The Case of the Missing Valet
by Jem's Bird

Chapter Four

“Honestly, Watson, I wish you’d learn to enjoy these evenings,” Mycroft chides me, sipping at his port.

I scowl across the table at him. “You will forgive me, Mr. Holmes,” I say coldly, laying ever so slight an accent upon his title, “but I fail to see exactly what I should enjoy about having to come out to your family’s estate on the fourth Friday of every month to find out whether or not the man I love is still alive.”

Mycroft does not even give me the satisfaction of responding to my indiscretion. “Tut, tut, Doctor!” he chortles, with a dismissive wave of a flabby hand. “My brother has survived this mission so far; no doubt he shall come back to us alive once it is over.”

“He was nearly killed in Algiers,” Mary growls. “And then the incident in Cairo last week –”

“Sherlock understands his duty to Her Majesty,” Mycroft snaps, “and is willing to accept the risks. He took an oath, as did both of you –”

“—to serve Her Majesty, giving up our lives if need be, yes,” I reply hotly. “And I am quite willing to do so. I believe in the importance of this mission; hence my monthly fictions in the Strand, that sad memorial to my dearly departed friend who lies at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls. But it is quite another thing to come out here and have a pleasant dinner party while waiting for that telegram to arrive. Will he be dead this time? Or will he have had another one of his narrow escapes?” I realize that I am ranting and stop myself, glaring down at the curl of butter melting at the side of my plate.

“I always find it pleasant to hear news of my brother,” Mycroft continues after a heavy silence. “Now, on to other subjects. In the matter of Sherlock’s child –”

“We have been over this, Mr. Holmes,” Mary interrupts, frowning sharply. “Our child shall be given the opportunity to accept – or refuse – Her Majesty’s Service.”

 Mycroft does not immediately reply, but rather sips slowly at his wine. He lays down the glass and takes a deep breath. “Indeed, Mrs. Watson, you are right; your child shall be able to choose, just as we chose. I was only going to say that I have set up a fund for the child’s education. If it is a boy, we shall have his name in to Eton.”

“And if she is a girl?” Mary asks.

“Then we shall make Eton accept women,” Mycroft answers blithely, patting his mouth with a napkin. “Male or female, this child shall have every opportunity. Her Majesty has said that if Sherlock won’t take a knighthood, the least she can do –”

“This isn’t about the damned knighthood again,” I groan. “I wish we’d never found the Agra Treasure –”

Just at that moment, the pageboy comes in with a telegram form on a salver. My stomach lurches nastily and I clutch at Mary’s hand across the table.

“Steady, John,” she whispers.

I concentrate on studying the boy rather than watch Mycroft make a show of finishing his wine before taking the envelope. This boy is a new one, and there is something about his smile I do not like; it is almost as if his mouth belonged to someone else. I shiver involuntarily and turn away.

Mycroft methodically cuts the envelope open with his steak knife, slowly unfolding the form and reading it with a passive expression. He throws it across to me, turning to the smirking boy.

“That is not in the correct code, although I can see by your expression that the information is true enough,” he says quietly. “So before you kill us as well, would you like to tell us how long have you been in the Kaiser’s pay?”

I am only able to see the words DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM before the lad draws a weapon and begins firing.

The next ten minutes shall always remain a blur in my memory, a cacophony of shouting and gunfire combined with the smashing of glass and, finally, a foreshortened shriek that haunts my dreams to this day. At the end of it, the lad is flown, Mycroft is bellowing for the servants, and Mary is in my arms, a bullet hole neatly piercing her forehead, her eyes already glassy and still.

I stare bleakly at the body and consider the mixed blessings of an instantaneous death; I cannot allow myself emotions, not now.

I have a life to save.

A flabby hand rests upon my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

I nod perfunctorily. “Send for a nurse.”

“Doctor, are you –”

I wheel around upon Mycroft. “Do you want Mary’s child to live?” I roar. “Then get me boiling water and a nurse! NOW!!!!”

I tear the tablecloth from underneath our supper, spilling the plates upon the floor. I kneel beside my wife and look upon her face, covering the bullet hole with my hand in a final caress.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” I whisper, and kiss her still lips before covering her upper body with the tablecloth. There will be time to grieve for the friend later; now I must retrieve a premature infant from the body of its dead mother.

I am sterilizing my hands with the remaining port when the nurse arrives. “Arrange the instruments for a caesarean section,” I say, my voice absolutely steady. “We can do nothing for the mother, but the child may yet live.”

The nurse nods grimly. I have met her before; she is a steady enough type, and I know that I may rely upon her. We work calmly and mechanically together, only exchanging what words are needed to communicate our actions as we extricate the child from this rapidly cooling piece of flesh.

When I realize that we are too late to save our tiny patient, something deep inside me grows cold.

My wife is dead. My lover is dead. Our child is dead.

I should be dead, too. “Leave us,” I tell the nurse.

“Doctor, do you wish –”

“I am fine, Reynolds. Tell Mr. Holmes that I wish to be alone for a while. I shall prepare Mrs. Watson and her son for a proper burial.”

