by J. R. Trtek
I looked at the woman whose arm I held and inwardly considered whether I could piece together that trust, which had been so rudely shattered. “I wish that I could wish,” I said, using a logic which I now, in retrospect, find baffling. “But will it be coyness until then, Miss Adler?”
“Do not call it that, please!”
“Well then,” I said, forcing myself to assume a light-hearted tone as well, “I shall try.” I gazed round. “Have you ever seen it at night, Miss Adler?”
“The Strand? Oh, many times, Doctor. It is a kaleidoscope then.”
“Yes,” I said with a hollow laugh. “I believe I’ve used that very same word myself. Somewhere nearby, unless it was demolished, is the hotel where I stayed before sharing Baker Street with Holmes.”
“Certainly, you did not want for entertainment in those days,” my companion replied, indicating our surroundings.
“It was little comfort to me then,” I told her, thinking back to that time. “Indeed, I thought my life comfortless...meaningless, for that matter. I had no one, save for my poor bull pup, and life on eleven shillings and sixpence a day was no picnic, I can tell you. A lean lounger and an idler, following in my family’s uneven tradition—that was my description.”
“It is not the portrait I see before me today. I perceive instead a solid, well-groomed man of firm chin, the picture of accomplishment and respectability.”
“Ha! I fear I was the very opposite when I resided here.”
“And then you met Sherlock Holmes.”
“Yes, and that reminds me that we must not fail to take in Bart’s,” I said while passing the iron gate before Charing Cross Station. We then continued down to the Lowther Arcade and spent time at the American Exchange before approaching Simpson’s, where it had been our plan to dine. In bypassing Holborn, we had arrived earlier than expected, but we each found ourselves not reluctant about expressing our desire for food.
“I did not take you from any work today, did I?” Miss Adler asked as we passed the imitation-marble entrance columns and strode across a floor of coloured tile and small trees growing in their tubs until we were seated near the huge dumbwaiter that dominated the centre of Simpson’s great dining room.
“What work?” said I. “My practice in Queen Anne Street is looked over by an associate, and my latest story is ready to be sent to my editors. I can afford to be on holiday.”
“It is better than eleven shillings and sixpence a day, is it not?”
“Oh, yes,” I replied, admiring the plated wine coolers that adorned each corner of the massive dumbwaiter. “It is a most wonderful feeling to be chronicling Holmes’s cases again. If I may, I wish to recommend the fish dinner here.”
“Thank you,” Miss Adler said, gracefully adjusting the placement of her black-cushioned chair and withdrawing a napkin from its empty glass. “You ceased writing for a time then?”
“For a few years,” I said. “Holmes encouraged my literary silence, as he did so often back then, but in truth, the demands of my practice were as much to blame. My first new tale was published only last year, and I have a contract for several short stories that will begin appearing soon.”
“And you enjoy that.”
“Oh, yes. I find, in the end, I could even say that I love it.”
“Which do you enjoy more, living the adventures or writing about them?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “I suppose writing about them allows me to relive them, does it not?”
“Well, I am happy for you in any case. I trust that though your fiancée frowns upon the books you read, she does not intend to stop you from writing books yourself.”
“Why...no,” I said, staring at the curtains and mirrors encircling much of the room. “Of course she does not…I believe.”
We both chose the restaurant’s fish dinner and enjoyed it immensely then left Simpson’s to continue our promenade as far as Doctors’ Commons, where we turned into Wellington Street to approach the Thames before making our way back toward the west, along the granite of the Embankment, passing beneath the shadow of Cleopatra’s Needle. All the while, I searched for Mercer in hopes the agent might chance upon his escaped charges but to no avail.
Miss Adler and I paused frequently to take in the slow glide of river traffic, and just short of Charing Cross Station, which very much held my companion’s fascination, we hailed a cab to ferry us into the City, which Miss Adler had evinced a strong interest in seeing. Passing the Temple and then St. Paul’s, our driver deposited us in Cannon Street.
“Shall we walk on to Bart’s?” I suggested. “It is just on the other side of Newgate.”
