Who is the thief of secrets?
Who is come to hear the truths he will not speak?
The speaker is damned.
His ear deserves to hear the word that wrecks him.
Yet who will know the truth, who will not shed his blood for it?
Shame be upon him.
I could only assume they meant me.
“Ha! No. You misunderstand,” I said to the assembled mass of dead-brained men. “I am not a thief. I am a doctor. I have no interest in your secrets. I mean, I’m sure they’re wonderful, but… um… Isa? Isa Whitney, are you here?”
He was.
If I’d been less startled, I might have picked him out earlier. Amongst that crowd of poor sufferers—of workmen with broken wills and broken backs—there was only one who wore clothes suitable for my wife’s parties.
I mean… they might certainly profit from a good pressing, but…
He sat on one of the splintered wooden planks, staring at me, as if his name were a vaguely familiar thing he thought he might owe some allegiance to.
When I saw his eyes turn towards me in foggy uncertainty, I urged, “Isa! Hello! Yes, it’s time to get up now, all right? Let us go. Kate is waiting for you! Your wife has been waiting this two days for you! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“So I am,” the wasted specter replied. “But you’ve got it mixed, for I have only been here a few hours. Three pipes. Four pipes? I forget how many. But I wouldn’t frighten Kate—poor little Kate... Give me your hand. Have you a cab?”
“Er…” I said, reflecting on the unconscious cabman and his excellent horse. “Maybe?”
But at that moment Isa Whitney’s voice—and all the other sufferers’ as well—took on an entirely different tone. They all drew a simultaneous breath—many of them through opium pipes—and spoke as one:
The eaters of the sacred smoke must arise.
They must stop the ears of the thief with blood.
They must throw themselves against him.
And, if not his ears to stop, they must stop their tongues.
Either the thief of secrets must die, or the keepers.
Secrets must abide.
“No, no!” I cried, grabbing Whitney by the wrist and pulling him to his feet. “As I said, I’ve no interest in your secrets! I am leaving. There’s no need for anything to be stopped with blood, thank you. Good night!”
Yet, as I turned back towards the door with Isa Whitney’s limp arm over my shoulder, I got the greatest shock of the night.
He was in the corner, just beside the door. As I’d come in, I’d overlooked him. I’d walked straight by, with him scarcely two feet from my right elbow. But there he was, plain as day: a tall, gaunt fellow with hawkish features and long, bony fingers. He wore a grand moustache, which cleared his face by a good six inches on either side. One of his trouser legs was longer than the other. He wore a jacket of garish color, patched and re-patched with theatrical abandon. His eyes were glazed and dim.
My mouth fell open in amazement. “How my heart leapt, to find him there! A sudden wave of joy and wonder took me.”
“H-Holmes?” I stuttered. “Holmes, what on earth are you doing in this den?”
He smiled at me. “Ha! Disguised as a common Irish working addict, I have infiltrated this house of iniquity!”
“Well then,” I suggested, “had you best not be a little quieter about it?”
“Why?” he scoffed. “These fellows are all quite stupefied, I assure you.”
“Are they? Have you been listening to them?”
“Well… a bit, I suppose. But I’ve had other things on my mind, Watson. Speaking of which: it’s good to see you again.”
“Holmes! That is not… Well… It’s good to see you too, actually. Get up, though! We’ve got to get out of here!”
“But I haven’t solved my case yet!” Holmes complained.
“Never mind the bloody case! Get up!”
“I am surprised at you! Why, the John Watson I knew would never—”
“Get up!”
“Oh, very well,” Holmes groused, and tottered to his feet.
He wasn’t the only one. All around us, bleary-eyed men were pulling themselves from their wooden benches on knees and elbows, like shipwreck survivors dragging their weakened bodies out of the surf. There was something horrible about their expressions. There was no malice as they came towards us. No pity. No hint of self-preservation. Just the abiding impression that whichever way this was about to go—whether we were about to die or they were—they were a bit sad about it. The only thing they had resembling hope was the aspiration to get this over as quickly as possible and get those pipes back in their mouths again.
“We should go now, I think. Now, now, now!” I screamed, hauling my two companions through the door. With Whitney drooping over my right arm and Holmes sprawled against my left, we burst out of The Bar of Gold and into the filthy alley.
“Hmm… Dreary sort of place, isn’t it?” Holmes noted. “I believe you said you’ve a cab waiting?”
“Well, possibly I do. If the cab man’s woken up, he’s probably gone by now. But if not, it’s all down to the horse. And the horse—I think—we may rely upon.”
“Good horse, eh?”
The alley was so narrow we had to go down it sideways. I bustled Whitney out first, then myself, and finally Holmes. Behind us, the alley was filling with dead-eyed men. Some staggering after us on their feet. Some crawling. Some writhing in the filth, driving their bodies—wasted so nearly unto death—in vain pursuit. As we hove forth into the notably clearer air of Upper Swandham Lane, I beheld the cab standing just where I had left it, and I answered Holmes’s question.
“Ha! Yes, he is! The best horse! Just the very best horse!”
We stumbled to the cab and I began pushing Isa Whitney up into it. He fell into the forward seat, shaking and twitching, seemingly insensible. As soon as he was in, I
