The Case of the Missing Valet
by Jem's Bird

Chapter Eight

To say that the lad looked nervous was an understatement; he trembled under Holmes’ withering glare, wringing his hands as he stared down at the floor.

Holmes paced up and down in front of young Wooster, scowling at him fiercely. We had commandeered Sir Watkyn’s study for privacy, and settled the shaken boy in an armchair next to the desk. I sat across from him, my notebook at the ready, my every nerve thrilling to the sound of Holmes’ voice, just like the old fox-hound who hears the trill of the horn and knows that there is one hunt left in him still.

And this time, the quarry would be well worth the chase.

“Can you remember his exact words, Mr. Wooster? It is of the utmost importance.”

Wooster closed his eyes and thought briefly. “We’d been … well, we were in a rather philosophical mood, you see.”

“That much is understood. And you were discussing the ramifications of being in an intimate relationship with a member of his Majesty’s Secret Service,” Holmes reminded him.

The lad nodded. “He said that he pitied the man who had to choose between his lover and his country. And then he got this strange light in his eye. That’s when he suddenly remembered this bread he wanted me to try.”

“I am not sure,” Holmes frowned, “why this leads you to suspect Sir Watkyn.”

“Well, two things, really. First of all, there’s this old rumour I remembered. You see, Spode – Lord Sidcup, that is, well, he’s played at both sides, you see.”

Holmes frowned sharply. “Exactly what do you mean, Mr. Wooster?”

“He might have been batty for Madeline, but I’ve heard that he and Sir Watkyn once had an understanding.”

“Are you implying that they were sexually intimate?”

“Once upon a time, as it were, yes. At least, that’s the talk.”

“Has no one heard of the Labouchere Amendment?” I muttered under my breath. All in all, it was fortunate that Holmes had sent Inspector Bowes to apprehend a missing witness; we could talk freely with Wooster without worrying about what he might have to tell us.

Holmes shot me an acid look. “And what,” he continued in a wearied tone, “made you think that Sir Watkyn was being forced to decide between his devotion to Roderick Spode and his duty to his country? From what I hear, Lord Sidcup was a rather virulent nationalist.”

“Well, that’s just it,” Wooster said. “You see, I rather think Sir Watkyn realized that once Sidcup married Madeline, there would be nothing to keep him from renouncing his title again and running for the House of Commons. And with his crackpot ideas, don’t you know, he could do some real damage –”

“Let me get this straight, Mr. Wooster. Do you mean to tell me that you are accusing a peer of the realm of murder based on salacious hearsay and political eccentricity?”

The lad kept staring down at his shoes. “Well,” he muttered, “I hardly think that calling for the compulsory measurement of all adult male knees is mere eccentricity,” he began, but Holmes cut him off with an impatient gesture.

“Mr. Wooster, while I am willing to listen to your views about Sir Watkyn’s role in this matter –”

“So it’s true, then!” the young man interrupted. “By Jingo! I knew the man was a cold fish, but I didn’t think he’d bally well murder his best friend!”

Spinning upon his heel, Holmes wheeled upon Wooster, frowning sharply down at the lad, who promptly shrank back into his seat with a mumbled apology.

“Holmes,” I warned, in a low tone.

His glance flickered once toward me, then back to Wooster. “Let us just say that you could – only could, Mr. Wooster – be right,” he replied softly, “but if you are right, it is most likely for the wrong reasons. Now if we may return to what my son told you –”

This time, Holmes was interrupted by a discreet knock at the door. At a nod from Holmes, I rose from my seat to admit our visitor.

“That shall be Sir Watkyn himself, I expect,” Holmes murmured.

“I say! How in the name of –”

“Mr. Wooster, I do not have time to give you a lesson in elementary deduction. In fact, I shall require you to leave now,” he continued icily, “as no doubt Sir Watkyn shall speak more freely in your absence.”

“No doubt,” Wooster echoed weakly, getting up. I paused at the door, allowing the lad enough time to compose himself.

“Toodle-pip,” the boy stammered weakly, flashing me the ghost of a smile.

“We shall find out the truth, Mr. Wooster,” I replied, offering him my hand. “And no doubt, Jack shall reappear soon enough –”

“Watson,” Holmes began in a low growl, “we do not wish to keep Sir Watkyn waiting. Please re-join the others in the drawing-room, Mr. Wooster.”

