I cleared my throat. “You know, Holmes, given that—as you say—I am only a general practitioner, I am perhaps not the most suitable person to treat this sickness of yours.”
“Really, John?” asked Holmes, hopefully.
“Oh no. You heard me: I didn’t even realize China was tropical.”
“Silly fellow!”
“It seems this Mr. Culverton Smith may be your only hope. I don’t suppose you’ve got his address, have you?”
“It’s just on the corner of the desk, there, next to my teeth.”
“I shall fetch him at once,” I said. Then I leaned in and, in a gentler tone, asked, “You sure you’ll be all right, Holmes?”
“Ha! Don’t worry about me, Watson. This shall all turn out wonderfully. Oh, you should see! Do you want to see?”
A strange little pang struck me.
“I would like that very much.”
“Well…” said Holmes, and he hesitated a moment, as if he knew what he was about to offer was inadvisable. But then familiarity and his own fond feelings overwhelmed him and he suddenly burst forth, “All right! But you mustn’t come with him, John. He must think himself absolutely alone with me. Try and get back before him, all right?”
“I shall do my utmost.”
With that, I turned, marched out of Holmes’s room, down the steps to Baker Street, and off on another of Holmes’s strange adventures. Though, not in my usual capacity, to be sure.
* * *
Mr. Culverton Smith resided at 13 Lower Burke Street—a fine house in that vague no-man’s land between Notting Hill and Kensington. It looked less a den of evil than one of middle-class sensibilities slowly giving way to upper-class ones. Yet if the exterior seemed unpromising in the arch-nemesis department, one ring at the bell was all it took to dispel the illusion.
A demon answered the door.
Not a very good one, but a familiar one. The door swung open to reveal the doughy, shapeless face of Hilton Soames’s otherworldly butler—exactly the same fellow I’d seen explode into powder during “The Adventure of the Three Apprentices”. I’m sure if I’d had a moment to reflect on the situation, I’d have remembered he was dead, but I had no such chance. My voice burst forth of its own accord.
“Bannister?”
“What? No, sir,” the wobbly-armed demon replied. “Are you asking if my name is Bannister? Is that your meaning?”
I nodded.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” he said. “Nothing so exotic.”
“Well what is it, then?”
“My name is Staples.”
My eyebrow went up. Another wobbly demon named after an everyday object? No, the pattern was too clear. Indeed, he might almost be one of Bannister’s brothers, Railing or Low-Rising Safety Wall, if I had not had it on the best authority that Bannister had eaten them in order to sustain himself in our realm. I had thought the three brothers’ case to be unique, but if this was not one of that trio, I was apparently going to have to revise my thinking.
“I don’t suppose you came to this land in the company of your two brothers, did you?” I asked.
“Very astute, sir,” the demon confirmed. “But… er… nobody has heard from Paperclips or Bent-Metal Stationery-Fasteners for some time.”
“Right. Sure,” I said, eyeing him with growing suspicion. “But it’s a problem for another day. Is your master in? I come to him with grave news.”
“Oh dear! Do step inside and I shall see if he is fit to receive you. Who may I say is calling?”
“Dr. John Watson.”
“Just a moment, Dr. Watson.”
Say what you will, at least he was a vastly superior butler compared to Bannister. He disappeared into the interior of the house. I could hear his muted tones speaking to somebody in the next room. This was followed by a high-pitched, strident voice shouting, “How many times have I told you I must not be disturbed in my hours of study, Staples? Who is this fellow? What does he want?”
I heard Staples sigh, “I have just told you that, sir.”
“Well I won’t see him! I am not at home! Tell him that, why don’t you?”
“Erm… I am not confident that would now suffice, sir.”
“What? Why not?”
“Sir has been rather vociferous, I think, and the walls are not thick.”
“Vociferous? What does that even mean, ‘vociferous’? You made that word up.”
As the embattled butler strove to convince his employer he’d done no such thing, I rolled my eyes and set the matter to rest. I turned the handle, barged into the room and said, “Mr. Culverton Smith? How good to meet you. I am Dr. John Watson and I fear you are the only man who can aid me.”
“Eek! Who are you?” squealed a paunchy gentleman in his early forties. His hair was curly—a shade of unremarkable brown in the process of turning unremarkable gray. He had bushy mutton-chops that dipped down either cheek, shot forward along his lower jaw, then lunged up again to meet in the middle beneath his bulbous nose, as if to say, “Ha! I fooled you! I was a moustache all along!”
I rolled my eyes at the man. “I have just told you that. So has Staples. I am Dr. John Watson and I am here on an errand of the utmost importance. I have just come from the home of Mr. Warlock Holmes.”
The name caused an instant reaction. My host lunged forward and demanded, “Holmes? How is he? I mean… he’s probably fine, of course. Most people are, you know, and I certainly do not have any reason to suspect the contrary, but… how did he seem?”
Any concerns that Warlock had picked a quarrel with an intellectual giant he had no hope of besting were dissolving at a rapid rate. In fact—and oh, what a strange thing it was—I was beginning to feel as if Holmes had done rather well for himself. Yes, Culverton Smith was perhaps just the perfect foil for Holmes to tangle with, bereft of my help. Should
