The Case of the Displaced Detective

by Stephanie Osborn

  “No, I haven’t. Why?”

  “Have you ever given consideration to such a visit? Or even, to living elsewhere? London, or perhaps Paris, or maybe Washington?”

  “Um,” Chadwick pondered how to answer, her heart sinking. “I’d had it in mind to visit London with you sometime. But that was before the tesseract went to hell in a hand basket.”

  * * *

  “What about living there?” he wondered, opening his eyes to gaze at her.

  “I can’t say I’ve thought about it,” she replied flatly.

  “Oh,” was all Holmes said, disappointedly noting that her eyes were firmly closed.

  * * *

  “What brought on this subject?” Chadwick asked, hiding her reluctance to hear the answer, and discreetly peeping at him between veiled lashes.

  “Nothing in particular.” Holmes shrugged. “I have not been to the land of my birth since arriving in this continuum—as you say, with the tesseract in disrepair, there has been no time. However, my counterpart in the other continuum has not existed in that spacetime a full year as yet, but he is already visiting England…”

  “Oh,” Chadwick murmured, heart breaking anew. “Well, in a week or so, we’ll be all done, and you can travel to your heart’s content.” She paused, thinking, then added, “I guess if you wanted to, you could go now. I’m sure Billy could have a flight set up for you in no time. You could probably fly out in a day or two.”

  * * *

  Holmes blinked, heartache lancing through the grey eyes. “You…no longer wish me to…?”

  But to his chagrin, he found Chadwick knew him far too well not to hear the pain in his voice, though he tried his utmost to disguise it. The blue eyes flew open, and she gazed into his face, her expression telling him that she could see the tautness in it that he struggled to hide.

  “No, no,” she protested instantly. “I do want you to. I just…” It was her turn to shrug. “What I don’t want is for you to feel trapped. You can do whatever you want to do, Hon. If you want to go, then you can go. I’ll…manage.”

  “Alone.”

  Holmes delivered the single word, then watched her closely, suddenly aware that this was her preliminary attempt at letting go. Of everything, and everyone, he realized. When this is over, she believes she will have nothing left. Not even to live for. The only thing keeping her going now may very well be the knowledge that the lives of at least one universe, and likely more, depend upon her. She no longer cares for her own life. Crushing pain seemed to grip the former detective, followed by determined resolve.

  “If I have to. I’ve done it before.” She shrugged again, dismissing his concern.

  “No,” Holmes shook his head firmly. “I shall not do that to you. I will not abandon you, certainly not now, at the moment of crisis. We can discuss the future once we have ascertained there is one.”

  Chadwick nodded dully. Just then, her egg timer went off.

  “Time to go in,” she observed, pushing up to her hands and knees.

  “And just in time for luncheon,” Holmes noted blithely. “Come, my dear. You need to eat.”

  * * *

  That night the pair was informed that Williams had made reservations for them at his former workplace: the Cimarron Springs Hotel in Colorado Springs.

  “It’s time both of you had some nice leisure time, for a change,” Billy told them in no uncertain terms. “Not to mention some good, fattening food! So you go get spiffed up and get down the mountain. No, no back-talk out of either of you! Your ranch foreman is giving the orders this time.”

  Holmes and Chadwick exchanged a bemused glance, shrugged, then turned for their bedrooms to get ready.

  But Holmes cast a mischievous grin over his shoulder at Billy, who winked back.

  * * *

  So the week went. Each morning a new sprig of lupine appeared in the vase on Chadwick’s nightstand, and each day the pair found some new leisure activity to occupy them, most apparently planned by their liaisons and the ranch help, though Holmes never seemed unduly surprised by anything.

  Three days into their holiday, Tina presented them with a picnic basket and shooed them out the side door. Outside, they found Williams holding the reins of the buggy, with Buddy and Peggy Sue already in the traces. Huggins, in turn, stood by the gate, ready to let them out. Chadwick shook her head.

  “I know what it is,” she remarked whimsically, addressing Billy. “Y’all are used to us bein’ gone, so you’re tryin’ to get rid of us. Are we in the way that bad?”