I barely recognized the proud, haughty nobleman we had interviewed earlier this afternoon. Sir Watkyn Bassett glowered briefly at poor Wooster as they passed, but the boy had more spunk in him than I would have credited; he greeted the knight with a clear, calm salutation.

The fact that he wished Sir Watkyn a good morning when it was, in fact, nine in the evening seemed immaterial.

Once the door closed behind young Wooster, Holmes took charge immediately. “Have a seat, Sir Watkyn. You have something to tell me; I am here to listen. But –” here he raised a warning finger, “—I shall expect to hear the absolute truth from you. Deviate once from it, and I throw the matter over to Inspector Bowes.”

I could see at once that Holmes’ words had hit their mark. Sir Watkyn’s face drained of all colour. “I swear to you, I didn’t kill Roderick.”

“That much is evident, Sir Watkyn. It is also evident that you know who did, and that you have been lying to protect him. So why, I wonder, does an upstanding member of the peerage allow someone to murder his closest friend and simply melt away into the night?” Holmes fixed the man with his most piercing look. “It causes me to ask myself exactly how close a friend you were to Lord Sidcup.”

Sir Watkyn’s reaction was complete; he collapsed entirely, hanging his head in his hands. “You found out, of course. For what it’s worth, we had done nothing … illegal … in over a decade,” he muttered. “He was in love with Madeline, and I have long ago renounced my baser desires.” He cast a sideways glance at me. “I suppose, doctor, that you shall think I’m sick, but I did love the man. To this day, I don’t know why. He was pig-headed, opinionated, and completely annoying, but I loved him.”

I bit the inside of my lip, forcing myself to assume the proper expression of detached clinical disgust.

“Tell us about the man who killed Lord Sidcup,” Holmes said.

“He … he’s a local man, with a small establishment in Totleigh-in-the-wold. He said he had some information to sell to us, some plans he had seen tucked into a book. I had no idea what he was talking about, of course, but –”

“But it soon became clear to you that your friend knew all too well what Mr. Brinkley was talking about.”

Sir Watkyn nearly rose from his seat. “If you knew his name –”

“Calm yourself, Sir Watkyn. I have already taken steps to detain the man. You, meanwhile, shall tell me precisely what transpired upon the evening in question.”

“Well, I sent the man away with a flea in his ear, and then I told Roderick to pack his bags and never darken my door again.”

“You did not ask him anything about these plans Brinkley wished to sell?”

The man frowned sharply. “Why should I? Enough that I promised not to contact the authorities. Apparently he’d bargained with this fellow before – under my own roof! Well, I put my foot down, Mr. Holmes. And then, not twenty minutes later, I saw the two of them, walking arm-in-arm, down to the ice-house …” He sighed heavily, his eyes glittering in the lamplight. “I decided I was well shut of Roderick Spode.”

“And that was the last you saw of either gentleman?” Holmes asked.

The man nodded miserably, wringing his hands.

“These plans Brinkley wished to sell; did he have them with him?”

“Oh, no. He said he’d just seen them, but then they’d been removed from the book. But he said a name, something odd, it was, and that he knew where to lay his hands upon the document if we wanted it. Sounded more like a stolen necklace than a document for sale. That’s how I knew that Roderick had gone to the bad, you see. When that man said the name ‘Agra treasure,’ his face went all –” he paused. “His face went exactly like that.”

We had both risen to our feet.

“Well, Sir Watkyn, I mustn’t detain you,” Holmes said quickly. “I would appreciate it if you would wait with the others –”

“Mr. Holmes, what is going on here? I demand to –”

“Sir Watkyn,” Holmes snapped, “what is going on here is that you have let a highly valuable government secret slip into enemy hands. You, sir, have become as low a traitor as the miserable Roderick Spode ever was. Now leave us, but mind – if you run, I shall find you. I have breath in me enough for that. Close the door behind you, please.”

Once we were alone, we each collapsed into a chair upon either side of the desk. Holmes banged his fist furiously, uttering a severe curse.

“I swear to you, John, Jack didn’t tell me he was guarding the Agra treasure.”