“I should very much like that,” Irene Adler replied. “But could we not wander about here first? Is not Upper Swandam Lane nearby?”
“I am not certain,” I replied, pausing to get my bearings. After a moment’s hesitation, I accosted a passing clerk and got directions.
“Shall we see what lies in Upper Swandam?” Miss Adler suggested.
“As you wish,” I said. “I assume that destination must be your ultimate goal.”
Miss Adler only smiled absent-mindedly, and I followed her on, my leg once more throbbing mildly. We quickly found Upper Swandam Lane, where Miss Adler’s course seemed less a distracted meander and more the determined search I had been expecting.
“I take it that our journey concerns either your young man or the black bird,” I said as we paused opposite a stalled furniture van, whose driver was treating his horses in a manner that made me impatient to leave the scene.
“A moment, please, Doctor,” the woman whispered.
“I plead for your confidence, Miss Adler,” I said as we stood near steps that had been whitened by pigeons. “I have shown great trust in you, rather more than Holmes’s might have wished me to. Can you not reciprocate?”
Just then the van began to move and in so doing revealed to us a small lane off Upper Swandam.
“That’s it!” said Miss Adler. “Fresno Street! Come, Doctor.”
My patience tried by her failure to acknowledge my remarks, I followed her nonetheless down the narrow pavement, almost to its end. “Miss Adler!” I said loudly, not caring what impression it might give others nearby. “Miss Adler, please halt, if you will!”
The woman stopped and turned round. Her gloved hand pushed her hat down farther onto her head while the other hand gripped the front of her coat. Irene Adler’s face exhibited a look of shame as she approached.
“Oh, Dr. Watson, do forgive me!” she said. “It is your leg, is it not?”
“It is not my leg which troubles me most,” I insisted. “It is your continued treatment of me. You speak of confidence and trust, yet you do not offer any of your own. Will you not tell me—”
I stopped abruptly, noticing that my companion’s attentions were suddenly directed behind me. I turned about and saw at the far entrance to Fresno Street, beyond a throng of passers-by, the outline of a huge man in an Astrakhan coat and bowler. Behind him stood men of a sort I had no wish to be near.
“Doctor?” said Miss Adler.
I looked back at the woman to see her staring frantically into my eyes.
“Come slowly,” I said, taking her arm as I made a hasty examination of the lane. “We shall go in here.” With rapid steps, we entered a tea shop of the Aero Bread Company.
“I am Mr. Price of the Yeast Council,” I declaimed to those inside. “Show me to the back of your establishment.”
“What, sir?” said the thin male attendant.
“The council has instituted mandatory inspections of premises such as these! Now get us to the back, or have you something to hide?”
“Here, we’ve nothing to hide,” said a woman who emerged from the rear of the shop. “This way,” she directed. We followed her through a door to the back side of the building, where Miss Adler and I found a door giving access to an alleyway. “All appears well,” I said in a peremptory manner to our escort as we rushed past her and d
own the winding, narrow corridor, thence to a thoroughfare that was Cannon Street itself, with the Cannon Street Station just opposite us. I hailed the first hansom I saw and then, after quickly assisting Miss Adler into the cab, offered the driver two crowns to find the fastest way back to Baker Street. We tore past St. Paul’s and into the Old Bailey, skirted Newgate, and went on, ironically, toward Holborn, leaving behind St. Bart’s, unvisited.
I frequently braved possible injury while attempting to glimpse if any vehicle was following ours, but I saw none. All the way to Oxford Street, I assured my fellow passenger that we were, indeed, safe.
“Foolish,” I heard her say to herself. “You were right. I am foolish.”
At last we were racing past the dun-coloured houses of Baker Street, where I quickly settled with the driver, tossed him an extra crown to his disbelief, then shepherded Miss Adler under the fanlight of 221 and on into the waiting room. Half-consciously, I noticed that Holmes’s agents were not in attendance.
“Mrs. Hudson!” I called. “Pike! Hollins? I say, where are you?”