  “Ah, you know better than that, Boss,” Williams grinned. “Both of you have been down to the barn every day, messing with the horses. Now get in this buggy,” he flipped the ends of the reins, “and go have some fun. We don’t care where you go, just as long as you go, and have fun while you’re about it.”

  Holmes handed Chadwick up into the buggy. She took the reins from Williams and held the team steady while Holmes climbed into the buggy, then to his surprise, passed the reins to him. At his querying glance, she shrugged.

  “I feel like not having to think today. I’ve done way too much of that in the last year or so. Point ‘em out the gate, and let’s see where we end up.”

  “Attagirl!” Williams exclaimed, pleased. He exchanged grins with Holmes, and in seconds the buggy was off.

  * * *

  They eventually ended up near Dog-Leg Rock, a location where they’d picnicked before. Chadwick got the picnic basket from the boot of the buggy while Holmes took the horses out of harness and hobbled them so they could graze. Chadwick opened the basket and began extracting its contents.

  Soon a delightful luncheon was spread before them on a blanket on the ground. This included china, silverware, and crystal, as well as a bottle of wine—a nice rich burgundy. The meal was composed of finger foods—julienned vegetables, cubes of cheese, sliced roast beef, fried chicken, freshly baked rolls, and strawberries and cream.

  “Oh my,” Chadwick murmured, looking over the fare. “This is lovely.”

  “It is,” Holmes agreed, taking her hand to help her sit on the corner of the blanket before seating himself. “Quite a pleasant little repast.”

  “But I…” she began, then stopped.

  “But what?” Holmes wondered, pouring two glasses of wine and handing one to her.

  “It’s a bit…much, don’t you think?” Chadwick wondered, biting her lip. “I mean, you’d think we…” She paused, suddenly uncertain and horribly uncomfortable, as a thought struck. “You don’t think they’re trying to…match-make us, do you?”

  “I think it is very nice,” he decreed, surveying the meal spread before them as he sipped his burgundy. He completely ignored her last question. “A lovely day, a delightful meal, and an intimate friend. I cannot imagine a more relaxing, pleasant way to spend the day. It quite stirs the Vernet in my blood.”

  Chadwick’s eyebrows shot up at that remark. She took refuge in her glass of wine, in order to think over the small details of recent events, before setting it down and beginning to fill the empty plate Holmes handed her.

  “You know, speaking of which,” she offered, “the…er, Other Me…indicated her Holmes was really talented in regard to sketching scenes, or something like that.”

  * * *

  “Yes, Cha— Skye,” Holmes answered her unspoken question, correcting himself in mid-name. He smiled around a mouthful of the roast beef sandwich he’d cobbled together from the sliced meat and a roll. “I can. In fact, I discovered a sketchpad and pencils in the boot a few minutes ago. Billy must have added them; I seem to recall mentioning a whim to return to it, a day or so ago.”

  “Ooo,” Chadwick said, staring at him with wide eyes. “Do you think you could do something for me this afternoon, maybe? Or will that be enough time?”

  “Oh, it is not as if I paint, my dear,” Holmes replied, a cautionary tone in his voice, lest she expect too much. “I merely sketch. It does not take so very long to create an image in that fashion.”<
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  “Still, I’d love to see your work. I’ve seen your schematic drawings, and they’re impressive. Very detailed.”

  “Then I shall see if I can produce something that will please milady,” Holmes answered mildly, reaching for the strawberries.

  * * *

  After they ate, Holmes got out the sketchbook and sat back down facing Chadwick. He looked about, pretending to scout for a suitable subject, before cocking his head and surveying Chadwick with interest. Moments later, the pencil was dancing across the paper with a faint scratching sound as Holmes recorded the scene before him. Chadwick sat and watched him as he drew in silence.

  “Um…” she began softly.

  “’Um’ what?”

  “Holmes…uh, Sherlock…would you do me a favor?”

  The dark head immediately looked up from its work, attention focusing on his subject. I cannot recall the last time she asked a personal favour of me, he thought in some startlement. This is…excellent.

  “What do you need, Skye?”

