Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

His words echoed my fervent hopes. I informed Constable Lamb I’d seen the dead woman two hours previous at the Bricklayer’s Arms, and Mr. Diemschutz, who was much distressed, then described his pony’s fright and his subsequent foray into the men’s club for assistance. By this time many of the neighbours had been roused, and word of the fresh crime spread rapidly from house to house as other policemen arrived on the scene.

After twenty minutes had elapsed, I was anxious; twenty minutes beyond that saw me fretfully pacing the pavement, wondering whether it would be possible for one man, in the dead of night in an unfamiliar and tortuous setting, to find another man when his initial trajectory had not even been observed. At nearly a quarter to two by my watch, feeling vaguely ill, I made up my mind simply to cast about the adjacent streets and had just set off when an unyielding hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Watson, that Mr. Holmes has not returned,” said Constable Lamb firmly, “but it is in direct violation of police procedure to allow you to exit the scene of a crime you…well, discovered, sir.”

“Sherlock Holmes is at this very moment attempting to bring in the man responsible for these vile acts, and I mean to help him in whatever way I can.”

“With respect, sir, you can’t find Mr. Holmes without even a notion of where to look.”

“He may be in desperate need of our assistance!”

“We can hardly provide him that without any idea where he is.”

“I can at least determine he is not nearby.”

“Not without violating the Yard’s procedure, sir.”

“I do not think that, even at this dark eleventh hour, we need entertain any notion of violating the procedure of the Yard,” said a familiar sardonic voice.

“Holmes!” I cried, whirling around in relief. There he stood, not five yards away, holding himself in a peculiarly stiff manner as he slowly advanced. “The killer—did you encounter him? Did he disappear?”

“I am afraid the answer to both questions is yes,” my friend replied, and then, taking another step, he seemed to suffer a loss of balance and staggered slightly.

“Dear God, Holmes, what has happened?” I rushed to his side and grasped his arm, and was all the more troubled when he did not protest but leaned on me heavily.

“Help me get him inside,” I ordered the constable.

“Thank you, Watson, I believe you and I can manage it. Although, perhaps, the ‘inside’ to which you refer ought to be somewhat private.”

One glance through the windows of the boisterous men’s club, confined to their quarters for questioning and gesticulating wildly, was enough to convince me Holmes was right, and I led my friend instead to the building on the south side of the enclosure, which I had come to understand was called Dutfield’s Yard. In the hallway between two families’ living quarters, Holmes lowered himself onto a filthy stoop, and in the better light I finally caught sight of the massive bloodstain seeping across his right shoulder.

“For the love of God, Holmes, if I had seen this, I should not have allowed you to walk under your own power more than two paces,” I cried, carefully pulling off his overcoat and his evening jacket, both of which were saturated with blood.

“I’d anticipated as much,” he murmured, wincing only occasionally as I furthered my attempts to expose the actual wound. “I am relieved to see you well, by the way. You were dealt a considerable blow.”

I threw off my greatcoat and began tearing apart my own dinner jacket, which I knew to be relatively sanitary, with Holmes’s pocketknife. “It was nothing. My own carelessness. Drink this,” I directed, handing him my flask.

Holmes took it from me with an unsteady hand. “I have seldom myself encountered so fleet or agile an opponent.”

“I wish to hear no explanations, nor do I wish you, in strict point of fact, to speak at all.” I marveled at the forceful injunctions I was laying upon my friend, whose total authority, outside of a medical emergency, I would never have challenged.

“No doubt you are right, Doctor. But allow me to enlighten the constable here, whose testimony may be called upon by the Yard in our own absence.”

“Briefly, then,” I growled. “What happened?”

“This fellow couldn’t hold a candle to the devil when in a tight corner. He ran off in the direction of some deserted warehouse byways, I imagine to prevent my shouting to any passersby to help me stop him. He knows these streets like the back of his hand, and I admit he had the advantage of me, for it has been months since I had a case here and one or two new gates and boarded-up alleys caught me by surprise. We had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when he darted into a maze of passages. I made every effort to keep him in sight, for we both knew that once he had shaken me off, I would never regain the trail. Finally I did lose the culprit, or thought I did.”

“Brace yourself a moment,” I directed, pressing a hastily constructed compress to Holmes’s shoulder. He turned even a shade paler but made no sound.

“I came to a very narrow crossroads of dripping stone corridors,” Holmes continued. “He appeared to have turned a corner, and as both the east and the westerly branches turned yet again within a few yards, my only option seemed to be mere guesswork.”

“You never guess.”

“No,” he acknowledged, with the hint of a smile, “nor did I in this case. I listened. I could no longer hear him running. Soon I realized that the creature could have made his escape through a door and out the back entrance, which would explain the lack of audible footsteps. In any event, I could not wait indefinitely, so after a brief perusal of the area, I grudgingly turned back the way I had come.

“It was as I passed the lintel of a deep doorway that the glint of a knife caught my eye, and the unfortunate incident occurred which you are working to correct. He’d stopped just before the crossroads, not after, and I curse my own stupidity for not having noted the absence of footfalls a moment before. I am possessed of quite rapid defensive reflexes, however, and diverted the blow effectively.”

“You are very seriously injured, Holmes!”

“As the knife was aimed at my throat, you will concede I could have done worse. In any event, before I could rally, he was off again. I followed him, then began to feel I was not at my best and made my way back here.”

“Indeed, you are hardly at the top of your form,” I agreed, finishing the final knot of a makeshift brace and thanking my stars that in Afghanistan I had frequently done without proper medical supplies. “That is all I can construct for the moment. Slip your arm into this sling and we are off to hospital.”

“Yes to the former and no, I think, to the latter. There is work still to be done. Have you any cigarettes about you? I’ve lost my case.”

I opened my mouth to protest and closed it again, knowing I could no more drag Sherlock Holmes away from a murder investigation than command the world to spin in the opposite direction. Constable Lamb, who had been taking notes, rose to his feet as I passed my friend a cigarette and struck him a match.

“By the way, Mr. Holmes, how came you to suspect something was amiss?”

“Watson did not tell you? A pony on the street reared up and refused to approach the passage.”

“Many ponies are skittish and dislike entering new territory if it is dark.”

“Yes, but this pony was going home. Its master’s reins lay slack in his lap; therefore, the pony stopped upon seeing something unusual which it did not like.”

“I see,” said the constable, somewhat dubiously, I thought with irritation. “And the murderer—would you describe him?”