“Your men ’re in a place where they won’t come when called,” replied a flinty voice from the top of the stair. I looked up in horror as a tall, rugged man in an overcoat and slouch cap slowly descended.
“Who are you?” I demanded. “Where is Mrs. Hudson?”
“The woman? She’s with ’em,” said the man as he reached the ground floor and stopped to lean back upon the railing, the brim of his cap almost covering his eyes. “They’re all fine, they are. They’re just…shall we say…indisposed.” The intruder stroked a dirty chin and smiled broadly, revealing a gap in his discoloured teeth on the upper left side.
“Your name, sir?” I asked sternly.
“Briggs,” he replied. “But you can call me Uncle Bill. And don’t go reaching for the door now, miss!” he told Miss Adler sharply. “Georgie! Shep!”
From the back of the house came two men, neither of them even thirty years of age, both dressed in shabby attire.
“Will you boys make a nice frame for me portrait here?” he said, and the pair stood on either side of us.
“Real nice!” Briggs said with mock admiration, holding up his hands, the thumbs and forefingers forming corners. “Picture perfect of the pair it is!”
“You would be best advised to leave at once,” I said calmly, cursing the distance between myself and the service revolver in the sitting room above.
“Oh, I’m going eventually, never fear,” Briggs answered. “And you’re coming with me, right after we talk to Mr. Girthwood himself.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN :
Captives
“Who are you to order us about in our own house?” I said sternly. “We’ll have naught to do with threats.”
“You’d not do to ignore them, if I was you, sir,” said Briggs. “You act as directed here, and by all that’s fair, no harm ’ll come to either the two of you. That’s a promise what comes down from the boss himself. But understand, you see, that for now, you need to go up them stairs, right brisk now.”
“And if I do not wish to do so?”
“Oh, I’m beginning to think that your mouth ain’t quite knowing what your brain must by now, sir,” Briggs replied. He walked up to me and, taking a long steel pin from his lapel, he used it to pick his teeth, revealing again the missing canine. “Your brain knows that upstairs is where you wants to be, so shouldn’t your mouth be in agreement?”
“You need some help, Uncle Bill?”
“No, Shep,” Briggs replied, slipping the pin back through his coat. Then suddenly, he took me by my own lapels. “You wants to tell me you’re dying to go up them stairs, now don’t you, sir?”
My eyes caught the animal fury in his, and I steeled myself to meet it squarely, though I could sense that great strength lay in his hands. I was about to speak when I felt another, more gentle grip take my right arm.
“Come, Dr. Watson,” Irene Adler whispered in a low tone. “Let us join in the amusement and go up the stair.”
“We are not required to yield,” I said, as much to Briggs as to her. “And this is hardly an amusement.”
“Discretion, Doctor!” the woman implored. “Do not fight when the fight is useless. For my sake, please!”
“Take the lesson,” Briggs rasped. “Listen to the lady.”
And, for the sake of Irene Adler, I rejected confrontation. Briggs sensed my silent submission and, keeping his insane stare fixed upon me, slowly released his hold on my coat and stepped back, allowing Miss Adler to guide me toward the stair. Now taking her arm in mine to assume the lead, I climbed resolutely with the woman to the sitting room, where Briggs had us sit upon the sofa while his two men stood by the door and he sprawled in Holmes’s armchair like a ragged monarch.
“You realize Sherlock Holmes will have this house surrounded within moments,” I said calmly.
Briggs blew a gust of air in amusement. “Oh, truly? He going to direct that manoeuvre from some Frenchy cancan house, is he?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your Mr. Holmes ain’t here, don’t it?” said the ruffian, pulling a folded telegram from his coat pocket. “I got in my hand a message from the fellow himself. Plucked it from the messenger and tipped him for it, too; by God I did. And what does that great snoop of a detective say?” Briggs declaimed.
He squinted at the piece of paper as he fumbled with it. “Do the police in different voices, I can. Oh well, right, Mr. Holmes Esq. here says he got over to Frenchy-land, learned a whole lot, and he’s on his way back now, even as we’re speaking so cosy to one another. But just between you and me, sir and lady, by the time he gets back, it’ll be to surround an empty house. Some adventure, that. Maybe you could write it, eh, sir? Ha!”
