“Right,” I said. “For how could you know that you were about to be discovered and blamed for your own murder. Matters must have been complicated, no doubt, by the fact that you’d got yourself so smiffed up that you could not write or speak. You had no power to explain the situation, even to save your life, which was in danger given that your new deformities did not lend themselves to eating or breathing.”
By way of confirmation, Neville St. Clair merely shrugged and complained, “Please… I’m so hungry!”
“Ah. Yes. We had better see to that,” I admitted.
“No,” Lilly St. Clair insisted. “Bath first!”
Famished though he might be, Neville did not protest. Holmes gave his head a sad shake. “Well, you’ve done it again, Watson. You’ve seen us through the fog. I must say, I feel dashed guilty about that smiff. It’s done its share of mischief, hasn’t it? Grogsson, I’ll need you to get a message to Lestrade. We’ll want him tonight. There’s work to be done. Maybe battle.”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!” Grogsson howled. By which he meant, I think, that he’d like that very much.
Holmes grimaced. “We’re going to have to clear out a den of mystic-opium zombies, I shouldn’t wonder. And then… I don’t care if I have to buy both buildings and brick up the alley, we have to block off that smiff. I can’t fix it, but I must do my utmost to see it harms no others.”
“What time shall we meet?” I asked.
Holmes’s green eyes flicked in my direction. “You will not be involved.”
“But… it’s my case!”
“And you have solved it. Thank you. Now go home.”
“You cannot—”
“This is exactly the sort of thing we are trying to preserve you from, Watson. Now, go home or I shall do something rather unpleasant that renders you incapable to participate.”
I stamped my foot at him. “Really, Holmes! You have much to learn of gratitude!”
Yet his was not the only sense of gratitude that had been tested that day. With a hint of a tear in the corner of her eye and a slew of emotions on her face, Lilly St. Clair took me by the arm.
“Sir, you have returned my husband to his loving family!” she said.
I blushed. “Think nothing of it, madam. I was happy to—”
“And destroyed our livelihood.”
“Oh…”
“…”
“…Yes I have.”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE LYING DETECTIVE
HEARING IS ONE OF THE STRANGEST AND MOST INTIMATE of human senses. There are a thousand sounds we know so well that we barely notice them anymore. They may be distasteful, or precious—the call of the local knife-grinder or the whistling of a kettle. Yet even these expected sounds can provide a rapturous wonderment when they occur in an unexpected place. Imagine exploring the depths of an unknown cave and hearing the sudden lowing of a cow in the darkness behind you. Or running for your life down the darkened streets of Whitechapel with a murderer at your heels, only to turn a corner and hear two dozen schoolchildren break clumsily into “Nearer, My God, to Thee”. That’s what it was like, the morning I began “The Adventure of the Lying Detective”. The day the imp assaulted my door.
Which was not to say it was the first intrusive sound of the morning. That honor went to Mary. One of the side-effects of having turned our house into a center for London’s second-rate artistic community was Mary’s increased frustration at her inability to play piano. She’d had lessons in the past, it seemed, but had never really taken to the instrument the way she’d hoped. Now that she was surrounded with the constant advice of London’s more mediocre breed of music-hall performer, she had become certain that their guidance would lift her to new heights of musical achievement.
It hadn’t. She was dreadful.
The worst part was that Mary knew perfectly well how wretched she sounded. This might cause a more demure artist to sequester themselves until they had improved. But no. With Mary this simply meant that anyone who chose to comment on the quality of her playing—or even acknowledge the fact that she was playing—was taking his very life into his hands.
I was in my overstuffed chair that morning, reading the paper, hating my existence, and doing my absolute utmost to ignore her latest musical onslaught. As I sat there, grinding my teeth to powder, a second noise broke forth. It might have easily been mistaken for a knock upon our door.
But it wasn’t. It was too strident. Too insistent. Too angry. Too close to the ground. Yet the most remarkable thing about it was the familiarity. Oh, how many times had I heard that exact sound, with that exact cadence? Never here, of course. No, I never expected to hear it here. I dropped my paper to my lap and spluttered, “Good Lord, that sounds exactly like Mrs. Hudson!”
“Raaaargh!” Mary replied, in response to my intrusion. An instant later, one of our heavy silver candlesticks came flying just past my face, spattering a few drops of tallow across my shoulder. I suppose I should have been furious, but I wasn’t. I was transfixed. Whatever could this well-known sound be doing so far from its proper place? Ignoring Mary’s latest attempt at casual mariticide, I rose as if from a dream and hastened towards our front door.
As I neared, I became evermore certain. This was not knocking. This was kicking. Just kicking and kicking and kicking!
