11 A SCARLET MAN (PARTS 5,6 & 7 of 7)

5) Inconstant Companion

["...Perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."]

In resolving to protect Holmes against his will, I knew I was likely to lose him, and maybe not before time. I was a fool to try and recapture the companionship of our youth. In those years I still harbored futile hopes, and had the long years to wait for their fruition. No more; Holmes was what he seemed, what he admitted to, and that was all. That might have been enough if I had never seen him give away, as nothing, what I knew I could never have. Maybe that lifted the scales from my eyes. It was as well that Mary had given me the strength to desert him once before because my actions were bound to precipitate another parting.

This was because there was nothing Holmes resented more than having an actor deviate from his script, even his closest friend. He had every reason to expect I would not meddle, not knowing that some factors in this case affected me more than he might expect. Whether I turned out to be right, or him, it would lead to the row that we had not had these many years. I was as hale as I would ever be and ready for it. Holmes was not going alone into the arms of a murderer, not if I could help it. After I had seen him safely through this night, I would hear some cutting words from him -- and for once I would not suffer them. I would tell him to go to hell and mean it.

I went first to Shaun Henry. He was proprietor of the Oak rooms. An older man than the one I remembered but still formidable in height and breadth. Though his build had suffered a little over the years, owing more to sinew now than muscle.

Few of my old friends still attended the bars, but they were canny men, survivors and discreet. They knew I never shared my secret and so it stayed safe from Holmes under any disguise. Tonight it would be me at the center of a small exclusive web, and Holmes who sent the shiver down its lines.

Shaun greeted me blearily but with real pleasure. "My God, the years!" He ushered me into his dim parlor and poured a breakfast scotch. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I need a favor," I said grimly. "A rather large one, but it relates to the killer who has been targeting inverts and I think you'll have no trouble helping me out."

Shaun took his cue from my serious tone. He stayed quite still as I described Holmes and took him fully into my confidence. Dissembling has never been a real skill of mine and I did not practice it now.

Shaun shook his head. "You never told him."

I rubbed on hand over my face. "No, there didn't seem much point..."

Shaun considered for a while. "I've seen him as I said, and I must say he's a very natural queer."

"No doubt he made a study of it," I replied tiredly. "We may expect a monograph on the subject... I assure you Shaun he's wooed and won ladies to make a case, but I don't see him indulging in that in his leisure time either."

"Well, I'll put out the word. There enough of your old cohort left to cover all the current spots. So when he meets the bastard you'll know... You expect it to be over after this, don't you?"

I nodded.

"Why?" Shaun queried. "Because he'll know about you, will he care?"

"He won't care at all," I said sadly, and he understood. You couldn't tend bar in this town for two decades, and not learn a thing or two about broken hearts.

6) And Poisons Generally

["Belladonna, opium and poisons generally."]

Our cab hung back from the darkened door of the dockside bar. Its window gilt named it 'Journey's End,' but the dirty glass and clientele suggested more fleeting associations. The driver had been paid well for his evening, in advance, and so he did not fret at our long vigil. I fingered my revolver grimly, waiting for Rafe to return.

Young Rafe was Shaun's chief bartender, and apparently as straight as a line.

'Saves a bit of grief around the bar,' Shaun had muttered obliquely. Shaun stuck to my side on this mission, and short of being as rude as Holmes I could not dissuade him from seeing it through. It seemed to me he had some ulterior motive, but I hadn't the time to ponder on it then.

Rafe emerged from the bar, his red hair unseasonably bright against that dingy scene. He had gone

in pursuit of a story that there was a gentleman within making free with some very effective sarcastic barbs, a gentleman in a burgundy topcoat. From my point of view the sarcasm was the more distinguishing feature, but I couldn't fault Rafe's conclusion being drawn from the more prosaic clue.

"On his way out now," Rafe informed us, climbing aboard. "He just finished verbally dissecting some chap at the bar and seems to have tired of the sport."

Rafe's disapproval was clear in his tone.

On cue, Holmes emerged. He walked down the street with careful steadiness. Then matters progressed with a rapidity I could follow. Holmes staggered rather suddenly; he wedged his shoulder against the wall to keep from falling. He reached into his pocket... At the same time he was approached from behind by a large, bearded gentleman, and a carriage drew up. In a ragged instant all three were gone. I shouted for our driver to follow them.

We charged through streets that gaslight had not reached and I cannot tell the horror of it. I feared at any moment they would turn into some dark maze of closes and we would lose them. I hoped Holmes merely feigned his weakness, but I suspected otherwise. The chase stretched on for minutes, but despite their haste it was my impression that our quarry did not know they were pursued.

As the carriage halted our driver passed it and went a cautious distance before stopping. Through the rear window I saw the large man carry Holmes within one of the stone tenements, a limp bundle. Had I not already suspected the disabling effect of some drug, I might have thought him dead. I cocked my pistol and reached for the door. The accomplice in the carriage pulled away rapidly and even now was almost out of sight.

"We'll go first Doc.," Rafe said.

I made to ignore him but Shaun stopped me. "Before this is over you and Holmes might best be out of here unidentified. Do as I say."

