pool of liquid which showed black in the darkness but which I knew to be blood. I also knew the man who lay unconscious in front of her, one hand stretched out, still holding the gun that had shot her.
It was Sherlock Holmes.
ELEVEN
Under Arrest
I have never forgotten that night and its consequences.
Sitting here on my own, twenty-five years later, I still have every detail of it printed on my mind and although I sometimes have to strain through the distorting lens of time to recall the features of friends and foemen alike, I have only to blink and there they all are: Harriman, Creer, Ackland and even the constable… what was his name? Perkins! The fact is that I had many adventures with Sherlock Holmes and frequently saw him in dire straits. There were times when I thought him dead. Only a week before, indeed, I had observed him helpless and delirious, supposedly the victim of a coolie disease from Sumatra. Then there was that time at Poldhu Bay in Cornwall where, had I not dragged him from the room, he would certainly have succumbed to madness and self- destruction. I recall my vigil with him in Surrey when a deadly swamp adder came slithering out of the darkness. And how could I complete this brief list without reminding myself of the utter despair, the sense of emptiness that I felt when I returned, alone, from the Reichenbach Falls? And yet, all of these pale in comparison with that night in Bluegate Fields. Poor Holmes. I see him now, recovering consciousness to find himself surrounded, under arrest and quite unable to explain to himself or to anyone else what had just taken place. It was he who had chosen, willingly, to walk into a trap. This was the unhappy result.
A constable had arrived. I did not know from where. He was young and nervous but all in all he went about his business with commendable efficiency. First, he checked that the girl was dead, then turned his attention to my friend. Holmes looked dreadful. His skin was as white as paper and although his eyes were open he seemed unable to see clearly… he certainly didn’t recognise me. Matters were not helped by the crowd, and once again I asked myself who they were and how they could possibly have chosen such a night to congregate here. There were two women, similar to the dreadful old crone who had passed us by the canal, and with them two sailors, leaning against each other and reeking of ale. A negro stared with wide eyes. A couple of my Maltese drinking companions from The Rose and Crown stood next to him. And even a few children had appeared, ragged and barefoot, watching the spectacle as if it were being played out for their benefit. As I took this all in, a tall man, red-faced and elegantly dressed, called out and gesticulated with his stick.
‘Take him up, officer! I saw him shoot the girl. I saw it with my own eyes.’ He had a thick Scottish accent that sounded almost incongruous, as if this were all a play and he a member of the audience who had, unbidden, wandered on to the stage. ‘God help her, the poor creature. He killed her in cold blood.’
‘Who are you?’ the constable demanded.
‘My name is Thomas Ackland. I was on my way home. I saw exactly what happened.’
I could not stand on the sidelines any longer but pushed my way forward and knelt beside my stricken friend. ‘Holmes!’ I cried. ‘Holmes, can you hear me? For God’s sake tell me what has happened.’
But Holmes was still incapable of reply and now I found the constable examining me. ‘You know this man?’ he demanded.
‘Indeed I do. He is Sherlock Holmes.’
‘And you?’
‘My name is John Watson and I am a doctor. Officer, you must allow me to attend upon my friend. However black and white the facts may appear, I can assure you that he is innocent of any crime.’
‘That is not true. I saw him shoot the girl. I saw the bullet fired by his own hand.’ Ackland took a step forward. ‘I, too, am a doctor,’ he continued.
‘And I can tell you at once that this man is under the influence of opium. It is evident from his eyes and from his breath and you need seek no further motive for this vile and senseless crime.’
Was he right? Holmes lay there, unable to speak. He was certainly in the grip of some sort of narcotic and, given that he had been in Creer’s Place for the past hour, it was absurd to suggest that anything was responsible other than the drug that the doctor had named. And yet there was something about the diagnosis that puzzled me. I looked closely at Holmes’s eyes and although I would have had to agree that the pupils were dilated, they lacked the ugly pinpricks of light which I would have expected to find. I felt his pulse and found it almost too sluggish, suggesting that he had just been aroused from a deep sleep rather than involved in the strenuous activity of first chasing and then shooting down his victim. And since when had opium ever caused an event such as this? Its effects might include euphoria, total relaxation, freedom from physical pain. But never had I heard of a user being driven to acts of violence, and even had Holmes been in the grip of the most profound paranoia, what possible motive could his muddled consciousness have come up with for killing the one girl he had been most eager to find and protect? How, for that matter, had she come to be here? Finally, I doubted that Holmes would have been able to shoot with any accuracy had he been under the influence of opium. He would have had difficulty even holding the gun steady. I set this all out here as though I was able to deliberate at length on the evidence in front of me, and yet, in actual fact, it was the work of but a second born out of my many years in the medical profession and my intimate knowledge of the man accused.
‘Did you accompany this person here tonight?’ the constable asked me.
‘Yes. But we were briefly apart. I was at The Rose and Crown.’
‘And he?’
‘He…’ I stopped myself. The one thing I could not do was reveal where Holmes had been. ‘My friend is a celebrated detective and he was in pursuit of a case. You will discover that he is well known to Scotland Yard. Call for Inspector Lestrade who will vouch for him. As bad as this looks, there must be another explanation.’
‘There is no other explanation,’ Dr Ackland interjected. ‘He came staggering from round that corner. The girl was in the street, begging. He took out a gun and he shot her.’
‘There is blood on his clothing,’ the constable agreed, although he seemed to speak with a degree of reluctance. ‘He was evidently close to her when she was killed. And when I arrived in this courtyard, there was nobody else in sight.’
‘Did you see the shot fired?’ I asked.
‘No. But I arrived moments later. And nobody ran from the scene.’
‘He did it!’ somebody shouted in the crowd and this was followed by a murmur of assent, taken up by the children who were all delighted to find themselves in the front row for this spectacle.
‘Holmes!’ I cried, kneeling beside him and attempting to support his head in my hands. ‘Can you tell me what happened here?’
Holmes made no response and a moment later, I became aware of another man who had approached silently and was now standing over me, next to the Scottish doctor. ‘Please will you get to your feet,’ he demanded, in a voice as cold as the night itself.
‘This man is my friend—’ I began.
‘And this is the scene of a crime in which you have no business to interfere. Stand up and move back. Thank you. Now, if anyone here saw anything, give your name and place of address to the officer. Otherwise, return to your homes. You children, get out of here before I put the whole lot of you under arrest. Officer? What’s your name? Perkins! Are you in charge here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘This is your beat?’
‘It is, sir.’
‘Well, you seem to have done reasonably good work so far. Can you tell me what you saw and what you know? Try to keep it concise. It’s a damned cold night and the sooner we have it wrapped up, the sooner we can be in bed.’ He stood in silence as the constable gave his version of events which added up to little more than I already knew. He nodded. ‘Very well, Constable Perkins. Look after these people. Write down the details in your notebook. I’ll take charge of this now.’
I have not yet described this new arrival and find it difficult to do so even now for he was quite simply one of