“I fear the title is already taken.” I sat back and, with the others, waited quietly for several minutes, the steady ticking of Holmes’s Swiss clock the only sound. Then the door below opened, and I heard a now-familiar strain upon the stair. Within a moment, the sitting room doorway was engulfed by Jasper Girthwood.
“Well, Briggs, that’s good,” exclaimed the portly man. “Both of them in tow! Marvellous, sir. I knew you were the man for me, I did. Astounding what good help can do to change one’s fortune. Now then, Dr. Watson,” Girthwood said, removing his bowler. “A pleasure, sir. And, my dear Irene, how are you? So far from home, aren’t we?”
The woman sat straight and unmoving; there was no suggestion that she might ever speak again.
“No word of greeting?” Girthwood said, his eyes heavy-lidded and his expression smug as he wheeled about the room in his Astrakhan coat. “Not even for me?”
“You know this man well?” I said. “Well enough for him to speak of—”
Miss Adler turned to me. Her outward resolve did not fade, yet in her eyes, I sensed a collapse of spirit, and in a hushed voice, she said, “He is my half brother.”
“Yes, and so let us act as if we were at least half a family and say hello,” the large man said.
“I should give you but half that word, sir,” the woman replied.
The heavy man pressed his lips together, clenched his fists, then relaxed them and struck a philosophical stance. “Well, one can’t have everything, and something is better than nothing. You know quite well what I want, Irene; there’s no more to be said. Perhaps a little trip with Briggs here will change my older sister’s perspective, Doctor. Do you think so?”
“You presume to remove us from this house?” I said.
“Ha!” Girthwood said with amusement. “You are ever the indignant squire, aren’t you? I must compliment you on the Beaune, however.” He moved his arms like flippers in his great coat, his expression now grim. “Is nothing simple in the world? Why cannot people bow to simple logic?” He glanced toward Briggs. “See to it as planned and swiftly.”
“We shall, sir,” was the ruffian’s answer.
“None of the responsibility for this unpleasantness lies on my should
ers,” Girthwood declared as he stomped from the sitting room.
“You heard the boss,” said Briggs as his employer left the house. “Get up, and let’s be about.” He signalled for his two young accomplices to be ready.
Miss Adler stood up.
“You cannot succeed in this,” I declared, remaining seated.
“Oh, I believe we’re all going to succeed quite well,” said Briggs. “Ain’t we, ma’am?”
Irene Adler stared him full in the face and whispered, “I suppose you will. Say what you must, and we shall comply.”
“You heard the lady,” Briggs declared. “Get up, sir, or is your bum now getting as disagreeable as your mouth was just a bit ago?”
I looked at Miss Adler and saw desperation in her eyes. Once more, I yielded on her account and silently rose to my feet.
“That’s the attitude to have.” Briggs tapped my shoulder and smiled. “You could do well to take your lady friend here for an example, my good doctor friend. Now get going!” he snarled and turned round to leave.
“May we at least gather some personal items?” I asked.
“Uncle Bill?” said one of the raw-faced underlings.
“Calm yourself, Georgie,” said Briggs, turning round again, this time to face me with narrowed eyes. “The gent here’s a croaker. He knows what broken bones be like. And you do know, don’t you, Doctor Squatson—Watson?”
Miss Adler took my arm. “Come, Doctor,” she said. “There is no choice. We must!”
Nervously, I covered her hand with my own. “I will go,” was my response after a moment. “But I wish to take some things if I may.”
“Don’t want no baggage here slowing us down.”
“They are just some personal effects. They are there in my desk. If—”
Irene Adler gripped my hand tightly. “No,” she whispered. “Perhaps we should simply go now. You can always get them later, Doctor, when all this is past and we return.”
“But I—”
“Please!” the woman begged. “No. Mr. Holmes would wish us simply to go.”
“But to so completely acquiesce—”
