A Game Most Foul, page 24
We have not spoken of it since our return to Baker Street. Holmes retired to his room, and I suspect he will not emerge for several days, as is his regular routine. I have spent the last few hours reflecting upon the earlier events of today, and I do not believe I am any closer to understanding what exactly occurred.
As I have stated before, this was hardly the first time I had ever been shot. I am reminded of this fact anytime a dreadful chill descends upon London and my shoulder seizes up from the old bullet still lodged deep into the muscle there, leaving me in a great deal of agony. And make no mistake, while the mere graze of the bullet today had hurt tremendously, the pain had somehow not registered with me as Holmes whipped the man over the head with the butt of his pistol and proceeded to toss him aside as if he were as light as a feather.
I wonder if I have misjudged my old friend since his return, now that I have seen that he is indeed capable of feeling, however profusely he may deny it. At the very least, I now can attest to the fact that my old friend does care. That very well may have to be enough.
I didn’t have a name for the feeling that had begun to creep over me as I closed the journal. It wasn’t a good one. The remaining pages in the journal had either been crossed out with black ink, or ripped out entirely, leaving me without much else to go on.
But these entries alone were enough to confirm what was still (mostly) apparent: Watson cared deeply for Holmes. Seeing for myself the words written in Watson’s own handwriting, I had a hard time believing that Watson would have had any ill intentions in his goal of keeping Holmes safe. He probably could have gone about things differently, like not locking Holmes in his office, for example, but Watson did care.
I looked up from the journal in my lap at Suruthi’s approach. She had a journal in hand herself and was looking like she didn’t know what to make of it either. I watched intently as she very slowly said words that I thought were, “What year do you have?”
“Eighteen ninety-six,” I said. “Right after Holmes made his grand reappearance. Hang on, let me grab my hearing aids.”
Once I grabbed the things and got them back in, I joined Percy, Suruthi, and Holmes on the floor in one very mismatched semicircle. Holmes had pulled out every journal from beneath the floorboards and they were now stacked neatly between us. There were about a dozen or so, all wrapped neatly with leather bands, but they were unlabeled, so it was anyone’s guess what years the journals covered.
“Do you think these will do the trick, Holmes?” Percy asked cautiously.
Holmes was flipping so rapidly through the pages of one journal that I was sure he couldn’t possibly be absorbing anything. “Yes, yes. I do think this will . . .”
And that was it for conversation.
I passed the first journal to Suruthi and took another from the stack. The journals were definitely out of chronological order, as the one I now started picked up about two years after Holmes’s return.
January 24, 1898
It has been roughly thirty days since my beloved Mary has left me, and still the earth has not yet stopped spinning. My former rooms in Baker Street had already been prepared when I showed up on the doorstep. Mrs. Hudson had spent a considerable amount of time tutting about me, fixing tea, and had Holmes not intervened, she surely would not have stopped any time soon.
The only acknowledgement Holmes gave on the matter came later before we retired for the evening—a hand upon my shoulder, a hard squeeze, and a quiet, “I am sorry, John.”
Strangely enough, I believe that was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.
I will adapt to life as a widower; it is inevitable. And perhaps my having returned to Baker Street will lessen the ache some. But it is not the same. The light of my life was extinguished the day Mary died. Nothing will ever reignite it.
May 17, 1898
I have decided to take up my medical practice again, much to Holmes’s displeasure—the reason, of course, being that he is in need of his “Boswell.” I have attempted to reassure Holmes more than once that my practicing medicine will not interfere with his work, to which he replies that I am more than a fool than I let on. The urge to bludgeon him with one of his own massive chemistry volumes becomes overwhelming in these moments.
I have not said as much to Holmes, but there are times where I have found myself in a black mood of my own. It is weary upon the soul to witness the utmost depravity of human nature repeatedly, and with no apparent end in sight. The conclusion of our most recent case made this more apparent than ever. I truly believe that I could have saved that young woman, so brutally wounded at the hands of her own husband, had we arrived with enough time. I have seen death before, and death more gruesome than the young woman’s to be sure, but I must acknowledge that hers has affected me most profoundly. She was so young.
Mrs. Hannah Collins had been her name, and her parents had poured their life savings into hiring Holmes with the hope that he would uncover the truth of the abuse their daughter was enduring. Holmes refused to be compensated, and whilst his skills were as finely tuned as ever, he still was not quick enough to save the young woman. We were not quick enough.
My military service made it very apparent that no one in life is ever able to save every individual, but by God, do I wish I could.
I do not know if this particular case weighs as heavily upon Holmes as it does myself and I dare not ask him. I only know that I must do what I can to heal the ache I feel deep in my bones. I want my two hands, however rough and calloused they are now, to treat the ill and tend to the wounded—to heal again. I am convinced the effort to achieve this will be worth it.
I only managed three entries in this journal before I encountered the same problem as before: the rest of the pages were blacked out.
“What year is that one?” Percy asked, motioning to the journal I held limply in my hands. “Eighteen ninety-eight,” I answered. “Here, look for yourself.”
