Until today.
Here, in my hands, was a word from beyond the grave. Once again, I fingered the metal bands.
‘Leave it,’ came a sharp voice behind me.
I turned to see that Sherlock Holmes had soundlessly entered the room. He was pale and drenched with sweat, his dark hair damp and awry.
‘Put it down, I say!’ he cried.
CHAPTER 2
Thwarted
‘What?’ I asked. ‘Why should I leave it?’
‘Why are you sitting in the dark? The sun is past our windows now!’ said Holmes. He peeled off his frock coat and crossed to the window, throwing aside the heavy curtains. He opened the window wider to let in a draft. ‘Ah, air!’ he said. ‘A breeze at last!’
‘Holmes? Why should I leave it?’
‘Do you know who sent it?’
‘Yes. An aunt.’
He turned to face me, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
‘You don’t have an aunt. As I recollect, you had no one when you returned to London after the war.’
‘Well, I didn’t know I had this one.’
He tossed his waistcoat onto a chair. ‘Then you do not know the sender. It could be anyone.’
He approached me and glanced down at the silver box, undoing his tie. His face was shiny with sweat. ‘Ah, it is a bonny little thing. Careful, Watson.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged, moving back to the window. Throwing his tie onto the table, he unbuttoned his collar and began splashing water from a carafe onto the front of his shirt. The back was already drenched in perspiration.
‘There’s a letter which explains—’ I began.
‘You do not know the person who sent this. Instinct tells me you should leave it.’
I shook my head. ‘What on earth are you worried about, Holmes?’
He ignored the question, then rolled up his shirtsleeves, pulled back the sheer lace curtains and opened the window even wider, standing now quite exposed, his shirt soaked and clinging to his bony frame.
I felt a faint breeze move languidly into the room. Holmes untucked his shirt and was now preposterously flapping its soggy front in the stifling air to cool himself.
‘Holmes!’
If our sheer curtains were not in place, the elderly couple who lived straight across Baker Street had a direct view into our lodgings, and I’d caught them more than once peering over at us with birding glasses. His state of undress would surely provoke remark.
He ignored me, but of course Holmes cared as much for propriety as I did for knitting.
‘Holmes! If you think for one moment that either of us might be a target, aren’t you inviting danger standing in the window like that?’
‘Hmm,’ said he, nevertheless stepping back and closing the curtains. ‘For a moment, I thought you might be concerned about the neighbours.’ He flashed a quick smile at me. ‘I am sorry, dear friend. I am being perhaps too careful.’ He dropped down into a chair facing me. ‘By Jove, this heat! I have just put my eleventh case to rest this year. A couple masquerading as Japanese royalty who were actually importing adulterated opium into – Watson, I said put that box down!’
‘Holmes, this is my business.’
‘Come, Watson, you have no business. Oh, sorry, don’t take offence. It is one of the things I most treasure about you; you are almost an entirely blank page. Which means you are then free to accompany me on my cases.’
I was nettled to hear that my availability seemed to be my greatest asset. ‘What do you think is so dangerous?’ I asked, waving the box at him. ‘Have you set off some munitions expert recently?’
‘It is unlikely to be a bomb at that size, Watson. But please put it down! Locks can be rigged, you know, and even fatal.’
‘Balderdash.’
‘Spring-loaded, poison-tipped darts. Blades that pierce the eye when you look inside. Oh, yes, Watson!’
I set it down, reluctantly. ‘Are you receiving death threats, Holmes?’
He said nothing.
‘Are you?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Nothing specific. But in my line of work it is wise to take care.’ Holmes sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Watson. It was not my intention to leave you out of my recent cases. Some of them require – they happen so quickly – I must stay nimble-footed.’
Hot with anger, I stood. I had recently declined to join friends for an excursion to Bath, but in a fit of pique changed my mind that instant. ‘In any case, let me not be your anchor. I’m leaving in an hour for a holiday.’
Holmes was the picture of dismay. ‘For how long? Where? Why on earth?’
‘I have had enough of this heat. A friend invited me to Bath. Several of us are going. Cards, a great deal of swimming, dining. Nothing that you would enjoy.’
‘Bath! Cards, you say? Dear fellow, I have had to lock your chequebook away for the third time! Your gambling debts will sink you. And as for fine dining, you really might reconsider.’ He said no more but eyed my middle.
That confirmed it. ‘I’m off to pack. Unlock your desk and have my chequebook out, or I shall break open the damned drawer.’ Normally I am a patient man, but perhaps it was the heat.
I was off within the hour, chequebook in hand and the mysterious box tucked safely in an inner pocket of my linen jacket. I would see to finding a locksmith in Bath, far away from prying eyes.
As the train steamed westward that evening, I slid open the window in my first-class carriage and felt the evening air rush in as a cooling breeze. I was relieved to be departing London, and to be honest, Sherlock Holmes.
An image of his thin face when I left, drawn and, dare I say, a bit sad, floated into my brain. Let him miss me, I thought crossly.
It was not one of my finer moments,
