head and stomach into fresh swirls – and I heard the sound of a window sliding open. Holmes’s head popped out of the void in my perception somewhere above me and called down, “Watson, go home!”
“I am home!”
“Bugger off!”
“No! I’m going to come and show you how much you need me by solving the crime. I’ve got it very nearly cracked already.”
“Oh, yes, yes. We all know you’re very clever. But I’m afraid this time you’ve been outmaneuvered entirely. You will not be involved in this investigation! Now, good day, sir!”
And the window slammed shut, returning Baker Street to its false but normal-seeming form and discombobulating me so badly that I fell all the way over. I lay there for a moment, panting and fuming. Vexing Holmes! Foolish Holmes! He thought he’d outmaneuvered me? Me? Preposterous!
I drew myself to my feet, fell down again, got up again, marched to the nearest train station and purchased one ticket to Eyford.
* * *
Holmes did not arrive for some time. I had adequate opportunity to get cleaned up as best I could, complete a circuit of the train station, locate the rose bushes Mr. Hatherley had woken up in and take note of the enormous village square just out front. I also could not help but observe the rather steep hill behind the train station and the spires of some solitary house rising from behind the woods that stood at the top. I smiled. Satisfied I had the case cracked, I settled in to wait for Holmes.
The next train came. Holmes did not. He was not on the next one either. Or the next. I think I must have dozed off slightly, for I found myself startled to wakefulness some time in the mid-afternoon by the sound of familiar voices. Sure enough, there stood Holmes, just some thirty feet down the platform with Hatherley by his side. He must have deemed that some intellectual assistance would be necessary, for the diminutive form of Scotland Yard’s most accomplished vampiric detective—Vladislav Lestrade—was just emerging from the carriage, followed by his towering colleague, Grogsson. Holmes had a local map with a large red circle drawn on it and the four men seemed to be involved in some form of disagreement over where to begin their search.
“…somewhere between ten and twelve miles from here,” Holmes was saying, �
�but in which direction?”
“To the north, I would think,” said Lestrade, in his thick Romanian drawl. “Mr. Hatherley did not mention ever feeling the carriage travel up or down a hill, and the land there is flatter than any other direction.”
But Holmes disagreed. “Ah, but consider the criminal advantages to be had south of here. It is far less inhabited thereabouts and mischief is best accomplished in solitude. What do you think, Grogsson?”
The hulking inspector thought a moment, then decided, “West!”
“Why?”
“Dat’s ware cowboys is frum.”
“I have often heard that,” Holmes conceded, “but I fail to see what that has to do wi—Oh, by the Twelve Gods! Watson?”
And there I was, advancing towards my friends with a satisfied smirk on my face. “Oh, I think I could lay my finger on the correct spot. Why don’t you gentlemen start your search here?”
I pointed to the exact middle of the circle Holmes had drawn.
“Watson, go home. Right now,” said Holmes.
“No, but I’ve solved it.”
“I don’t care. Go home.”
“Besides which,” said Lestrade, “your theory is preposterous. Mr. Hatherley remembers driving for ten to twelve miles. You are pointing to our current location.”
“He also remembers bumping his right shoulder every time the carriage turned,” I said, pointing out over the village square. “And he says the horse who arrived to pick him up had not a hair out of place!”
“So?” grunted Grogsson.
“So, a single horse does not pull a carriage ten miles over country roads and arrive at this station still looking fresh. You must—”
The Finality Problem Page 11
