By the time Holmes blew in, hair awry and a wild light in his eyes, I had recovered enough to be examining the woman's purchases. I drew back sharply as he entered and dropped a boot.
"Good God, Holmes, where have you been to pick up such a stench? Down on the docks, obviously, and from your feet I should venture to say you'd been in the sewers, but what is that horrid sweet smell?" "Opium, my dear protected child. It clawed its way into my hair and clothes, though I was not partaking. I had to be certain I was not being followed."
"Holmes, we must talk, but I cannot breathe in your presence. There is a fine, if austere, set of shower baths in the prisoner's section. Take these clothes, but don't let them touch the things you have on."
"No time, Russell. We must fly."
"Absolutely not." My news was vital, but it would wait, and this would not.
"What did you say?" he said dangerously. Sherlock Holmes was not accustomed to outright refusals, not even from me.
"I know you well enough, Holmes, to suspect that we are about to embark on a long and arduous journey. If it is a choice between expiring slowly from your fumes or being blown to pieces, I choose the latter. Gladly."
Holmes glowered at me for some seconds, saw that I was on this issue inflexible, and with a curse worthy of the docks snatched the proffered clothes and hurled himself out the door, furiously demanding directions from the poor constable stationed outside.
When he burst in again I was ready for travel, a booted young man. No doubt, I thought, the newness of the clothes would quickly fade in Holmes' company.
"Very well, Russell, I am clean. Come."
"There's a cup of tea and a sandwich for you while I look to your back."
"For God's sake, woman, we must be on the docks in thirty-five minutes! We've no time for a tea party."
I sat calmly, my hands in my lap. I noticed with interest that his cheekbones became slightly purple when he was severely perturbed, and his eyes bulged slightly. He was positively quivering when he threw off his coat, and one button of his misused shirt skittered across the floor. I put it into a pocket and picked up the gauze while he gulped his tea. I worked quickly on the nearly healed wound, and we were on the street within five minutes.
We dove into the back of a sleek automobile that idled at the kerb and squealed away. The driver looked more like a ruffian than he did the owner of such a machine, but I had no say in the matter. I waited for Holmes to stop his silent fuming, which was not until we were south of Tower Bridge.
"Look here, Russell," he began, "I won't have you — " but I cut him off immediately by the simple expedient of thrusting a finger into his face. (Looking back I am deeply embarrassed at the affrontery of a girl not yet nineteen pointing her finger at a man nearly three times her age, and her teacher to boot, but at the time it seemed appropriate.)
"You look here, Holmes. I cannot force you to confide in me, but I will not be bullied. You are not my nanny, I am not your charge to be protected and coddled. You have not given me any cause to believe that you were dissatisfied with my ability at deduction and reasoning. You admit that I am an adult — you called me 'woman' not ten minutes ago — and as a thinking adult partner I have the right to make my own decisions. I saw you come in filthy and tired, having not eaten, I was sure, since last evening, and I exercised my right to protect the partnership by putting a halt to your stupidity. Yes, stupidity. You believe yourself to be without the limitations of mere mortals, I know, but the mind, even your mind, my dear Holmes, is subject to the body's weakness. No food or drink-and filth on an open wound puts the partnership — puts me! — at an unnecessary risk. And that is something I won't have."
I had forgotten the driver, who proved an appreciative audience to this dramatic declaration. He burst into laughter and pounded on the wheel as he slid through the narrow streets, dodging horses, walls, and vehicles. "Right good job, Miss," he guffawed, "make him wash his socks at night, too, whyn't ya?" At last here I had the grace to blush.
The driver was still grinning, and even Holmes had softened when we reached our destination, a dank and filthy wharf somewhere down near Greenwich. The river was greasy and black in the early twilight, high and very cold looking, its calmer reaches one undulating mat of flotsam.
The swollen body of a dog rocked gently against a pier. The area was deserted, though voices and machinery noises drifted over from the next row of buildings.
"Thank you, young man," said Holmes quietly, and, "Come, Russell." We walked carefully down the planks to a gate of peeling corrugated iron, which slid open with an eerie silence and closed again after us. The man on the gate followed us down to the end of the wharf, where lay a nondescript small ship, a boat, really. A man standing on the deck hailed us in a low voice and came down the gangway to take our valises.
"Good day, Mr. Holmes. Welcome aboard, sir."
"I am very glad to be aboard, captain, very glad indeed.
This is my" — He cocked an eyebrow at me — "my partner, Miss Russell. Russell, Captain Jones here runs one of the fastest boats on the river and has agreed to take us out to sea for a while."
"To sea? Oh, Holmes, I don't think — "
"Russell, we will talk shortly. Jones, shall we be away?"
"Aye, sir, the sooner the better. If you'd like to go below, my boy Brian will be with you in a minute to show you your quarters." The child appeared as we made our way down the narrow passage, opened a door, ducked his head shyly, and went to help his father cast off.
A narrow set of stairs led down to a surprisingly spacious cabin, a lounge of sorts with a tiny kitchen/galley at one side and soft chairs and a sofa bolted to the floor. A corridor opened off the forward side, and doors led to two small bedrooms with a lavatory and bath between them.
Those are not the proper technical terms, I am aware, but the whole area so obviously was intended for the comfort of nonsailors, the lay terms are perhaps more accurate. We settled ourselves on two chairs as the engine noise deepened, and watched London slip by outside the windows. I leant forward. "Now, Holmes, there is something I must tell you — "
"First some brandy."
"Your plying me with that stuff becomes tedious," I said crossly.
"Prevents seasickness, Russell."
"I don't get seasick."
"Miss Russell, I believe you are becoming quite dissolute with the shady associations of the last few days.
That, if my ears do not deceive me, was an untruth. You were about to tell me on deck that you did not wish to go to sea because it made you feel ill, were you not?"
"Oh, very well, I admit I don't like going to sea. Give me the brandy." I took two large and explosive mouthfuls, to Holmes' disapproving grimace, and banged the glass on the table. "Now, Holmes — "
"Yes, Russell, you wish to hear the results of today's opium dens and — "
"Holmes," I nearly shouted. "Would you listen to me?"
"Of course, Russell. I am happy to listen to you, I merely thought — "
"The shoes, Holmes, those shoes that arrived in the parcel? They were mine, my own shoes, taken from my rooms at Oxford. They disappeared some time between the twelfth and the thirtieth of October."
A half minute of silence fell between us.
"Good Lord," he said at last. "How extraordinary. I am most grateful to you, Russell, I should have missed that entirely." He was so obviously disturbed that any faint malicious glee I might have had at my second piece of news withered away. "There is more. I think, in fact, that you might like to finish that drink first, Holmes, because that note, that was in the shoes? I examined it very, very closely, Holmes, and I believe it was typed on the same machine as the notes concerning Jessica Simpson's ransom."
There was no softening the blow. The bare facts were awful enough, but the implications inherent in my having to tell him were, for him, truly terrible: Twice now in little more than two days I had rescued him from a major error.