Dan Simmons: The Fifth Heart

But the perverted truth was simple and shocking: James was fascinated with Holmes’s delusion that he was a fictional character and he wanted to hear more about it. It struck him as a wonderful conceit for a short story someday—perhaps one involving a famous writer who also had descended into believing that he was one of his own characters.

Holmes had ordered cognac—a poor choice, James thought, after the champagne and late evening meal—but both men sipped it now as the writer worked to pose his questions. Suddenly a noisy commotion erupted in the terrace-covered area of the café across the wide dance floor from where they were seated. Dozens of people had gotten to their feet; men were bowing; a few applauded.

“It’s the King of Bohemia,” said Holmes.

Henry James wondered if he should humor the madman across from him and then decided not to.

“There is no King of Bohemia, Mr. Holmes,” he said flatly. “That is the Prince of Wales. I’ve heard that he dines here from time to time.”

Holmes, not sparing another glance at the royal party across the crowded room, sipped his cognac. “You really have not read any of Watson’s chronicles of me in The Strand , have you, Mr. James?”

Before James could reply, Holmes continued, “One of his first published stories of our adventures—if, indeed, John Watson was the chronicler or author of these adventures—was titled ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ and dealt with an indelicate case—a former prima donna of the Imperial Opera of Warsaw using a certain photograph to blackmail, for . . . romantic indiscretions . . . a very famous member of a certain royal house. Watson, always discreet, invented the ‘King of Bohemia’ in his clumsy attempt to disguise the royal gentleman’s true identity, which was, of course, our very own Prince of Wales. In truth, the ‘scandal’ was the second time I had helped the Prince out of a jam. The first time was with a potential scandal dealing with a debt incurred in card games.” Holmes smiled above the rim of his cognac glass. “There is, of course, no ‘Imperial Opera of Warsaw’ either. Watson there was doing his earnest best to disguise the Paris Opéra.”

“You are making up for Dr. Watson’s attempts at discretion with amazing indiscretion,” murmured James.

“I am dead,” said Sherlock Holmes. “A dead man has little use for discretion.”

James glanced over to where the Prince of Wales was at the center of a laughing, bowing, fawning circle of dandies.

“Since I have neither read nor heard of the story . . . chronicle . . . of your ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ adventure,” he said softly, “I must presume that you reclaimed the blackmailing adventuress’s incriminating photograph for the Prince.”

“I did . . . and in a most clever manner,” said Holmes and laughed out loud. In the noise of the busy restaurant, no one seemed to notice. “And then the woman stole it back from me, leaving a framed portrait of herself in its place.”

“You failed, in other words,” said James.

“I failed,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Completely. Miserably.” He took another sip of his cognac. “I’ve been bested by very few men in my career, Mr. James. Never before or since by a . . . woman .”

James noticed that he uttered that final word with a strong tone of contempt.

“Does this have anything to do with your recent revelation that you are not a real person, Mr. Holmes?”

The tall man across the table from James rubbed his chin. “I suppose I should really ask you to address me as ‘Sigerson’, but tonight I do not care. No, Mr. James, the ancient case of the Prince of Wales and his former paramour—may she rot in peace—has nothing whatsoever to do with the reasons for me realizing that I am not, as you said earlier, ‘real’. Would you care to hear those reasons?”

James hesitated only a second or two. “Yes,” he said.

Holmes set his empty glass down and folded his long-fingered hands on the tablecloth. “It began, as so many things in life do, with simple domestic conversations,” he began. “Those who have read Dr. Watson’s chronicles in The Strand are aware—from certain background information he has given—that in eighteen eighty, the good doctor was removed from the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, then on duty in India, to the Berkshires Sixty-sixth Foot. On twenty-seven July of that year, Watson was severely wounded during the Battle of Maiwand. For many weeks his life teetered in the balance—the intrusive piece of lead had been a jazail bullet, that kind of heavy slug fired by the long, heavy musket so commonly used by the rebels in Afghanistan—and it had done serious internal damage.

“But Watson lived, despite the heat and flies and primitive regimental medical care available to him,” continued Holmes. “In October of eighteen eighty-one, he was dispatched back to England on the troopship Orontes .”

“I fail to see how this proves or disproves . . .” began Henry James.

“Patience,” said Holmes, holding up one long finger to command silence.

“The wound from the jazail bullet was in Watson’s shoulder,” said Holmes. “At various times, in Turkish baths and once when we had to strip to swim a river while on one of my . . . adventures . . . I saw the ugly scar. But Watson had no other wounds from the wars.”

Henry James waited. A waiter came by and Holmes ordered black Turkish coffee for the both of them.

“But five years ago—I remember the date in eighteen eighty-eight,” said Holmes, “Watson’s spidery shoulder wound from the jazail bullet had suddenly become a bullet wound he was complaining of, even in print, in his leg .”

“Could there not have been two such wounds?” asked James. “One in the poor man’s shoulder, the other in his leg? Perhaps he received the second wound in London, during the course of one of your adventures.”

“A second Afghan jazail bullet?” laughed Holmes. “Fired at Watson in London? Without my knowledge? It would seem highly unlikely, Mr. James. And added to that improbability are the twin facts that Watson was never wounded, never shot, during any of our adventures he chronicled and . . . this I find most interesting . . . the original shoulder wound that I’d seen, a terrible spiderweb of scars and a livid entry wound still visible, simply had disappeared when Watson began talking and writing about his leg wound.”

“Distinctly odd,” said James. He wondered what he should do if this Holmes-Sigerson person, almost certainly an escaped patient from some secured madhouse, should suddenly grow violent.

“And then there is the fact of Dr. Watson’s wives,” said Holmes.

James merely raised one eyebrow at this non sequitur.

“He has too many of them,” said Holmes.

“Dr. Watson is a bigamist then?”

“No, no,” laughed Holmes. Their coffee arrived. It was far too bitter for James’s taste, but the madman seemed to enjoy it. “They simply come and go—as if they flicker in and out of existence—primarily depending upon what I take to be a fiction-author’s need to have Watson living with me at our apartments at two-twenty-one-B Baker Street or not. And their names keep changing almost at random, Mr. James. Now a Constance. Then Mary. Then no name at all. Then Mary again.”

“Wives have a way of dying,” said James.

“That they do, thank God,” said Holmes, nodding in agreement. “But in reality there is usually some warning of that, some illness, and—failing that—some period of mourning for the widower. Watson, bless his heart, simply moves in with me again and our adventures continue apace. Between these mythical wives, I mean.”