  “I don’t want to bother you, but…” she began shyly, with a rueful grin. “It’s too quiet. I…my mind keeps wandering back to the tesseract. And then I start worrying. Would you mind talking to me?”

  “Of course, my dear,” he said, expression softening as understanding dawned. “Do you have a preferred topic of conversation, or shall I simply start talking about whatever comes to mind?”

  “Whatever comes to mind will do. Just keep my thoughts occupied and off a certain apparatus.”

  “Very well,” he nodded, returning to his drawing pad. “I mentioned that I do not paint. For me, it seems to be a matter of developing appropriate brush strokes, and getting the colour transitions correct. As you did not even know I sketched, I suspect I have not told you about my experiments in painting, back in Baker Street.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “One incident in particular comes immediately to mind. It really was one of my best attempts,” he noted, reminiscing as his hands continued recording the scene before him. “It was a pastoral scene, a depiction of springtime in a field at the family estate, when I was a child. I was very pleased at how it was coming along. But as you know, oil paints, which were essentially all I had to work with at the time, are very slow to dry. This has its advantages and disadvantages, of course. I personally found it advantageous to be able to come back to the thing the following morning, and pick up where I had left off. If, for instance, I did not like the way shadows were blending, I could stop and walk away, then return when my perspective was fresher.”

  “Makes sense,” Chadwick decided. Holmes promptly recorded the contemplative countenance before him, then returned to his tale.

  “However, as you also know, oil paints are decidedly aromatic, hence the decision to leave the easel in the sitting room, rather than keep it in my bedroom. I preferred to awaken fresh, rather than headachy from sleeping amidst the fumes of turpentine and the like—which is also why the chemical lab was in a corner of the sitting room.”

  “I can see that. I’d do the same thing.”

  “No doubt,” Holmes agreed, setting to paper her quirk of eyebrow. “Unfortunately, it seems that Watson had wandered into the sitting room in the night, in search of something—I believe it was his book, though it may have been his pipe—and neglected to close the door into the hall,” Holmes recalled. “Mrs. Hudson’s cat, Marmalade, discovered this fact.”

  “The big orange longhair?” Chadwick verified.

  “The same. Has it ever occurred to you what kind of brushstroke the agitated tail of a curious cat would make upon a canvas…?”

  “Oh no!” Chadwick exclaimed, slapping her hand to her mouth. “She didn’t!”

  “I am afraid she did,” Holmes grinned wryly, adding an amused twinkle to the eyes of the woman in his sketch. “Right across the center of the painting. This, after finding my fully loaded palette and rolling in it. Then she proceeded to rub against the client’s chair…and the sofa…and the chemical table…and my desk…and the doorframe…and right down the banister of the stairs. Making sure, I might add, to rub every single spindle in the railing.”

  “Oh my,” Chadwick responded, stifling laughter with difficulty.

  “Go ahead and laugh, my dear,” Holmes offered, seeing her cheeks turning pink with the effort of restraining herself. “Even I laughed—eventually—as the full scope of Marmalade’s perambulations revealed themselves.”

  “No, no, it’s horrible that your painting was ruined,” Chadwick protested, and Holmes saw the seriousness in her eyes—despite her contorted lips and red cheeks—as he continued his tale.

  “Needless to say, the next morning, Watson was the only one of the household in good humour. The canvas was unsalvageable, Mrs. Hudson and I spent hours finding and removing wet artists’ paint, the entire flat positively reeked of turpentine for days, and poor Marmalade had to have her fur trimmed of the greasy mess. Her tail, and much of her back, was decidedly bald in patches. I believe you would term it a ‘Mohawk.’”

  “Oh NO!” Chadwick gave up trying to hold in the laughter; she howled, doubling over. The happy sound echoed off mountains and outcrops near and far, until the air rang with her mirth. A grinning Holmes paused in his drawing, content for the moment to absorb the rare sound of his companion’s merriment.

  * * *

  Upon their return, Holmes unveiled his work, showing it to Chadwick, the Williams family, and their “ranch hands.” It was an impressive portrait of a pensive Chadwick, eyes twinkling in amusement at some thought, sitting on the corner of the picnic blanket amid the tall, sere grass of the high meadow, with Pikes Peak in the background.

