“Very well,” I said, with a resolute nod. “I can be ready in ten minutes.”
He stared at me, dumbfounded, then waved one hand back towards my door.
“Yes, yes, I understand the urgency, but I am simply not dressed for trave—”
“There’s your boots, John! Right there!”
“Well yes, but the rest of my raiment—”
“—is a bathrobe. Perfect for adventuring. Why, I once had a friend, Arthur, who went on grand adventures in a bathrobe,” Holmes said, scooping up a pair of boots and one of my hats, thrusting them into my hands, then grabbing the front of my robe and dragging me deeper into my house.
As we left, a gentle rapping came against the door and the voice we’d heard earlier announced, “Hello… um… milkman, here.”
I just had time to catch a glimpse of Little Sally bustling towards the entryway as Holmes shoved me into the library. “No!” I called back over my shoulder. “Do not answer that! Nobody answer that! Milk comes on Thursday, remember? And not in the middle of the night.”
From outside, I heard a voice mutter, “Bugger.”
Holmes dragged me to the back of my library, selected the largest of my windows, and gave it a savage kick.
“Easy!” I protested.
Holmes rolled his eyes, shoved me out into my garden and hissed, “Get your boots on then, Mr. Dress-up!”
From within my house came a horrible sound—Mary howling her rage as she descended the staircase to the main floor. I heard her scream, “You idiots! How dare you?”
I lunged back towards the open window, crying, “Mary!”
But Holmes pulled me back and said, “Come on, Watson, she’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Does she sound worried?” Holmes asked. He began surveying my garden wall for a good place to scramble over, mumbling, “Not sure about those poor assassins, though. Ah! Here we go. Give me a leg up, won’t you?”
When we’d cleared the first obstacle, Holmes dropped into a low crouch and whispered, “Now, we must gather our wits, Watson. First challenge: discern our location.”
“That’s not hard,” I told him. “It’s Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy’s garden. They’re my neighbors. Nice old couple.”
“So you think, Watson! So you think! But you must be always on your toes. Anybody might be an agent of Moriarty!”
“Holmes…”
“I am telling you: anybody! You don’t know him like I do. The level of caution we must now employ is beyond that which you have ever seen me use before! You may think you understand what is going on, but I promise you this: Moriarty is always two steps ahead. Always!”
He was right, too. That’s the odd thing: on all counts, he was right. We bustled through the Abernathys’ garden, out onto the street. As soon as we arrived, Holmes threw his hand to the sky and called, “Taxi!”
Immediately, one pulled up to the curb. I was just beginning to climb in, when Holmes’s hand fell upon my shoulder to stop me. He gave me a severe look, to say, “Caution, John. Remember?” He then turned to the cab man and said, “I know not what manner of servant thou art, but I know thy master! By the secret words of M’ghan Margoth, I charge you to reveal yourself!”
The driver turned to Holmes with a quizzical look, but just as he was about to say, “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” his entire form wobbled, blurred, then gave an audible “pop”. He transformed into a man-sized pile of green goo liberally dotted with eyes and mouths. Six of those eyes went wide with terror and two of the mouths dropped open, horrified to find out what Holmes might do.
Luckily for him, all Warlock did was shout, “Bugger off! We’ll take the next one!” before thrusting his hand into the air once more with a cry of, “Taxi!”
As if on cue, a second cab pulled up, piloted by a thoroughly working-class driver, who tipped his hat courteously and wondered, “What was that bit that happened with the last fellow?”
“Oh, you’d like to know, would you?” asked Holmes, then leveled a finger at the man and shouted, “Yes, you would! Because you are a pawn of Moriarty!”
The man’s expression broke into one of pure horror. He reached up into his mouth, cracked his secret poison tooth in half, foamed violently for a few seconds, and fell down dead.
“Well that’s not ideal, is it?” I complained. “I feel our chances of making a quiet withdrawal are—”
But Holmes already had his hand in the air.