The woman raises an eyebrow, but says nothing, leaving me alone with the two bodies. Locking the door behind her, I wrap the infant in a blanket, and, still holding it in my arms, sit down in a chair, my medical bag at my feet.

The babe is still warm, and I hold him in my lap and hum a lullaby, rummaging through my bag for a death certificate. I carefully fill out two forms, as well as a superfluous birth certificate, pausing at the space for the name on this final document.

After a time, I write “John Sherlock Watson” and smile to myself. Her Majesty, spared the price of sending this boy to Eton, will pay instead for a handsome gravestone; let the name on it live forever. Such are my thoughts as sit rocking the dead infant in my arms and considering the best way to end my own life. I consider and discard the ideas of self-induced embolism by air-filled syringe and firing my service revolver into my skull; both methods strike me as painful, messy, and too unreliable. Eventually I decide upon a morphine overdose, only to find that my stores are low and the amount I have might – or might not – kill me. I roll up my sleeve and sigh wearily, praying that the dose shall be sufficient and that I might find myself with my dearest love again before inserting the needle and pushing the plunger home.

It is only as I become conscious of my slowing breathing that I realize the boy is breathing as well.

The child is alive, I realize, and a surge of joy is poisoned by the knowledge that I am slipping beyond my body, into the darkness. Mycroft will come soon, I think, and then everything goes black and I know no more.

“Watson.” I was awoken from uneasy dreams by my lover’s hand upon my shoulder. “Watson.”

“Mrmff,” I complained, rolling over. I was grateful to be torn from the already fading nightmare, but not grateful to be roused. “Let me go back to sleep,” I protested.

“Wake up, Watson.” The hand shook me again, jarring me into consciousness.

I pulled the pillows over my head. “Go away. Whatever perverted act you wish to perpetrate upon my aging body can be postponed until a civilized hour.”

“We have a visitor, Watson. Into your clothes and come,” the imperious voice called as Holmes strode out of the room.

I was surprised to see our Jack’s young man perched nervously upon our sitting-room sofa, frozen under Holmes’ scrutiny like a bird upon a taxidermist’s workbench. From the frown upon my companion’s face and the woebegone look upon young Wooster’s features, I knew that something had befallen our son.

As was his wont, Holmes answered my thoughts and not my words. “Calm yourself, Doctor,” said he. “I believe that the situation is not as bad as our young friend here believes it to be.”

“But I haven’t even said anything yet,” Wooster sputtered.

“You do not need to, Mr. Wooster. Watson, observe his right trouser-cuff –”

“For God’s sake, Holmes! Let the lad talk for himself!”

Holmes regarded me with a superior look. “You will forgive the doctor,” said he softly, turning to the shocked Wooster. “He has always been rather overprotective of our son.”

“But he’s disappeared again, Mr. Holmes,” the lad said. “And he didn’t leave a note this time–”

“And how long has Jack been out of your sight this time, Mr. Wooster?” Holmes asked in his sternest voice. “And what are you going to do the next time he goes on his annual two-week holiday?”

“Holmes, that’s hardly fair –”

“He’s been missing over sixteen hours, in fact, Mr. Holmes,” Wooster answered, flapping his last remains of defiance like a battered flag. “And I know that he didn’t plan on being missing this long, because we –” he faltered and looked down at his feet, blushing heavily. “He was coming right back,” he finished weakly.

Holmes tittered audibly. “Yes, I can see what you were doing together prior to his disappearance, Mr. Wooster. You and our son have certainly wasted no time.”

The young man looked as if he were about to sink into the carpet in embarrassment; I decided Holmes needed to be put in his place. “They have only been romantically involved for less than two weeks,” I reminded him. “Remember what we were like when we first became lovers,” I said, savouring Holmes’ wince at the last word. “Tell us what happened,” I continued gently, smiling at Wooster encouragingly.

“Well, we had just finished – erm, I mean … we were talking about this bread he wanted me to try, from some bakery in the town. He told me he’d be back within the hour with a loaf or three, but then I waited and –”

“When precisely did he leave you?”

“About two o’clock yesterday afternoon. When he wasn’t back by teatime, I started to get worried –”

“And by supper, you were in a state of blind panic, yes,” Holmes snapped. “An imbecile could see that from your waistcoat. Is there any helpful information you can impart, or are you merely going to recount for us how you threw an entire English country manor into disorder before finally being asked to leave?”

“Steady on, Holmes,” I growled. The boy was already shaking like a leaf; Holmes’ vituperative tone had rendered him all but insensible as he cowered upon the settee.

Holmes turned to me, his most imperious sneer distorting his features. “I apologize, Watson,” he murmured. “Perhaps you should question the boy; after all, the fair sex is your department.”

“I say!”

“Holmes, that is unworthy of you!” I cried. Without realizing it, I had sprung to my feet. “I have seen you tear down many a man in my life, but never before have I seen you attack unprovoked.”