  “Oh, it’s lovely!” Chadwick exclaimed softly.

  “It really is, Holmes,” Billy noted. “You captured her exactly.”

  “It’s Auntie Skye!” little Martha cried excitedly. “Unca Sherwock, did oo do dat?”

  “I did, Martha,” Holmes confirmed unassumingly. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s boo’ful,” Martha decreed. “Jus’ wike Auntie Skye.”

  “Indeed,” Holmes agreed, as Chadwick blushed. “Just like Auntie Skye.”

  As the scientist and the detective entered the house alone, their ranch help could just discern them in the hallway as Holmes deposited a light, affectionate kiss on the top of a blonde head.

  Wang caught Huggins’ eye and winked.

  Chapter 9—Putting Humpty-Dumpty Together

  OVER SUCCEEDING DAYS, THERE WERE MORE buggy outings, several horseback rides, two movies viewed in the theater, and a couple of restaurant reservations, as well as considerable sleeping late and the occasional afternoon nap. Lupines regularly continued to appear mysteriously in Chadwick’s bedside vase. The relationship between a certain scientist and a certain detective continued to remain warm and companionable.

  But on the ninth day of the rest break, everyone—even the Irregulars—woke tense and anxious, well aware that the following day would determine whether their world would continue or cease to exist.

  Chadwick, in particular, was restless and stressed. She ate little for breakfast, but by lunch was barely able to sit still, let alone eat.

  “Chadwick—Skye—this will not do,” Holmes decreed, deeply concerned. “You must relax.”

  “I know. Here I’ve gotten nice and rested, and I’m gonna wear myself out all over again before I ever get back down to Schriever. I didn’t sleep hardly at all last night.”

  “Then she should take a nap,” Tina urged. “Don’t you think, Mr. Holmes?”

  “I do,” Holmes averred. “Go stretch out on the sofa, Skye, and let me prepare something to help you relax.”

  Chadwick did, and Holmes was as good as his word. Within five minutes he brought her a soothing hot drink. Twenty minutes after drinking it, she was asleep.

  Tina gave the detective an approving nod, then she took Martha and left, headed to the barn to inform the men to stay quiet, before going to her own home
in the far corner of the ranch.

  Holmes covered Chadwick with a knit afghan, then moved to the nearby armchair with a book.

  * * *

  Chadwick woke screaming and trying to fight. Her eyes opened, to find worried grey eyes gazing back, and firm hands gently gripping her shoulders.

  “Calm down, my dear,” Holmes soothed softly. “All is well. Calm down. There’s a girl.” He gave her a chance to catch her breath, then, still kneeling beside the couch, murmured, “The nightmare?”

  “A nightmare,” she panted, “but not THE nightmare.”

  “What, then?” he wondered.

  * * *

  “I dreamed I muffed the brane regeneration,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes. “I tried to go too fast, and overshot the rest energy. Everything was literally coming apart around us. I—I tried,” she broke off suddenly, averting her face to hide the misery, humiliation, and pain, “I was trying to send you back to your own continuum. I hoped maybe, just maybe, you’d be safe there. But I…I didn’t make it. You didn’t make it.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed hard, struggling with all her might for control.

  But in the next instant the battle was lost. Her tears overflowed, and utterly overwhelmed, she could only whimper, “I’m so sorry, Sherlock.”

  * * *

  “For what?” he asked softly.

  “Dragging you here…into the middle of this hell,” she muttered despondently, her expression one of hopelessness and despair.

  “I am alive, Skye,” he murmured, gathering her into his arms to offer comfort. “That is more than could be said, had you not intervened at Reichenbach.” Her terminology had not escaped his notice, and coming on the heels of her very specific nightmare, he grew concerned.

  In her perception, she IS dwelling in a kind of hell, he realized. A living nightmare from which she sees no awakening. And should we succeed in ending the fear, and the danger, what then? Will the nightmare end, or will it simply transmute?

  He noted, too, that the dream had revealed her subconscious’ ultimate concern—his safety. With her own universe lost, she had sought only to place him beyond the reach of its destruction, even at the cost of her own life.