“I might not be as observant as you, but I can tell when you’ve been floored.” I rose slowly and poured us both a drink. “So, do you think Inspector Bowes will have found Mr. Brinkley alive?” I asked. I did not want to ask the obvious question.

Holmes glared into the fire. “This changes everything. Only Jack could ever hide anything from me; most likely he did not wish to hasten my death by involving me in guarding this damnable treasure once more. No, Watson, I do not think Bowes and his men shall find our quarry alive. At this point, our trail switches to those who killed him.”

“Who, by now, most likely know exactly where to find the document,” I sighed. “If only I’d written some flaw into it, Holmes!”

Holmes chuckled ironically. “Mycroft would have caught it. But this is no time for ‘if onlys,’ old friend.” He shook his head, growing serious once more. “The Agra treasure. Damn the boy!”

I reached across the table and squeezed my lover’s hand. “He’s old enough to do this on his own,” I told him.

Holmes drained his glass, frowning at it thoughtfully, turning it round in his fingers. “You are right, Watson,” he said eventually, his voice distant. “Jack is old enough to serve his country. But I should like to think,” he continued balefully, “that he is still too young to die for it.”

“Papa John?”

“Mmmm?”

“May I disturb your writing a moment? I have a question.”

I lay aside my pen and turn around, grateful for the distraction; the words have not been coming easily today. Between the government secrets to hide, the social scandals to avert, and my second fictional engagement to announce (this one to a charming but sadly vapid cousin of Lestrade’s), the web of obfuscation I have been weaving is becoming rapidly confusing.

The most obvious lie in my writing is that I am not good at dissimulation. With this in mind, I turn to face the open and innocent expression of the boy who bears my name but comes from my lover’s loins and a deceased friend’s womb.

He does not think any of this confusing; he is the only one of us who thinks his life is normal. He socializes with other children (Agatha Forrester makes sure of that), but he is not one of them. He stands before me, with his serious slate-grey eyes shining at me with quiet confidence and understated dignity. His coal-black hair is too well-kempt, his clothes are immaculate, and his manner and deportment are that of a well-trained diplomat.

Agatha and I took him to the London Zoo two weeks ago; despite our best efforts to get the lad to run and play with his cousins, he spent the afternoon in the records building, happily busy at the task of correcting their catalogue errors.

Sherlock says that Jack was born a forty-five year old man. And Mycroft says that Jack, at twelve years old, possesses nothing less the finest genius he has known, an intellect surpassing even his own.

I beam proudly at my son; to me, he is a miracle, the centre of my life, the saviour who pulled me from my darkest hour and kept me alive and whole through it all. He is the babe I clung to as I mourned my two best friends, he is the toddler who taught me to laugh again, he is the serious boy with his mother’s round face and his father’s piercing eyes who has become my best friend and confidant.

He is the one person to whom I have never lied, and yet he knows full well that I lie for my living.

“I need a break from the job anyway,” I tell my son. “So what can I help you with, Jack?”

“I have a question about the Latin assignment you set me,” Jack begins slowly.

“The translation of my book?” I ask, reaching up for my own edition. “Are you having trouble with your verb agreements?”

“Actually, Papa John, I have had no difficulty with the translation,” he says simply, frowning slightly. “Rather, it is the tale itself.”

“You’ve read ‘Sign of Four’ before.”

“But not since I was nine,” he says, with a flicker of a smile. “And I have also found that in order to translate the work into Latin, I had to pay attention more closely to your narrative line than I would have on a casual reading.”

I cannot help but grin. “So, then, what is it you don’t understand, Jack?”

“While I understand why you had to invent a romance between you and Mary Morstan, and similarly, why you had to omit all of Uncle Mycroft’s involvement in the case, I do not understand why you chose to fabricate a completely different case to cover up the fact that the Agra treasure was not lost.”

A deadly memory, long dormant in the depths of my psyche, uncurls and stirs menacingly.

Damn. I had been expecting a question on grammar.

To say that I am not shocked would be a lie; but if I must be truthful with myself, I am surprised that he has not seen it before.

Damn and blast. I cannot lie to my son; instead I nod mutely, inviting him to continue.

 “I know that my grandfather Morstan was a scientist, not a soldier,” the lad continues. “I have seen some of his early writings on father’s bookshelf. Also, I have heard you and Uncle Mycroft talk of the Agra treasure. I know that it wasn’t a box of jewels. It’s a document of some kind.”