We ended up swapping journals, and I ended up backtracking with this one, reading a few entries from the end of eighteen ninety-six and into eighteen ninety-seven, about the case that led to what I knew would be Watson’s short-lived marriage to a woman by the name of Mary Morstan. It was a little gut-wrenching to read about Watson’s great love of Mary, knowing they would only have about eighteen months together. What sealed the deal was the very last entry in the journal before the remaining pages had been ripped out entirely. It was a short entry and written with a shaky hand, underlined three times:
November 2, 1897
On this day Mary informed me that I am to be a father.
This journal I passed on to Suruthi without a word. I could figure out for myself what must have occurred between Watson’s last entry in eighteen ninety-seven and the beginning of eighteen ninety-eight.
I was about to reach for another from the stack when Holmes suddenly leapt to his feet with an exuberant shout of, “I HAVE FOUND IT!”
“Cripes, Holmes, would you pipe down?” Suruthi yelped as I clapped my hands over my ears.
“Never!” Holmes said happily, plopping himself down on the floor again. “Come, look at this! Read for yourselves!”
How I ended up on the bed beside Suruthi with Percy on the floor next to Holmes was weird, but reading over Holmes’s shoulder was far from the strangest thing any of us had done lately.
“Do you see here?” Holmes said, pointing to the date of the first entry.
I had to lean in closer to make out Watson’s neat, compact scrawl, but wasn’t having much luck.
“August fourth, eighteen ninety-nine,” Percy read aloud.
Holmes’s excitement must’ve been contagious; I almost let out a shout too.
“That’s right before it happened!” I said, tapping Holmes shoulder. “Well, whatever it is. You kept rambling on and on about the case with Violet Ramsey’s weird death and when I asked, you told me the date was August seventh, eighteen ninety-nine.”
“Indeed,” Holmes said coolly without looking at me. “Let us continue, shall we?”
August 4, 1899
It would not be an exaggeration to say Holmes literally jumped for joy when Lestrade of all people visited Baker Street today, just as Holmes had finished reading the news article with the sensational headline of: WOMAN DROPS DEAD AT SÉANCE. As it so happened, this was the very same case Lestrade then presented to us.
Miss Violet Ramsey was her name, the eldest daughter of some minor nobleman, and engaged to be married this coming September. Needless to say, the nuptials will no longer be occurring.
Miss Ramsey had attended the séance in question with her betrothed, a Mister Everard Taylor, and another close acquaintance as yet unnamed. The current theory is that Miss Ramsey suffered from some sort of unknown health condition; why else would a perfectly healthy young woman barely into her twenty-first year of life expire so suddenly?
However, Lestrade tells us that could not be further from the truth. What was so conveniently excluded from the papers was that it was discovered during the postmortem not three hours later that Miss Ramsey’s body contained not one drop of blood in her veins.
As a medical man, I am intrigued at how such a thing could be possible without some sort of grievous wound or some other injury that left the young lady bleeding out for a considerable time. From what we have read in the case notes Lestrade brought with him, the entire incident lasted less than a half hour.
Secretly I was relieved when Lestrade offered to let me examine the body myself without having to ask. Holmes had given me a knowing and rather smug look as we prepared to leave for Scotland Yard. It has been some time since our last case, and I will admit that my medical practice has more recently become occupied with several patients ridden with gout.
I will not admit this aloud to Holmes, but I am glad for the disruption of my tedious day-to-day routine, although I wish it had not come at the cost of Miss Ramsey’s life.
August 6, 1899
Lestrade’s retelling and the handwritten account by the constable who had responded to the incident had been accurate, much to Holmes’s chagrin.
Only ten or so minutes into the séance hosted by self-professed medium Miss Adelaide Shaw and Violet Ramsey collapsed. Her betrothed at first thought it to be a fit of some sort, but the young man reported that she lay completely still moments after falling from her seat.
Upon examining Miss Ramsey’s remains, I was shocked to find that not one wound or mark or even the smallest of scratches had been documented in the postmortem report.
This is a most curious and unfortunate case to be sure. Never in the entire time I have practiced medicine have I heard of such a thing occurring.
Thanks to Lestrade and his “damnable incompetence,” Holmes and I were not able to see for ourselves the scene of Miss Ramsey’s death before the sitting room in question had been thoroughly cleaned. This did not stop us from paying a visit, however, and I admit I was rather surprised when Miss Adelaide Shaw greeted us in the sitting room in question.
Miss Shaw is a rather plain young woman, not much older than Miss Ramsey had been, simply dressed and very humble indeed. And yet the young lady has already grown in popularity amongst the vast majority of London Society so enraptured by the many facets of spiritualism.
Miss Shaw was perfectly pleasant and appeared genuinely affected by the incident as she regaled us with her telling of the night of Miss Ramsey’s death. She had been adamant indeed that she would never willingly do any harm to another human being and had been quick to send her immediate condolences to the Ramsey family.