“Taxi!” To the unskilled observer, the third cab would have appeared to be the most suspicious of the lot, as it pulled to the curb with its driver already slumped motionless in his seat. Yet, to Holmes and I, it was a glorious reprieve. The two of us gave the same cry of joy, and together shouted, “Best Horse!”
Our old adventuring companion gave us a whicker of recognition.
“Now this one we can trust, I think,” I said.
“Of course we can, John! We always trust Best Horse! Always! Oh, it is good to see you, my old friend!”
And it was. I laid a hand against his shoulder, gave him a little pat, and the next thing I knew there was a tear in my eye and I heard myself telling him, “So much has happened, you know? We solved the case you helped us with. And a few others, too. But then Holmes was mad at me and tried to keep me away. And I had to be Hall Pycroft for a while and—”
“There’s no time, John!” Warlock shouted. He pushed me bodily into the cab, then leaned out the window and whispered, “Best Horse, here’s what I want you to do: make straight down West Carriage Drive for Victoria Station, but, when we reach Imperial College Road, veer violently to the right and break into a gallop, as if our first destination was merely a blind! When we get to Petersham Mews, you will see an inn: The Reticent Shrub. Slip quietly around the back and come up through the rear end of the stables. Wait in the third stall along, with the cab well back in the building, out of view of the road. Keep your eyes down and eat some oats, like a regular horse. When I’m sure we have not been followed, I will click my tongue twice. Get back on the road and head us into town. When we reach Montpelier Walk, I want you to turn into the alleyway. It’s got to be back roads only from there on in. Keep to the shadows. It turns out Victoria Station really was our destination all along! Ha, ha! Don’t tell anybody! We must sneak in in time to catch the Continental Express. There we must part. Oh, it pains me! I would do anything within my power to bring you on our quest. Aside from Watson, you are the finest compatriot I have ever known. But, there’s nothing for it; they don’t let horses on the train. Can you do this?”
Best Horse flicked his mane and gave a snort of resolution. Holmes cackled, “Ha, ha, Moriarty! Didn’t count on that, did you?”
By God, I’ve never met the medical student who could follow instructions as well as Best Horse. He did it all, exactly as Holmes described. Though it may have been only my imagination, when we sat hidden in the drive-through stall at The Reticent Shrub, I will swear the next two coaches to come down the road paused from time to time, the curtains parting as unseen eyes swept either side of the road. The third was a London cab, driven by a green blob of eyeballs, who gazed about in all directions.
Not that he could help it, I suppose.
When he had gone, Holmes clicked his tongue twice and we made our way through the maze of back alleys to Victoria Station. There, Holmes and I said our farewells to the noble steed who had saved us once again. He stamped and whickered and looked very concerned.
“Never you mind about us,” Holmes told him. “The important thing is to preserve yourself. If anyone tries to question you about tonight’s events, pretend you’re just a horse.”
“Well, he is, I think,” I said.
“Good. Should be easy then.”
As our train pulled away, there seemed to be a disturbance on the platform. Looking back, I could just make out a rather squat fellow with close-cropped red hair, pushing his way through the crowd with two muscle-bound confederate
s, shouting for the stationmaster to stop the train.
“Well, well, well,” muttered Holmes. “Sebastian Moran. Moriarty’s short little killer. It would appear the famous hunter had a spot of trouble tracking his quarry, eh?”
As we rode along, I tried to wrest control of my mind back from the four brandies I’d poured into myself. Funny, but I did not even reflect on my own emotional state until Holmes said, “Watson… why are you smiling?”
“Eh? Oh. I suppose I’m just happy that you are including me in adventures voluntarily again.”
He gave a little snort. “Well, I wasn’t having much luck stopping you, was I? But I’m glad you’re keen. It makes the next bit easier. Come with me, please.”
He rose, walked to the front of the car, opened the door, led me onto the platform between cars and said, “When the train slows for the Canterbury curve, jump.”
I think I must have turned rather pale. “Oh no. I don’t think much of that idea. I’ve tried it before, Holmes. It did not go well.”