Trapped now that the lesson in grammar has been scuttled by the subject of history, I fall back on moral instruction. “You know you shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You were both shouting, Papa John,” he tells me reproachfully. “Please, Papa John, I think I’m old enough to understand. What is the Agra treasure? Why is it so dangerous?”

Just as I open my mouth to forge a response, there is a shuffle of feet in the entry below, followed by an inimitable stride up the stairs.

Jack spins to the door, his face lighting up with joy; for one beautiful moment, it is almost possible to believe that Jack is an ordinary child as he scampers to the sitting-room door and throws it open to greet his father..

Then the child is gone, and London’s youngest butler stands in his place, prim and correct. Jack does not play like other children, but he does play.

“Good evening, Mr. Holmes,” he murmurs. “I trust you enjoyed your journey from Liverpool. May I take your coat?”

“Why thank you, my good man,” Holmes answers, shrugging off the coat. “In fact, my journey was quite eventful.”

“Indeed, sir. If I may be so bold, I notice by your right trouser-cuff that you visited Scotland Yard directly upon arriving back in London.”

“I had a prisoner to deliver.”

“I am afraid that you are deceiving me, sir, for the state of your hat tells me that you did not visit the cells.”

Holmes flashes the boy a lightning-quick smile. “So, then, young Master Watson, where was I?”

Jack abandons role of butler, diving instead into his favourite game with a will. He carefully scrutinizes his father, taking in every last detail. “The ash upon your coat-sleeve proclaims that you spent a considerable time talking in the commissioner’s office,” he proclaims.

Holmes nods with evident satisfaction. “Purely a social call. He is retiring in a month, you remember.”

“With all due respect, father, that is evidently false. Commissioner Gordon is retiring, but you were there on business; your right shirt-cuff proclaims that you visited the records office with him.”

“Excellent,” Holmes chuckles. “And next?”

“You left through the stables, where you talked briefly with one of the grooms, tipping him a small sum of money, no doubt for information received.”

Holmes smiles again, this one more lasting. “Then I proceeded straight home.”

“Also false,” Jack counters. “You took a detour five blocks out of your way to procure a quarter-pound of marzipan for Papa John and a box of chocolates for Grandma Hudson.”

Holmes’ eyes are twinkling now. “And?”

“And a bag of liquorice allsorts,” Jack finishes triumphantly. “Have I earned them yet?”

Holmes pulls them out of his pocket. “They were already yours, my boy,” he beams, handing over the sweets and ruffling the lad’s hair. “So how has your chemistry project fared – sweet heavens, Watson, what ever is the matter?”

I have remained silent throughout this game, as is my custom. But Holmes has seen me, and he has observed in my face what I know it would be pointless to hide.

I take a deep breath. “Jack has been asking about the Agra treasure,” I tell him quietly.

Holmes utters an oath under his breath, then pauses to collect himself. Taking a deep breath, he gestures Jack to sit. “What do you know already?” he asks, standing at the bow-window.

“I know practically nothing, only that it’s something you have been keeping secret from me,” the boy admits, sitting across from me at his father’s desk. He looks down at his hands, gathering his thoughts. “Since I was old enough to understand, you have told me the truth about the circumstances of my birth, the nature of your relationship, and your work for Uncle Mycroft. This is something that you have hoped I wouldn’t notice.”

We exchange a grim look.

“Go on,” Holmes says quietly.

“I first suspected something,” Jack continues, “when I realized that I’d never seen Mary Morstan’s famed pearls. Papa John, you are not overly sentimental, but it seems strange to me that you would not have kept at least one on display. Then there is the obvious fabrication of my grandfather as a career soldier. It seems to me that his research in chemistry and physics would be a distraction from his duties as a prison guard.” He looks up at me. “Before I began my translation of ‘Sign of Four’, I looked up all the places in the book, in order to provide myself with a mental map for the story. I found out that there is no prison in the place described by the manuscript.

“It was not until I read the story this time, however, that I realized that the Sholto brothers are a complete invention. Usually one can penetrate Papa John’s pseudonyms with careful research into the Agency’s case files –”

“—but the case files are missing, and for good reason,” Holmes scowls. “Speaking of which, have I ever given you carte blanche to browse my case files without permission?”

