"Holmes," I said. But he would not be there, he was not foolish, not so stupid to return here when he was wanted for some of the most terrible murders-
"My friend."
I started, tried to gauge where the voice had come from. I tightened my grip on the pistol and swung it slowly left and right, ready to shoot should anything move. I was panicked, terrified beyond belief. My stomach knotted and cramped with the idea of a knife parting its skin and delving deeper.
"Is that you Holmes?"
More silence for a while, so that I began to think I was hearing things. It grew darker for a moment as if something had passed in front of the moon; I even glanced up, but there was nothing in the sky and the moon was its usual wan self.
"You feel it too!" the voice said.
"Holmes, please show yourself."
"Go to my rooms. Mrs Hudson hasn't heard of things yet, she will let you in and I will find my own way up there."
He did not sound mad. He sounded different, true, but not mad.
"Holmes, you have to know-"
"I am aware of what you saw, Watson, and you would do well to keep your revolver drawn and aimed ahead of you. Go to my rooms, back into a corner, hold your gun. For your sanity, your peace of mind, it has to remain between us for a time."
"I saw… Holmes, I saw… "
"My rooms."
And then he was gone. I did not hear him leave, caught sight of nothing moving away in the dark, but I knew that my old friend had departed. I wished for a torch to track him, but Holmes would have evaded the light. And in that thought I found my continuing belief in Holmes's abilities, his genius, his disregard for the normal levels of reasoning and measures of intelligence.
The madness he still had, but… I could not help but trust him.
From the distance, far, far away, I heard what may have been a scream. There were foxes in London, and thousands of wild dogs, and some said that wolves still roamed the forgotten byways of this sprawling city. But it had sounded like a human cry.
He could not possibly have run that far in such short a time.
Could he?
Mrs Hudson greeted me and was kind enough to ignore my preoccupation as I climbed the stairs to Holmes's rooms.
There was another scream in the night before Holmes appeared.
I had opened the window and was standing there in the dark, looking out over London and listening to the sounds. The city was so much quieter during the night, which ironically made every sound that much louder. The barking of a dog swept across the neighbourhood, the crashing of a door echoed from walls and back again. The scream… this time it was human, I could have no doubt of that, and although even further away than the one I had heard earlier I could still make out its agony. It was followed seconds later by another cry, this one cut short. There was nothing else.
Go to my rooms, back into a corner, hold your gun, Holmes had said. I remained by the window. Here was escape, at least, if I needed it. I would probably break my neck in the fall, but at least I was giving myself a chance.
I've come to his rooms! I thought. Fly to a spider. Chicken to a fox's den. But even though his voice had been very different from usual-more strained-I could not believe that the Holmes who had spoken to me minutes before was out there now, causing those screams.
I thought briefly of Detective Inspector Jones, and hoped that he was well.
"I am sure that he is still alive," Holmes said from behind me. "He is too stupid to not be."
I spun around and brought up the revolver. Holmes was standing just inside the door. He had entered the room and closed the door behind him without me hearing. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just been running, and I stepped aside to let in the moonlight, terrified that I would see the black stain of blood on his hands and sleeves.
"How do you know I was thinking of Jones?" I asked, astounded yet again by my friend's reasoning.
"Mrs Hudson told me that he had been here looking for me. I knew then that you would be his next port of call in his search, and that you would inevitably have been forced by your high morals to relay what you have so obviously seen. You know he is out there now, hunting me down. And the scream… it sounded very much like a man, did it not?"
"Turn on the light, Holmes," I said.
I think he shook his head in the dark. "No, it will attract attention. Not that they do not know where we are… they must… fear, fear smells so sweet… to bees… "
"Holmes. Turn on the light or I will shoot you." And right then, standing in the room where my friend and I had spent years of our lives in pleasurable and business discourse, I was telling the truth. I was frightened enough to pull the trigger, because Holmes's intellect would bypass my archaic revolver, however mad he sounded. He would beat me. If he chose to-if he had lured me here to be his next victim-he would kill me.
"Very well," my friend said. "But prepare yourself Watson. It has been a somewhat eventful twenty-four hours."
The lamp flicked alight.
I gasped. He looked like a man who should be dead.
"Do not lower that revolver!" he shouted suddenly. "Keep it on me now, Watson. After what you think you saw me doing, lower your guard and you are likely to shoot me at the slightest sound or movement. That's right. Here. Aim it here." He thumped his chest and I pointed the gun that way, weak and shocked though I was.
"Holmes… you look terrible!"
"I feel worse." From Holmes that was a joke, but I could not even raise a smile. Indeed, I could barely draw a breath. Never had Holmes looked so unkempt, exhausted and bedraggled. His normally immaculate clothing was torn, muddied and wet, and his hair was sticking wildly away from his scalp. His hands were bloodied-I saw cuts there, so at least for the moment I could believe that it was his own blood-his cheek was badly scratched in several places and there was something about his eyes… wide and wild, they belied the calm his voice conveyed.
"You're mad," I said, unable to prevent the words from slipping out.
Holmes smiled, and it was far removed from that maniacal grin he had offered me as he crouched over the dying man.
"Do not jump to conclusions, Watson. Have you not learned anything in our years together?"
My hand holding the gun was starting to shake, but I kept it pointing at my friend across the room.
"I have to take you in, you know that? I will have to take you to the station. I cannot… I cannot… "
"Believe?"
I nodded. He was already playing his games, I knew. He would talk me around, offer explanations, convince me that the victims deserved to die or that he had been attacked… or that there was something far, far simpler eluding me. He would talk until he won me over, and then his attack would come.
"I cannot believe, but I must," I said, a new-found determination in my voice.
"Because you saw it? Because you saw me killing someone you must believe that I did, in fact, kill?"
"Of course."
Holmes shook his head. He frowned and for an instant he seemed distant, concentrating on something far removed from Baker Street. Then he glanced back at me, looked to the shelf above the fire and sighed.
"I will smoke my pipe, if you don't mind Watson. It will put my mind at rest. And I will explain what I know. Afterwards, if you still wish to take me in, do so. But you will thereby be condemning countless more to their deaths."
"Smoke," I said, "and tell me." He was playing his games, playing them every second…
Holmes lit a pipe and sat in his armchair, legs drawn up so that the pipe almost rested on his knees. He looked at the far wall, not at me where I remained standing by the window. I lowered the revolver slightly, and this time Holmes did not object.