“He also remembers bumping his right shoulder every time the carriage turned,” I said, pointing out over the village square. “And he says the horse who arrived to pick him up had not a hair out of place!”
“So?” grunted Grogsson.
“So, a single horse does not pull a carriage ten miles over country roads and arrive at this station still looking fresh. You must—”
But Holmes cut me off. “Pay him no heed, gentlemen. Watson is merely having trouble adjusting to his new life. He is not to assist in the solution of this or any other crime, or he will get himself all doomed again.”
Grogsson and Lestrade gave heavy sighs and made “Remember? We promised” eyes at me. I felt I was losing my chance. Luckily the stationmaster was only a few paces away. I ran to him, calling, “Excuse me, sir, excuse me. Do you know Colonel Stark?”
“Who?” the man replied.
“German fellow, incredibly skinny.”
“Oh! Dr. Becher?”
“Quite possibly the man I’m looking for,” I told him. “Odd sort of fellow?”
“Oh, I should say.”
“Came here last night?”
“That he did.”
“Spent an hour or two driving his carriage counterclockwise around the village square?”
“Ah, well, he often does that,” the stationmaster confirmed. “Whenever he’s got an out-of-town guest. Says it wards off bad luck for the visit.”
“Hmph!” I scoffed. “So, you’ve seen him pick up several ‘guests’ from this station! I wonder, have any of those people returned this way?”
“Er… now that I come to put my mind to it… no.”
“Ha, ha!” I shouted and turned to my friends in triumph. Yet when I beheld them, my features fell. They seemed to have been paying little attention to my revelations, but were instead concentrating on a subject I cared for less.
“…do not intend to wait for the next train,” Holmes was saying. “We need to make sure he is on this one and I’m not above using a bit of force to accomplish it.”
Grogsson stepped towards me with a grim little “Sorry, Watson-man” smile on his face, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“But wait!” I cried. “Don’t you see? I can help you!”
“Nope,” said Holmes. “You’ll die. Grogsson? If you’d be so kind…”
And my friend Torg took two steps forward, closed his hands around my waist, and hoisted me into the air. I had just a moment of hope when I heard the stationmaster cry, “Hey! You can’t do that! Help! Help! Police!”
But on that last word, my hopes fell. Sure enough, Lestrade’s hand disappeared into his coat and re-emerged holding his badge.
“Oh,” said the surprised stationmaster. “Then… you actually can do that?”
“So it would seem,” said Lestrade smugly. “Now, if it’s not too much trouble, I believe my friends and I would like to purchase one ticket to wherever that train is heading.”
* * *
Three minutes later, I sat in my seat with my arms crossed, staring glumly out the window at the three friends whose adventures I had so often shared. Torg, to his credit, looked a bit guilty about shutting me out. Lestrade looked as if he found the whole thing irresistibly entertaining. Holmes’s look was sad but resolved and Victor Hatherley made the face of a man reflecting that, not even twenty-four hours previously, he’d owned two thumbs and never had to endure such bizarre social circumstances. Holmes, no fool—
Or… Wait, let me start that sentence again.
Holmes, accustomed to my stubbornness, was taking no chances. He remained just on the other side of my window, arms crossed against his chest staring masterfully at me through the glass. There he stayed until the whistle blew, the pistons chugged, and the train began to pull slowly forward. I stared dejectedly back as the train gathered speed. I would swear I could see Holmes’s lips form the words “Well, gentlemen, that’s that, eh?” before he turned his back on me and headed off down the platform in search of a carriage to hire.
At which point, I jumped off a moving train.
I know it was foolish. Up until that moment, if anybody had asked me if such an action was advisable, I’d have had to say, “As a doctor, I recommend against it.”
Ever since that moment, I would have to say, “As a doctor who has jumped off a moving train, I strongly recommend against it.”
I mean, it didn’t look like we were moving much faster than a run. And as we went around the first bend, I reflected that the hill that sloped away from us on the far side of the train from the station looked rather soft and loamy. And would not the body of the train hide me long enough for me to conceal myself from the platform by lying down along the slope? The conductor was one car ahead of me, so what was the chance he’d even notice? I got up as calmly as I could, tipped my hat to the lady across from me, went to the door, opened it, stepped out onto the platform between my car and the next, and threw myself off.
I think I was airborne when the first truth revealed itself to me: I was rather a poor judge of speed. I remember looking down at the ground as it traversed beneath me and thinking, Wait now… Does it ever seem to be going by quite so fast when I’m running across it?
No, I realized. No, it does not.
The second truth I learned this day was as follows: there is an important difference between “soft to the touch” and “soft enough to throw your whole body onto at twenty miles per hour”. Though that welcoming, loamy bank surely fulfilled the first condition, it left something to be desired in the second. I hit the ground running.
But not—and it turns out this was rather important—running at a full twenty miles per hour. My right ankle barely had time to twist terribly before my feet were out from under me and I plunged forward into the bank. I felt my body plough
