“Well, I was out for a walk, you see, when I encountered this… um…” I indicated the waxen Holmes.
“I’ve been calling him Steve,” Holmes announced. “Hard to say why. It doesn’t seem right calling him Warlock as that’s what he’s supposed to call me, if he ever learns to talk.”
A quick flicker of vexation crossed Holmes’s features. He then pressed one of the strips of paper against a nearby wall, wrote “Learn to talk” on it, crumpled it into a ball, and commanded, “Steve: open!”
Steve turned to Holmes and obediently opened his mouth. Holmes chucked the little ball of paper in, then stood to wait with an air of expectation. Presently, Steve opined, “HEEEEEEEEURRRMOE!”
“Damn,” grumbled Holmes.
“My word! Is that how you give it commands?” I asked.
“Hmm, yes. The whole thing is a variation on the ancient Hebrew golem—an entirely new version of my own devising. Brilliant, isn’t he?”
“Well…”
“MOO—MOO—MOO—HURGOP!”
“…I don’t know about brilliant. He is quite singular. But, Holmes, why have you elected to create an animated wax version of yourself?”
Holmes adopted an air of casual calm and, staring at his fingernails as if displeased with the state of their cleanliness, mentioned, “Simply because I expect—at any moment—” here he suddenly wheeled towards me, and stared from under his hawk-like brows with rakish intensity, “to be murdered!”
He paused, as if waiting for somebody, somewhere, to say, “Dun-dun-DAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
But all he got was my exasperated little sigh and a “Well, that’s not good news, is it?”
“Not directly, I suppose. No. But it does show, Watson… it does show… well, I’ve still got it, haven’t I. Despite the fact that everybody’s leaving me and treating me like garbage, I’m still having wonderful adventures and maybe everybody ought to take a second look at old Warlock and admit he’s rather special!”
“Hmm. So. Am I to gather I am not the only person to have left your circle recently?”
“There may have been a slight altercation between Lestrade, Grogsson and myself.”
“Oh?” I asked. “May there have?”
“They may have come over to level certain unfair and unfounded accusations regarding the lack of care I have taken recently, combined with the number of crimes I have been committing and the corresponding level of danger that I be discovered, apprehended, and burned as a witch. Or worse: discovered, almost apprehended, and destroy humanity in the ensuing struggle. I was deeply offended by the subject, so I sent them away.”
And there was the expected haughtiness, of course, but something else as well. Holmes’s sentence ended with just the tiniest tinge of guilt. It was this, more than anything else, that caused me to feel a sudden, cold horror.
“Holmes… what do you mean ‘sent them away’?”
“Only that they were being rather insistent, despite the fact that I made it known I did not wish to discuss the matter. I was having quite the row with Mrs. Hudson, you see, who keeps bringing up two place settings instead of one and making me sad. I really did not have the energy to deal with Grogsson and Lestrade as well. I told them and told them, but they would not respect my wishes, so I… er…”
“Used magic?”
“Minor teleportation!”
“Holmes!”
“I didn’t mean to, Watson. I just lost control for a moment, and it was done. Look, it’s a small matter. They are safe and sound in Dublin. Or Dubai. Or the planet Dunmicron IV near the Spixtar Nebula. I don’t know. Somewhere beginning with ‘D’. Probably not that last one, though, because I remember thinking they’d be all right making their own way back. And I’m sure it was somewhere with a breathable atmosphere. Though I do seem to recall it was a particularly foul atmosphere. Oh! Do you know what…? Detroit?”
I shook my head. “Right. Well. I don’t think I care for the direction this conversation has gone in. I’ll be honest, I rather expected, ‘Oh, hello, Watson, I’ve been making wax versions of myself ’ to be the lowest point, but no—”
I was interrupted by Holmes’s smaller homunculus, pulling at the leg of my trousers.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaagh! What is he doing? What does he want?”
Holmes shrugged. “Hard to say. Billy is not as adept at expressing his needs as Steve is. He’s an earlier effort.”
“Yes, I can tell.”
“I made him myself.”
“Again, I can tell.”
“Steve’s rough physical form was done for me by the French genius Tavernier. Billy… well… that was just me on a slow morning. I use him as a pageboy. Useful to have a page about, when one is at odds with one’s landlady.”
Yet I disregarded the end of Holmes’s explanation. It’s just rather hard to concentrate, is all, with a tiny waxen boy tugging on your clothing.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I don’t understand you.” He looked up at me, his face a study in earnest hopefulness. Slowly, he drew one of his little wooden hands across his neck, then pointed it at his face.
“What was that?”
Again, his hand went across his neck, then back to his face.
“You want me to kill you?”
“Oh, Watson! Don’t be silly. Disregard the little fellow,” Holmes scoffed, interrupting Billy’s excited nods of confirmation. “The important thing, let us try and recall, is that I am about to be murdered!”
“Fair point,” I admitted. “Do you have any idea by whom?”
“Of course I do! By my new Watson.”
“Your what?” I cried. “Holmes, do not tell me you’ve manufactured a murderous doppelganger of me out of wax!”
You want me to kill you?
“No. And let me just say, what a
