Tony Richards - The Astonishing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-First Century

The inspector had brought a walkie-talkie with him, as instructed. It was sitting in his pocket. And Holmes, for his part, had brought along a pair of very powerful field glasses through which he was studying the shimmering cityscape below. He was paying particular attention, Fontaine realised, to the area of river near the centre of the town. But what was the consulting detective looking for?

They waited practically an hour, and Fontaine’s impatience grew. But, out of nowhere, Holmes suddenly jerked.

“What is it?” the inspector demanded.

“I’m not quite sure. But … yes, there !”

He handed the glasses to the inspector, and directed him to the Right Bank of the Seine, quite near the Île de la Cité.　Fontaine concentrated on the busy byways, and at first he could see nothing.

“The rooftops, sir! The rooftops!” Holmes exclaimed.

The inspector shifted his focus higher up … and saw a blur of movement, there in his field of vision for an instant, and then gone. He tried to follow it.

And captured it again. A vast, bustling shape, no more than a living shadow. It was bounding across a long stretch of tiles at what appeared to him to be an incredible speed. And was propelling itself forwards not just with its legs, but with its arms as well, loping along on its knuckles. Which put him in mind of the small joke he’d made yesterday. Except this was not any ape. He caught sight of a swirl of hair, and then a flash of clothing.

So whatever else this thing might be it was certainly some kind of man.

It reached a gutter’s edge. The rooftop gave out beyond that. And it only resumed some ten more metres further on. And yet the figure did not even pause.

It flung itself out across the abyss. Fontaine’s jaw dropped, watching that. For he was convinced that this vigilante fellow would fall to his death.

That did not happen.

The massive figure made it to the next stretch of tiles easily, and continued onwards as though nothing in the slightest had stood in its way. And how could any human, unassisted, make a jump like that?

Fontaine’s hands were shaking by this juncture. He lowered the glasses from his face and stared at Holmes bewilderedly.

“But who or what exactly am I looking at?”

The great detective smiled.

“I think, in time, you’ll understand.” And then his manner became far more urgent. “The hour has come for you to make your call, inspector.”

Fontaine struggled for a second, then recalled the walkie-talkie in his pocket. He fished out the device and began to bark an order into it.

Within half a minute, there was a soft, mechanical purring off to the west, which grew swiftly louder till a flying object came in view. It was a police helicopter, which had been hovering in the distance all this while. As the two men watched, it slowed to an uneven halt above them. And a rope ladder came snaking down.

They were already at a dizzying height, the climb still higher and unsteady. None of that much bothered Holmes. But he was pleased to see that Fontaine started up without the slightest hesitation … with a stubbornly determined air, in fact.

Yes, probably once a military man , he thought.

And he had already noticed his companion wore a wedding band. Which would be useful later, when they came to this strange case’s explanation.

The city revolved beneath them as the helicopter’s pilot homed in on the moving shadow. Holmes could see the Champs Élysée’s ornate lights swinging below him. The expanse of the Tuilleries, and the lengthy, dark bulk of the Louvre.

And then they were closing in on their target, which was still moving extremely swiftly. The pilot of the helicopter switched on a bright spotlight. Then he dropped the craft lower, so that the rooftops of Paris swung up closer into view.

They were so numerous and intricate that they were almost like the paved avenues of another city, suspended above the first. And hurrying along them at that curious, bustling pace they had originally observed was …

Fontaine gasped, hunching forwards in his seat.

“Sacré bleu! It is a man!”

But never had either of them seen a man like this. His feet were, indeed, bare. And his clothing was ragged. The crown of his head was completely bald, wild, unruly hanks of dark hair hanging out beneath it. This looked more like a cross between a gorilla and a homeless madman than a normal human being.

Then it noticed the approaching spotlight, and its huge face swung around. It was terribly misshapen, the brow like a Neanderthal’s, the jaw too wide. Its teeth were snaggled when it grimaced with alarm. And one of its eyes, which had been squinting until this point, widened with the same emotion.

It seemed confused to have been captured by the light. And then the strange creature appeared to get a proper grasp of the circumstances which had overtaken it. And it began to take evasive action.

It changed direction without any warning, loping even faster than before. The spotlight beam emptied out. The pilot cursed beneath his breath and tried to follow, and the centre of Paris swung wildly beneath them once again.

“Over there!” shouted Holmes.

They were back above the apparition in a few more seconds. It did not slow its pace, but glanced up at them across one massive shoulder. And it looked like it was snarling.

It altered course a second time, rushing to the nearest rooftop’s edge and hurling itself out into the void. Which, for any normal person, would have been pure suicide. But this fellow made a jump of at least forty feet as easily as you or I would step over a puddle. And he landed comfortably on the other side.

This went on for several minutes, by the end of which time poor Fontaine was looking visibly ill. The helicopter had been forced to lurch around like a tall ship in a raging tempest, just to keep track of the suspect they were chasing. And the object of their erratic pursuit did not slow down, nor tire in the least.

But finally, he made a grave mistake.

They were deep into the heart of the First Arrondisement, one of the grandest, most expensive parts of this fair city. And there were several dead-straight boulevards here, nothing in the least bit convoluted to them. The man below had put himself on one of those. There was a steady row of tiles before him which led almost to the gleaming floodlights of the Arc de Triomphe. And no way off it. No alternative avenues to take.

“We’ve got him!” Fontaine crowed.

Holmes smiled tightly, maintaining his silence. But the French policeman did not even notice that.

The bubble-sided craft that they were in hung behind the loping fugitive, driving him continually forwards. And when the fellow realised the predicament that he was in – when he tried to swivel around and then go back the other way – the pilot dropped the helicopter lower still, blocking off his one escape route.

So that in the end said fugitive was forced onto the very last rooftop. There was no way left from here but down. And Fontaine had had the presence of mind to radio ahead. There were the crews of a dozen police vehicles waiting for him.

The figure ducked into the shadow of a nearby chimneypot. Fontaine waited for it to emerge. And when it did not, the pilot swung his craft around and shone the spotlight down again.

It revealed absolutely nothing.

“But … where’s he gone?” Fontaine yelled.

The tight smile – it was still right there on Sherlock Holmes’ face.

“In a sense, inspector, he was never really there at all.”

There was a tall, modern hotel near the Bourse which had a helipad, and Holmes had the pilot set them down there. Poor Fontaine had been struck by the events he’d witnessed into utter silence. And it was only when they reached the street that he began to speak again.