There are perhaps three people in this world who can stare down Sherlock Holmes, and it is only with many years’ association that I can claim to be of their number. Holmes and I glared at each other in silence for a long time, the only sound the ticking of the clock upon the mantel and the distant roar of the waves upon the shore.

Surprisingly, it was our visitor who broke the silence.

“Erm,” he coughed, “I really need to tell you something … but you, well … I was about to say you have to promise you won’t get angry, but …”

We had both turned to face the boy.

Holmes pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes?”

Wooster shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “My Aunt Agatha found out about there being no Reginald Jeeves,” he began in a small voice. “And she’s already confirmed it via –”

“You mean you told your aunt, after my son expressly forbade you to speak of it?”

Wooster drew himself up a bit. “Mr. Holmes, I can swear to you that when Jeeves swore me to secrecy,” he said proudly, “not a breath of it escaped these lips. That would go against the Code of the Woosters. I will have you know that my Aunt Agatha found out from Bingo Little.”

“This is the Mr. Little who deceived our Miss Vernet?”

“Yes,” Wooster answered, deflating a little.

“And exactly how did Mr. Little find out about Jack’s nom de guerre?”

“Er, well, I told him,” the lad admitted, looking down. “But that was before I knew that I wasn’t supposed to tell.”

“He’d come up with Mr. Little in order to find Jack,” I reminded Holmes.

“As if I could ever forget,” Holmes muttered, flopping himself down in his seat. I poured myself and the boy a drink before returning to mine. Holmes frowned at my deliberate omission, but knew better than to argue. “Very well, Mr. Wooster. So your aunt knows that there is no such person as Reginald Jeeves. Has she told anyone else?”

“Well, actually, the entire household knows. She announced it at luncheon,” he said. “She’s never liked him interfering with my life.”

Holmes smiled a bit at this. “Exactly how did Mrs. Gregson drop this lovely piece of information into the conversation? I assume Jack was present.”

Wooster nodded. “She called him over and asked him what his real name was, right out there in front of everyone. She did everything but call him a confidence trickster.”

“She sounds like quite a lady,” I said with a growl.

The lad smiled ruefully at me. “She’s the type who’d refuse a drowning man a life-belt for wearing the wrong tie.”

“And did Jack give his standard reply?” Holmes asked.

“Well, I didn’t know it was standard at the time, but it was deuced clever. Is there really a record of him under that name? Because she’ll look, you know.”

“Yes, the document is well-hidden, but it is there specifically to stop people like Mrs. Gregson.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Does that record show who he said his father was?”

“Yes.”

“I say! How does Lord Cheltenham feel about having an illegitimate child?”

“I should rather discuss the matter at hand, Mr. Wooster,” Holmes answered with a dismissive wave. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Still, it’s not like Jack to run off without reason,” he said, more to himself than to us.  “Perhaps he’s onto Sorensen’s trail …”

I recognized the tone in his voice all too well. “Holmes,” I said in a warning voice, leaving my own tone to complete the sentence for me.

Holmes gave a wearied sigh. “Our son is missing,” he said slowly. “Do you not wish me to investigate?”

He was manipulating me shamelessly; we both knew it. Only our young visitor remained blissfully unaware of our battle, looking back and forth between us with mild confusion.

“Holmes,” I said in my sternest voice, “we have discussed this.”

“Hold on,” Wooster broke in, “you’ve got to come down –”

“The good doctor,” said Holmes, glaring furiously at me, “does not wish me to undertake any active investigation.”

“But why –”

“Mr. Holmes,” I said evenly, “has health issues which prevent him –”

“He means I’m dying, Mr. Wooster.”

I bit my lip to keep the flare of grief and rage from spilling forth. Young Wooster’s face grew red and his gaze dropped down to his feet. “I’m so terribly sorry,” he said in a meek voice, but then looked up, a gleam of fire in his eyes. “You haven’t told him, have you? If he knew, he would be here at your side. I know him; nothing would keep him away from a family duty.”

“In fact, Mr. Wooster, it is my direct order which keeps him from my side,” Holmes replied coldly. “He has his duty to his country and to his king, after all. And in any case, a single telegram would bring him to me within hours. Rest assured, sir, Jack will be by my side when my moment comes.”

“How soon?” the boy asked, and then winced at his own impertinence. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”

“It is a fair enough question, Mr. Wooster. Doctor, would you care to give your medical opinion?”

I turned my face toward the window, away from my companions. Outside, a gull flew over the harbour, its graceful lines framed against milky clouds that foretold rain. “A month, perhaps two,” I said dully. “It could happen at any time, of course. And any undue exertion –”

“—will make not the slightest difference; a year from now, I will still be dead,” Holmes snapped. “I should rather collapse upon the scent a week from now, than collapse over my beehives a month from now.” I heard his chair scrape slightly against the floor as he rose from his seat and moved toward me.

He laid a hand upon my shoulder, and I could not help but cover it with my own.

“Once more unto the breach, old friend?” he whispered.

I stood up and faced him. “The game is afoot,” I answered.

 
Chapter Five