Jack hangs his head. “No, father, you have not. I’m sorry.”

Holmes heaves a weary sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And I apologize as well, Jack. You would not be my son if you were not inordinately curious. From as early as you could speak, I have taught you to detect the truth; how could we expect you not to notice the one thing we have held back from you?”

Jack looks up at his father, his eyes aflame. “You have anticipated this, then.”

“We both have,” I tell him. “But you were telling us how you knew about the brothers Sholto.”

Jack nods. “There is no case on record that even comes close to the stated details, not just in father’s files, but also in the public records. While the Agra treasure described in ‘Sign of Four’ is valuable, once discovered, there would be no need to keep such wealth a secret.” The boy frowns, looking disconcertingly like his father. “There is similarly no record of a Captain Henry Morstan. However, the books of one Professor Henry Morstan are scattered throughout your library. Is he really dead, or  –”

“Professor Morstan is quite dead,” Holmes says flatly. “The name ‘Agra’ is a code for a secret government facility outside Somerset, where he was researching the properties of certain metals and their explosive capabilities.”

“So, then, the Agra treasure is a weapon,” Jack says.

“Specifically, it is the design for a particularly destructive incendiary device.”

Jack’s jaw juts out. “But you and Papa John have solved cases like this before. The matter of the Bruce-Partington plans, or the Giant Rat of Sumatra –”

“This is different,” I break in. “This weapon could kill thousands at once.”

“Millions,” Holmes corrected. “Three or four of the devices, properly placed, could wipe the city of London off the map. It was dangerous when your grandfather died to protect the secret almost two decades ago, and grows steadily more dangerous with each passing day.”

Jack considers this a moment. He has always been a serious boy, pensive and rather subdued, with his mother’s air of nobility and grace. His steel-coloured eyes soften with an ageless sorrow as he ponders the implications of such mass destruction. When he does speak, his voice resonates with deep sadness.

“Such a device would be a danger in the hands of any government. Including ours,” he adds, with a look in his eye that asks as complex a question as Jack has ever posed in his short lifetime.

There is much in our strange little family that remains unspoken; whole conversations occur with the lift of an eyebrow or the tilt of a head. Holmes answers his son’s question with a simple solemn nod.

The boy turns to me. “Someone else knows about it. You keep having to move it from time to time, because they keep trying to steal it.”

“They know what it can do,” I reply, “but not the details. The sole extant copy of the plans takes up two narrow pages of parchment, written both back and front in an extremely small script.”

“Script as small as yours, Papa John?

I nod. “Yes, the document is in my handwriting. You Uncle Mycroft ordered me to make the one copy before we destroyed the rest.” I pause here, and with a flash of a smile, I communicate to my son volumes upon my precise opinion of the entire matter. “It has been folded lengthwise several times, so that it takes up an extremely small amount of space. It could be slipped inside the spine of a large book, for example.”

“While being large enough to destroy a city,” Jack reminds me. “So where is it?”

“It is safe,” Holmes says heavily, “for now. That is all you need to know upon the subject.” He stands up and lays a hand upon his son’s shoulder. “Go on, get washed up for supper. And tell Mrs. Hudson you’re staying another night; apparently your foster-sister is still contagious.”

The boy rises, leaving the room in thoughtful silence, only turning to speak just at the door. “I have one more question.” He waits for his father’s tacit permission to continue, then turns to me, his eyes burning with a strange light.

“These people who are trying to steal the Agra treasure,” he whispers, “did they kill Mary Morstan?”

He has never yet referred to Mary as his mother. To him, Agatha Forrester is his mother. Mary is much, much more to Jack.

Mary Morstan is a goddess, and not just to Jack. Over our son’s shoulder, I can see the agony well up in Sherlock’s eyes, echoing the tearing pain in my own heart.

I close my eyes, willing away the vision of a beautiful round face marred by a small black hole. “Mary was killed as part of a ruse to flush your father out of hiding. As far as we can tell, her death had nothing to do with the Agra document, not directly.” I take a deep breath, and open my eyes to gaze directly at my son. “But yes, the same people were ultimately responsible.”