I was sufficiently stunned by his vehemence to pause while he leapt ahead, and young Rafe after him. I held my revolver under the flap of my coat and followed. Our pause had allowed the door to swing shut, but Shaun broke through it with a surprisingly muffled thud. I only heard the scuffle that ensued, so rapidly did it progress. By the time I entered they had their man restrained, his face pressed against the carpet.

I had eyes only for Holmes. He lay sprawled half across a low sofa. Motionless but for his fingers which twitched convulsively, his pupils wide and unfocused. I must have dropped my revolver then for it was not in my hands as I took Holmes' pulse and searched him for any dangerous injury.

Holmes' shirt was broken into rags, beneath it his body was a topography of white skin and red abrasions. A struggle then, but he was beyond resistance now. What disturbed me most was the expression on his face. Anger I might have expected but I was almost unmade by that frozen expression of simple fear.

My associates showed ingenuity, finding material to blindfold and bind the other man. Rafe searched his pockets and produced a vial of black powder. It contained opium and other elements. I considered taking it with me but in all honesty I was unlikely to be able to analyze it further, and it was important the police have it as evidence.

Shaun opened the sideboard, and closed it abruptly. "Rafe, fetch a bobby." He stooped and retrieved my pistol. "Our story is we heard this one in the Journey's End bragging about the attacks and followed him back... Watson?"

I could see flaws in his plan, but supposed that if it failed honesty would still serve.

"Shaun, if you have the slightest problem get hold of Inspector Gregson or even Lestrade, and tell them the whole thing."

I hesitated to desert them, and he saw it.

"We'll try it my way first, John. I assure you that much more is possible for one whose vices are secret, than if they are known, or even supposed." That last seemed to encompass Rafe, but it could equally apply to Holmes, as blithe as he was about it.

I could hardly convey the immense gratitude I felt, and merely nodded as I lifted my patient. Keyed up over the events of the evening, I carried Holmes effortlessly to the cab. Even in this extremity I could not help feeling satisfied that I had been correct and Holmes in error, but mostly I was grateful to have saved him.

The journey passed as a blur, strung together only by Holmes' ragged but persistent pulse and shallow breaths. This was not the conclusion I had foreseen. I fully expected to feel the sharp end of Holmes' scorn. Perhaps to look a perfect fool, and as so often before to have been wrong in my understanding of the unfolding events. Either way I had intended to finally vent my anger at Holmes' long misuse of me. Keeping me ever impotent and in the dark even about his own life and death. The joy of his return had eclipsed my anger, and the speed with which he occupied me in his cases. Now, ignoble or not, that resentment had returned, only to find itself faced with a helpless and pitiful target. All it served to do was mute the proper sense of sympathy I should have felt in such a moment.

So I carried Holmes up his seventeen damned stairs, through the sitting room and laid him on his bed. I stripped and cared for him as efficiently as a hospital nurse and with no greater outward sign of care. Pulling up the cover I saw the struggle for consciousness behind his eyes. Depending on the dose I supposed he might be quite aware of his surroundings, merely paralyzed.

Another man I might have comforted with a touch but not Holmes, he was a man of words.

"It's alright Holmes. There is nothing you can do until the drug is clear of your system so give in for once. Rest."

I dimmed the light.

In the sitting room my mind was full of pictures of Holmes helpless against his attacker. Failed by his own perspicacity and precautions. Somehow, even knowing him safe, it began to scare me then. Holmes was not a man to be at anyone's mercy. It was as if some element of his nature could forbid the circumstance; and I was intending to leave him at the very moment he had entirely and unarguably depended upon my presence.

My will wavered, waiting for what would eventuate when Holmes awoke.

7) Ignorance and Knowledge

["His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge."]

I kept a careful vigil on Holmes lest the sedative component of the concoction he was subject to suppressed his respiration completely, requiring resuscitation. However, he rallied steadily and it was soon apparent that such a drastic situation would not eventuate. My nerves thus reassured, I fell asleep upon an armchair draw up to his bedside. I woke to an empty mattress, and felt an immediate and irrational panic.

The night had not yet begun to lighten to day, and I found Holmes looking out the Bow window in the sitting room. His thin fingers curled upon the sill like the feet of a bird. He turned to me with a peculiar listless brightness in his eyes and I thought I should not speak to him now. He was, no doubt, in some shock and still feeling the effects of the evil narcotic administered prior to it, but I could hardly ignore him when he spoke.

"Ah Watson, sweeping in on his white charger to rescue me." It was said with an all-encompassing bitterness that embraced both self-hatred and outward resentment. "...And I was a proper chivalric damsel, practically throwing myself at my persecutor bound hand and foot ... pitiful, unforgivable."

"You are not infallible Holmes," I offered as charitably as I could but it only served to irritate him further.

"Infallible, I am barely sentient! I am a Punchinello, puffed upon my position but oblivious to the situation in my own home! A vainglorious vaudeville clown!

My God it casts a new light upon things. What is my role now?"

He stood and turned to me with porcelain scorn, sustained by his own venom.

"Does my white knight expect he has won his prize?"

There was a depth of mocking coquetry in that phrase that I think no man but

Holmes could have achieved. Which does not excuse what I did next.

I struck him.

I laid him out on the floor as effortlessly as brushing aside a curtain, and I walked away. Down the steps, down the street, not even knowing where I went. I can think of no lower act for any Doctor, any friend no matter how abused, or any human being.

But it was hours before I regretted it.