Sherlock Holmes
Page 34
Through the open door to the adjoining room, Watson could hear the hiss of the iron. Without rising from the desk, he called out for his wife. “Can you step in a moment?”
“What is it?” she asked.
“How does one spell Lama? Is it with two L’s?”
“Yes, I should think so.”
As the details came to him, Watson’s pen raced across the page. The laboratory in the south of France Sherlock had returned from—it was in Montpelier, surely. Only…
What was that fighting technique Sherlock had used at the Reichenbach Falls? It was something Japanese, he recalled. But what had it been? If he had been writing this at 221B Baker Street he might have used Sherlock’s beloved encyclopedia. Perhaps one of the books in Watson’s new lodgings might be of use?
He rose from his desk and began searching, and found the international section of a newspaper that had been stuffed into the bookshelf. The previous year, Britain and Japan had signed a military alliance; all the articles on Japan were largely concerned with that.
Emperor Nicholas II, of Russia, was pursuing a more aggressive stance against Japan in regards to Korea. Emperor Nicholas had ascended to the throne while still young; he had a short temper and seemed to hold Japan in contempt, an attitude that would likely be his own undoing—or so one of the editorials claimed.
Watson continued rifling through the papers, in hopes he might find an article on one of the Eastern boxing tournaments. Unfortunately very few of the articles were concerned with Japan. In March of last year a Japanese politician known as Hirobumi Ito had been anointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. The article mentioned the unequal treaty between Britain and Japan, which had been revised in the last decade or so.
Hirobumi Ito. He had once visited their lodgings at Baker Street, before he grew quite so influential. Afterward, though, there had been no connection. None of these articles had anything at all to do with Sherlock.
Then Watson found an old issue of Pearson’s Magazine. He seemed to recall a feature on a Japanese fighting technique inside.
Flipping it open, he found it was not about fighting, but rather a form of self-defense that utilized a walking stick, devised by one Edward William Barton-Wright, with a basis in Eastern martial arts. Barton-Wright had lived in Japan until three years prior. He named his technique Bartitsu, after himself. Watson read through the article, but unfortunately it made no mention of the Japanese arts upon which Bartitsu was based.
He groaned reflexively. Ought he to ask Sherlock? No, he was on some case or other and was now at Tuxbury Old Park. Or so Watson had been told. After Watson had announced he would be married, Sherlock had said quite petulantly that thereafter any cases he went on alone, he’d write about on his own as well. And now that Sherlock had resolved to write his own memoirs, it would not do for Watson to be outdone. Asking for help this time was out of the question.
Watson supposed he need rely on memory after all. What was it, then? B…B…Now he had simply gotten “Bartitsu” into his head. But he was sure it started with a B. Something Japanese.
Baritsu. Yes, that was it! Baritsu!
The longer he thought about it, the surer Watson became. He rushed to his desk and resumed writing.
Now that he had overcome that small difficulty, his writing flowed without pause. The cab to Baker Street. The sardonic smile on Sherlock’s face. Stepping out into the gloom at the corner of Cavendish Square, and slipping through the alleys to Manchester Street and then Blandford Street. Passing through the wooden gate and into that wild deserted yard. The empty house across from 221B Baker Street.
Watson’s face broke irresistibly into a smile. Sherlock was like a tiger stalking his prey: his keen and piercing gaze, constantly roaming. And yet, when those same eyes alighted upon the weak, they were filled with limitless compassion. Though Sherlock Holmes was not one for social graces, he was a fearless defender of justice. His unparalleled intelligence and courage had saved the lives and fortunes of many a client. Surely he would continue to follow that path for many years to come.
My friend Sherlock Holmes, a man of rare courage and conviction.
Watson had perhaps grown a touch sentimental with age. He wiped at his eyes, on the verge of tears. It would be a shame to smudge the manuscript. He regathered his composure and began writing the conclusion to the case.
* * *
—
At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman’s back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room.
“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It’s good to see you back in London, sir.”
“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won’t do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you handled it fairly well.”
We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner.
It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’ face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended. “You fiend!” he kept on muttering. “You clever, clever fiend!”
“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar. “‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says. I don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.”
The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. “You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say.
“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?”
About the Author
Keisuke Matsuoka was born in 1968. A novelist and screenwriter, he sold over a million copies with his 1997 debut psycho-thriller Saimin (Hypnosis). In quick succession followed the massively successful Senrigan (Clairvoyance) and its sequels, featuring an Air Self-Defense Force fighter pilot turned clinical psychologist. He is also the author of The Appraisal Case Files of the Omnicompetent Q series.