Jack’s lips straighten to a tight line. “Then I swear that I shall avenge her death.”

“The man who gave the order for her death is currently living in a palace near Berlin,” Holmes growls, “and is no different from his cousin living in Buckingham, whose orders we follow.”

Jack’s eyes widen briefly, then his face sets into a grim mask. “I suppose,” he says softly, “that I should go wash up for supper.”

We will not speak of the Agra treasure again for almost a decade.

But it will be the unspoken subject of our silent conversation for weeks to come.

“Where are you going? I want to come with you.” We had barely stepped into the foyer when the lad accosted us.

Holmes did not turn to face Wooster, but glared out through the open door into the night, as if the hills of Gloucestershire themselves had offended him. “Mr. Wooster,” he said with a long-suffering air, “your assistance is not needed –”

“I don’t care if you think you need me or not. I’m bally well coming with you. If Jeeves is in trouble –”

“Mr. Wooster, we are simply going to interview a possible link to Lord Sidcup’s death. Rest assured –”

“You had the window to the patio open, you know,” the young man broke in. “I heard everything.”

“Then you should know, Mr. Wooster, both where we are going and why it is too dangerous for you to come along.”

“I can make my own decisions as to whether or not I wish to expose myself to danger.”

“It is not your safety I was thinking of, Mr. Wooster. Rather, I was thinking of the danger that any unqualified individual might pose –”

“Unqualified? What the blazes do you mean –”

“I mean, Mr. Wooster, that you would be a danger not only to yourself, but to us, and possibly even to Jack. I do not have time to stand and argue about it; re-join the others in the drawing-room and wait for us.” And with these words, he spun upon his heel and strode out the door, nearly colliding into Inspector Bowes.

Holmes recovered immediately, scowling at the inspector severely. “You are about to tell me that you found Mr. Brinkley murdered,” he said in his most imperious tone.

The inspector’s jaw dropped. “How did you –”

“Time is running short, Bowes,” he snapped. “Lead on, and we shall investigate. Good evening, Mr. Wooster; we shall apprise you of the situation upon our return. Come, Watson.”

The inspector’s presence upon the short ride to the village meant that I could not chide Holmes for his harsh words to poor Wooster, but just as Holmes would have been able to predict my exact words, so I would have been able to predict his answer, and so our argument was completed in the silence of the car. The fact that we had commandeered Wooster’s roadster without his knowledge was only one concern on my long list of protests which remained unspoken but perfectly expressed in a rich vocabulary of disapproving looks we have both mastered over the years. Bowes would have been a poor detective indeed to be insensible of the tension between us; doubtless he attributed it to our concern over our missing agent; little did he know the depth of the worry we hid from him.

Holmes made Bowes stop the car some yards away from the drive, and we alighted along the path, the inspector and I hanging back as Holmes carefully scrutinized the path to the cottage, muttering under his breath. Once he had gleaned what evidence he could from the path, he bade us follow him to the house.

The inspector paused at the door. “I had my lads wait with the body. I’m sure you’ve known plenty of scenes like this before, Mr. Holmes, but –”

“Enough prologue, Bowes,” Holmes said curtly. “I can see that Brinkley came home rather in a hurry, soon to be joined by two men, both tall and in the prime of life, one wearing square-toed boots, the other a rather expensive brand of footwear available only on the continent – a German boot-maker, I believe. They did not smoke, but waited quietly in the shadows, until their quarry had had a chance to settle himself, before they rang the doorbell and gained entrance. Even through the scattered footprints you and your men left, I can see their traces. Have you never heard of the standard precautions for visiting a murder scene?”

“We did not know it to be a murder scene until we gained entry,” the inspector said primly.

“Didn’t you? It is practically written upon the doorstep. Why, I’m sure even Watson could tell –”

“Holmes, we don’t have time for this,” I muttered, bristling only slightly. I had, indeed, read the grim signs upon the façade; after nearly a half-century of continuous association, I am only second to Holmes himself in my knowledge of his methods.

Whatever this man’s crimes in life, he had than certainly atoned for them in his final moments. I examined the remains in silence, knowing already that I would glean no more information than the chilling fact that whoever had killed him had enjoyed their task. My jaw tightened as I bitterly reflected upon the basest nature of man, barely conscious of Holmes flitting about around me, gathering his evidence and occasionally barking questions at the inspector and his men.