“It will be much better, I fear, than staying on this train until it pulls into Canterbury Station. Sebastian Moran saw us board. I absolutely promise you a gang of well-armed murderers is waiting for us at Canterbury, and probably not to help us with our bags. Could I defeat them? Certainly. But that would involve a rather impressive display of gunfire on their part and demon-fire on mine. The wisest course—and I think you must concur, dear Watson—is not to arrive where we are expected. Therefore: jump.”
The only bright side is that it did go significantly better than the last time I’d tried it. Apparently, flinging oneself from moving vehicles is a cultivatable skill. Either that, or Holmes slowed my plunge with magic. We found ourselves thrashing around in a stand of gorse beside the track. This too proved lucky, for just a few moments after the final cars of our train rounded the bend a second appeared, zooming along at full steam. There was only the engine, a coal-carrier and a flat-bedded freight car. Despite the lack of creature comforts, Moran and a gang of four confederates huddled at the center of the freight car, three of them clutching bulbous, unconvincing umbrellas under their arm.
“By God, they love those air guns, don’t they?” I noted.
“Well, of course they do,” Holmes laughed. “Here’s a fun theater exercise for you, Watson. I want you to cast yourself as a master villain. Have you got it? Good. Now, without breaking character, try saying, ‘No, thank you, I don’t wish to invest in high-power, rapid-fire murder umbrellas.’ You see? It can’t be done. But, come along; I fear we’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us.”
I should say we had—halfway across the bloody Kent Downs. Then a bit of a ride hidden under the hay in the back of a farmer’s cart. Then another bit of a walk. Then (blessedly) a ride in a hired coach, then another bit of a walk, until we finally arrived at Folkestone Harbour. There, Holmes procured us passage to Calais upon the next steam packet. This he did with ready money. It seems Holmes’s only preparation for travel had been to stuff his every pocket with massive wads of cash.
Although…
Now that I put it to paper, I realize that may be the single finest travel preparation ever.
I suspect some extra money changed hands in order to convince the agent to ignore the fact that one of his new passengers was dressed in a battered dressing gown, boots and a hat.
As the ship pulled out into open water, Holmes drew up at my elbow and hissed, “Watson! Pst! Watson!”
“Yes?”
“How many people do you think saw us board this ship?”
“I hate to say it, Holmes, but given the rather conspicuous state of my current dress, I have to assume we’ve been noticed by everybody aboard. More than a few on shore, too, I shouldn’t wonder.”
This seemed to upset him. He shuffled his feet back and forth a minute, then said, “Word may well have reached Moriarty of this ship’s destination.”
“I wouldn’t think so, Holmes.”
“His net is wide, Watson! We cannot arrive where we are expected. Ever! I’m sorry to say it, my old friend, but… jump.”
“Holmes. No. You’ve got to be ki—”
“Jump!”
* * *
Our fourth ship finally set us on the mainland. Not in Calais. In a small fishing village, thirty miles from Oslo. As a point of interest to travelers: do you know where an Englishman can secure appropriate traveling garb?
Not in a small fishing village, thirty miles from Oslo!
Still, the hideousness of my new clothes was not my foremost concern. Despite my joy to be once again adventuring with Holmes, the fact did begin to sink in that I was on the lam in Northern Europe, having abandoned my home, servants, medical practice and wife with nary a fare-thee-well. Disregarding Holmes’s continued insistence on utmost secrecy, I penned a quick letter to Mary, to let her know she wasn’t a widow yet.
That settled, my main concern became our aimlessness. This came to a head on our third day when—on some random train in the middle of Finland—Holmes glared grimly out the window and muttered, “It’s Moriarty or me, this time.”
“Well then I hate to say it, Holmes, but my money is on Moriarty. Unless you feel that a plucky little Scandinavian holiday is going to somehow cause his empire to crumble, I’d say he’s got the upper hand.”
“Ah, but it just might, Watson. It just might!”
“You’ll forgive my lack of confidence.”
“No. Really, Watson, I have a plan.”
