Zhèng nodded.
“Obviously. I scraped from the inside of Zhèng’s pipe, It has a different texture than that of the residue in Mr. Brown’s much more contemporary pipe. I’d venture to say that Mr. Zhèng had a quiet smoke while he watched his victims die because some residue from the ancient pipe was left at several crime scenes. You know, Poppy, how zealous Detective Hopkins is about preserving evidence at crime scenes. We have him to thank for the ash residue, the final bit of truth we need to hang Zhèng.”
I shifted my gaze to Zhèng. “You unspeakable... have you black venom in your veins? How could you-”
“How could I not?” he shouted. “And the doctors agreed with me. I told them to have their patients - when they were ready - answer my advertisement. They sent the men to me, advertisement in hand. They came willingly. It was not murder. It was mercy.”
“Ah,” said Sherlock. “But you also had to leave your little calling cards so the doctors knew it was you. So the game with the police was afoot. You could not resist. And I might applaud your ingenuity, your compassion and your sincerity, sir, but you crossed the line. You killed someone who did not seek your help.”
“The reporter,” Zhèng retorted.
Sherlock nodded. “The sixth previously unidentified victim,” Sherlock explained to me.
“He was the reporter who was sniffing around the police station and the British Museum. He caught Mr. Zhèng coming out of the museum with a statue and a dead raven. Unfortunately, Mr. Zhèng also had with him a syringe filled with his poison.”
“Yes, that was a most unfortunate mishap,” said Zhèng. “I was on my way to dispose of the physicians and leave London to carry on my work elsewhere. But the newspaper man got in the way.”
“I do feel some remorse about that,” Sherlock said. “I am the one who fed poor Mr. Porter the information for that article. I was certain it would flush the killer out sooner. Zhèng killed him to try to prevent publication of his article, but I convinced the newspaper to print it anyway, including in the article a little addition about the sixth man’s demise... the ‘unidentified victim.’”
I put my head in my hands. “Oh, my God.”
“Well, this has truly been enlightening and entertaining, Mr. Holmes,” Zhèng said, “but lest Mr. Brown elucidate the police about our friendship and implicate me, I really must take my leave.”
He pointed the pistol straight at Sherlock’s head, but Sherlock jumped up and yelled as loud as he could, “Wretched Beast!”
A moment later, I heard a deep growl and the familiar thumping of my dog’s feet on the stairs as he came up from his little cubicle near the kitchen down below. He raced into the room and had his jaws around Zhèng’s calf in seconds. Zhèng’s arm flew up, and the pistol went off, sending a vapor toward the ceiling. Sherlock was upon him immediately, wrested the pistol from his right hand and the syringe from the left. For a moment, I thought Sherlock would jab the syringe into his neck.
Instead, he bashed the butt of the gun against Zhèng’s temple and said, “I thought it was time to return the favour.”
Zhèng lay helpless and unconscious on the floor.
I rushed to the dog and grabbed his collar but he would not let go of Zhèng’s flesh.
“I’ll take ’im, Miss,” a voice said, and I turned to see Archibald. He gave out a whistle and the dog let go and ran to him. Archie ruffled his neck and showered him with praise.
How did he do that? I wondered briefly, then turned to Sherlock, dumbfounded.
Sherlock had already removed his tie and was tightly winding it around Zhèng’s wrists behind his back. He hollered to Archie, “Go tell Ollie to fetch the police.”
50
I slumped to the floor, exhausted, spent beyond belief, and stared at Zhèng’s limp body.
Sherlock rushed over to me and touched my face and neck and shoulders. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, but I could barely move my legs or feel my limbs at all. I heard water dripping from the oak tree outside. It was raining. It was so strange - the only thing I could form in my mind was the fact that it was raining.
Sherlock helped me back into the chair. “You are certain you are not hurt?”
I looked into his eyes. His decisions were hopeless to foresee, his strategies difficult to foil. He was impossibly brilliant. But just now, I saw only concern.
We did not speak again until the little boy, Ollie, had returned with an entire squadron of police who carted Zhèng away in a Black Maria.
As the gloat of victory returned, Sherlock said, “That should conclude the case, don’t you think?” Then he poured two glasses of wine and tried to hand one to me.
“No,” I protested. “First, I must tend to your wound.”
He touched his forehead, which was still bleeding. “It’s nothing.”
“It is not nothing. Stay here a moment.”
I went to fetch Uncle’s medical bag, retrieved medication and bandages, and treated the cut, all the while remembering our first moments together on the lawn at Oxford. He was recalcitrant and ridiculous and unmanageable then. He still was.
When I finished, I gulped down my wine and asked for more. Sherlock poured the lovely, sweet red liquid into my glass and stroked my hair.
“Why don’t you ever listen to me, Poppy?”
“Because you were in danger.”
“Obviously. And is that not precisely why I’ve told you I cannot love... I cannot... I worry about you. And you put yourself in harm’s way. It doesn’t work.”
“How did you get in here?”
Surprised by the change of course, he asked, “What?”
“How did you get into the house?”
He smiled. “Do you remember when you found me flirting with your house servant?