“Well, Watson?”

I gratefully turned away from the body. “Death occurred less than three hours ago,” I said, “though I would be hard pressed to tell which of his many injuries was the fatal one.”

“Done by professionals, I see. I’m sure he was very informative.”

The inspector frowned. “So he was tortured for information?”

I shook my head. “These people most likely already had all the information they needed within the first few minutes of their interrogation. They worked at him for well over half an hour,” I continued, answering Holmes’ unspoken question. “The pattern of the stab wounds and blows at first suggests that the two separate assailants each wielded their own weapon, but, in fact –”

“But, in fact, they traded weapons at one point, the man with the ice pick giving his weapon over and receiving his companion’s bludgeon in exchange.”

“And then they traded back,” I added.

“Ah, yes. One for you, Watson. I failed to observe the shift of pattern upon the lower sternum. Well, there is nothing more here. Inspector, you and your men can clean up here. Come, Watson, we must –”

“Mr. Holmes, certainly I must accompany you,” Bowes protested.

Holmes turned slowly, his face an impassive mask of bemusement. “I think the doctor and I can find the way to our hotel.”

“But what of this man’s murder?” Bowes persisted. He lowered his voice theatrically, looking round at his men. “What of – the other matter?”

“Inspector Bowes, I am an old man. I cannot run about as I used to; the body simply needs sleep. Rest assured, I shall lend my attention to whatever further details you and your men wish to present to me in the morning. But for now –”

“Mr. Holmes, with all due respect, you’re only sixty-nine. My own dear father is some ten years older than you and can still run circles round me back at the farm. And I have studied your own methods enough to see that you have found a trail to your man. All I ask is that you let me come –”

“Inspector Bowes!” Holmes barked, glaring at the man who had dared to interrupt him twice. “The men who did this were professionals. If you truly have studied my methods, you would know that they left no discernible path to them. Now if you will forgive me, I am quite tired. You may apprise me of any progress you make tonight when you meet us for breakfast; I believe your man arranged accommodations for us at the Totleigh Arms, yes? Very well, then. Good night, inspector.”

We did not speak until we were in the car, the engine quietly running.

“What are you waiting for, Watson?” Holmes said impatiently.

“Holmes, I may know your methods as well as any man,” I sighed, “but only you know where we’re going.”

“Didn’t you hear me? We’re going to the Totleigh Arms; we passed it on our way through town.”

“I know where the inn is, Holmes. But if Jack is –”

“You said it yourself,” Holmes snapped. “He’s old enough to handle this on his own, even someone as perversely cruel as these fellows Sorenson has hired.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, weary sigh. “Please, John, I’m too tired to argue about this. Just take us to the damn hotel.”

I silently put the car into gear, wondering what the blazes Holmes thought he was doing. If I had read the signs aright, we should be returning to Totleigh Towers, where we were sure to find –

“No, Watson, we shall not need to pursue Mr. Brinkley’s assassins,” Holmes said, breaking faultlessly into my thread of reasoning.

I was just opening my mouth to ask him what he meant when I saw the man’s form upon the road. The body lay directly across our path, with the silhouette of his companion kneeling by his side outlined in sharp contrast to their shadows thrown by the lamps of the roadster.

“Yes, you had better stop,” Holmes said quietly, in response to my look, “for though I should dearly love for you to run them over, it would be a futile gesture.”

I nodded, understanding fully that we had become the pursued, and were about to become the captured. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and waited for the scenario to play out.

“I do not think you should reach for your pistol,” Holmes murmured as the kneeling man rose and approached our car. “It would only annoy them, I fear.”

“Sherlock?” I hissed, trusting upon my tone to ask the inevitable.

“No, I do not know if Jack is alive,” he answered. “I’m sorry, John.”

We could say no more as the man stepped up to the passenger side of the roadster, smiling broadly. There was something about the gleam in his eye that produced an immediate visceral reaction, a powerful feeling of immediate revulsion. Then I looked again at the face, and my innards twisted into a fierce, deep loathing as I recognized where I had seen that hateful leer before. Every nerve in my spine grew cold as ice as I looked up into the laughing face of the man who had killed Mary Morstan.

 
Chapter Nine