Really, the only strange behavior the young lady exhibited was that she frequently kept fiddling with the bracelet she wore—an unusual thing with a leather band wrapped around a piece of silver and not something I have ever seen a well-to-do young woman wear.
Before departing, Miss Shaw invited us to attend a séance of hers so that we may witness for ourselves that no harm ever comes to anyone who participates. Holmes happily accepted her offer and the date has been set for the following week.
Miss Shaw’s parting words had been, “The spirits are kind to those who treat them equally.”
While it is obvious that Miss Shaw is a kind woman, I cannot say the same about any spirits. I do not think I even believe in any spirits. And what would they have to offer me as it were? Mary and our child are long gone now.
August 19, 1899
It feels as if for the first time in several days there is not some lead-weighted cloud suffocating me. Though I have not closed my eyes to sleep since, I feel well rested. Slowly I have begun to remember in bits and pieces the events of the night of August the twelfth, but I do not know if I . . . I am afraid I cannot trust what flashes across my closed lids when I blink. My hand protests even now as I attempt to write an account of what I do remember—what little that is.
Perhaps I am not ready.
August 30, 1899
I have just realized Holmes has not moved from his chair before the fire in over a fortnight. He sits exactly as he had the night of our return, but perfectly lucid when I remarked upon this.
“So it would seem, my dear fellow,” was his response.
So it would seem.
September 22, 1899
Today when Mrs. Hudson had returned from her yearly holiday with her sister, she screamed upon the sight of us. I could not figure out why we would have elicited such a response. I followed her from the sitting room to the kitchen, where she fell into even more despair at the sight of rotten food in the cold box and the accompanying maggots. It is then that I recalled that Holmes and I have not stepped foot in the kitchen at all.
When Mrs. Hudson thrust a small looking glass into my hands so that I may reflect upon my own appearance, I saw the wound on my neck—a gash almost bone deep that I do not remember receiving. Mrs. Hudson’s horror became clearer when I noticed for myself that there was no blood in this wound.
I can only think I must have sustained this injury some time ago, but I do not know when.
I spent time tending to the unnatural wound and sutured it closed with some difficulty, and still, no blood. Most unusual.
“You look positively horrific, Watson,” Holmes told me as I had worked. This seemed to amuse him.
I commented that Mary would have thought the injury added character to my face.
“Perhaps,” was Holmes’s response.
He then proceeded to ask me to tend to the wound in his side even larger than my own had been, insisting that he did not remember how the injury occurred either.
“Most curious,” was his singular response as I attempted to clean the wound that rather resembled teeth marks.
But there surprisingly wasn’t much to clean, as Holmes appeared to have no blood either. Most curious indeed.
January 2, 1900
Our beloved Mrs. Hudson left this earth today and I cannot help but feel we are partially responsible—or rather, Holmes is responsible.
Prone to wandering as he has always been, Holmes went for one of his frequent walks about London, but at the most inopportune time. A fierce storm befell the city, bringing with it a most violent blizzard. It did not occur to me to go looking for Holmes until it became dark, and Mrs. Hudson pointed out that Holmes had been gone for some time.
“Ah, well, you know our Holmes, Mrs. Hudson,” I had said to her. “He knows how to look after himself.”
When Holmes did return the next morning, ice-cold and frostbitten but otherwise perfectly pleasant, Mrs. Hudson again screamed at the sight of him, only this time she appeared to have fainted. It brings me some pain to recount that she did not get up.
I put Holmes in front of the fire to thaw and a mere hour later, it was as if he had never set foot outside at all.
April 1, 1900
It is a curious thing that our first case in several months ended in Holmes meeting the finer end of a knife.
The lad responsible was barely older than a boy and green about the gills as he tried to convince us that he had been ordered to pickpocket the old man; his death had been entirely accidental.
The young boy had seemed surprised that he had done it, lunged forward to thrust the jagged knife into Holmes’s chest. He had seemed horrified when Holmes did not react, merely withdrew the noticeably clean knife with only a quiet grunt of effort.
The boy seemed rather content to be taken into custody.
“I say, Watson,” Holmes had remarked upon our return to Baker Street. “I am rather miffed at the tear in this shirt.”
Here I told my companion he should be more concerned with the fact that he had just been stabbed, to which Holmes replied that he had already put the whole ordeal from his mind and that the injury was one that had only “tickled” just the slightest bit. Nevertheless, I insisted he let me tend to him, which he grudgingly permitted.
I must confess it is a strange thing, trying to suture flesh so pale and corpse-like, but also strangely cleaner, as there was no blood to mop up.
“Wait just a second,” Suruthi said, catching Holmes’s hand before he could turn the page. “So not only did you sustain some side wound, but you also apparently beat hypothermia and were stabbed and survived that too?
“So it would seem,” Holmes said, surprisingly calm.
“Oh, okay,” Suruthi said. “If that’s all then.”
“Do we really need to keep reading?” I asked, feeling even more nauseated than before. “I think it’s pretty obvious whatever happened to Holmes and Watson was because of that séance, and it left them in some kind of . . . shell-like state.”