“Oh God…”
“Don’t be mean! Now, look here: has it occurred to you that Moriarty’s made himself last a bit longer than most fellows?”
“Of course.”
“But how, Watson? How has he done it?”
“I really would be the last to know.”
“Then perhaps you’d be good enough to apply that famous sense of logic to what I’m about to say and tell me if it makes any sense. Remember how Hugo Baskerville was keeping himself alive by leaching power from outside dimensions through ley lines? Well, there is absolutely no reason I can think of why Moriarty has not dipped into that same well. They even knew each other! Now… what happened when Hugo and I exerted a great deal of magical force near the lines that sustained him?”
“You got stabbed by a table?”
“No. Well… yes. But that’s hardly the point. The smiff, Watson! We made a smiff! And I’ve come to believe Moriarty has a smiff, too.”
“How do you come by this knowledge?” I asked.
My tone must have been somewhat doubtful, for Holmes gave a little huff. “We didn’t all get to spend half a year gadding about as Hall Pycroft! While you were away, Moriarty’s empire came back into full swing. Several attempts have been made on my interests and even my life. Each time it happens, there is this funny feeling. It feels rather like the time I got slapped around by our Christmas turkey.”
“Goose, Holmes.”
“And we all know who that turkey was, don’t we?”
“Moriarty. And goose,” I said. “So you can feel whenever an evil action is attributable to Moriarty? That might prove useful.”
“Oh, hardly,” Holmes laughed. “I know him so well and there are so few magical masterminds running around that there’s seldom much doubt. The useful bit comes as a strange side effect: I can always sense that fear, even when he’s not attacking me. It’s hard to detect if I’m distracted, but on quiet evenings I can feel it. Many is the night I’ve spent on London’s rooftops, gazing to the southeast.”
“Holmes?”
“Hmm?”
“You’ve been doing magical things on people’s rooftops?”
“What of it?”
“People don’t mind a dark-clad, sometimes-green-fire-eyed stranger bumping about on their roof?”
“Well occasionally they do. Shots have been fired. But the main point, Watson, is that I can feel a hole in our world. It never moves, so I don’t think it’s Moriarty himself. I think I’m feeling a source of demonic power to
which Moriarty and I are intimately tied.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t know… From what you tell me, Moriarty was an intensely careful man and never used great quantities of magic. Can you see him creating a smiff?”
“Ah! That’s just the thing, Watson! I can! In fact, I can envision the exact moment he might have done it!”
“Oh? When?”
“Think, Watson! Think! When was that careful man at his most desperate—a desperation I had just caused, by the way?”
“Oh! When you killed him!”
“Just so, Watson! No living thing can withstand the touch of Melfrizoth! There he stood, with my burning blade right through his chest, with only seconds to save himself. It must have been then! A great, panicked burst of power, expended as a last resort, with none of his usual caution! That would also explain why I can feel it—if it’s my soul-blade that helped cause the thing.”
“And you think you can move against Moriarty by finding this smiff?” I asked.
Holmes shrugged. “Possibly. It seems as if something was keeping him alive all the time he was just a disembodied thought. Something was giving him enough power to mesmerize people and take over their bodies.”
“But, Holmes, we both know you can’t close a smiff, not even your own.”
Holmes shrugged. “I could try binding it to me—try to suck up all the energy so Moriarty can’t have any. There’s no chance he’s got a minion with enough magical knowledge to handle such a delicate matter, so he’d have to come himself.”
“Are you trying to force a personal confrontation?”
“I think I must. He keeps trying to kill me. None of the attempts has gotten too close, really, but he still has the advantage because I cannot strike back at him. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know who he is. He might be a disembodied rune, still. Or he might have possessed the prime minister. Maybe he’s a yak, I don’t know.”
“A yak, Holmes?”
“The turkey didn’t work, so who knows what he’ll try next? The point is, Watson, whenever it comes to a confrontation between Moriarty and me, I am in danger of being outsmarted and he is in danger of being overpowered. I must find a way to effect the latter before he enacts the former.”
The Finality Problem Page 27
