THE MAN HIMSELF
A
fter Anna’s long and tragic tale and after Silence’s bold pronouncement, I was ready for a little quiet. Only the train spoke as we approached Paris. Silence seemed to be dozing, though I had thought the same any number of times this past night and had always been surprised when he asked some probing question. Anna, for her part, was wrung out. She drew the blanket up and fell soundly asleep.
Let them sleep; I felt strangely wakeful. Anna’s story had filled me with a terrible melancholy, and I wanted nothing more than to roll over, raise the window shade, and watch the dark night give way to gloaming.
The train moved through hilly country beneath a wine-red sky. Farmland undulated in wave upon black wave from our wheels out to the horizon. It was a dark and dreamy landscape, the chaos before creation. The rolling horizon was broken only by the occasional farmhouse, boxy and black.
In time, the sun roused itself and climbed into the sky. Morning light moved across the monochromatic land, and it bloomed with color: green and gold, brown and red—it was as if a watercolor brush were dragging across the charcoal hills and bringing them to life. I felt as if I were sitting beside the easel of God.
Gradually, the works of God were overtaken by the works of man. Farmlands gave way to Dark Age hamlets, and they to medieval towns, and they to the imperial capital of Louis the Sun King. Beyond the train window, Paris was taking shape. Limestone facades with thousands of gables, spoke-like avenues laid out by Napoleon III, gray cathedrals aspiring to the sky …
The tracks bore us on toward another cathedral, one built for machines. Our rail line delved in among a dozen others, converging from all points across Europe. Roaring engines of iron passed through viaducts and underground ways to emerge within the glass-topped station at Gare Saint-Lazare. Smoke belched from stacks and spread across glass awnings. Incrementally, we slowed, and at last the air brakes hissed, and the conductor called:
“Paris! Paris!”
I heard it, but my comrades still slept. I did not want to wake them. Anna lay like a child, so fragile and weary and beautiful. I had loved her selfishly before hearing her terrible story, but now I loved her selflessly. I would defend her to the death. How could I wake her?
And Silence, if his pledge was true, would wake to somehow discover his identity. While he drowsed, he was still my friend, my comrade, but who would the man be in five minutes?
Let the other passengers bustle and stand in the aisles and curse as they yanked their trunks down the passage. I would allow my companions a few more minutes of sleep. To this day, I look back at those stolen moments as precious. They were over all too soon.
The tread of the porter came through the aisle, and his fist pounded the frame of the sleeper.
“Paris! Gare Saint-Lazare! Tout le monde descend!”
“Indeed,” said Silence, rousing suddenly, his eyes keen and clear. “I was merely waiting for the rabble to pass.”
“A moment, please,” I said to him.
Between us, Anna stirred. Disoriented, she glanced between the two of us and said, “Paris?”
“Yes,” I replied, smiling. “Beautiful Paris. The City of Love.”
“The city of identity,” Silence corrected, and he drew back the curtain from the sleeping berth and stepped into the aisle.
Anna stared after him a moment. “Feeling energetic, isn’t he?”
“We’d better catch him up, or we’ll never find him. He’s planning to have a new name in five minutes.” I helped Anna to her feet. Turning, I remembered to hoist the damned electrical contraption I’d been carting since the sanatorium. I followed Anna into the aisle, empty now of any other passengers, including Silence. Hurrying to the end of the car, we climbed down the steps and onto a crowded platform. “Where is he?”
“There!” Anna cried, pointing to a newsboy who was handing a paper to Silence.
We ran up to join him as he shook the paper out before him. It was
Le Temps
, and the masthead indicated it was the eighth of May, 1891. When Silence scanned the first headline, he practically crowed.
“What is it?” Anna asked.
Silence flipped the back of his hand against the article and translated the headline: “‘Scotland Yard Arrests Five Hundred.’ Here, my dear, is the fall of your father’s empire. Surely this story will credit me with destroying his syndicate. Anna, my French is not as good as yours. Would you mind?”
Trembling slightly, she took the paper in hand and began to translate:
In a series of lightning raids last week, the London police rounded up hundreds of crime lords: opium dealers, proprietors of brothels, extortionists, racketeers, and all manner of other thugs. The detective who masterminded the crackdown was Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.
I looked at Silence and let out a giggle. “You’re Lestrade?”
Anna shook her head. “Of course not!”
Silence shot me a querulous look as Anna continued:
This is by far the largest criminal dragnet ever conducted by Scotland Yard. Previous cleanup attempts have been hampered by an inability to gather sufficient evidence to provide a case for trial. According to Inspector Lestrade, “This time we had an encyclopedia of evidence before beginning any arrests—letters, ledgers, physical evidence, a host of eyewitnesses, and the results of a few ingenious sting operations, which I oversaw. Over one hundred operatives made these arrests happen, and I would like to thank them. We were assisted, also, by Mr. Holmes.”
Anna stopped reading and let the paper crumple. We looked at each other in blank astonishment, and then turned toward our amnesiac friend. “Mr. Holmes?” we chorused. “You’re Sherlock Holmes!”
He drew a deep breath, nodding. “I’m Sherlock Holmes. Ha-ha! I’m Sherlock Holmes!” Then he blinked and looked at us. “Who’s Sherlock Holmes?”
Anna’s mouth dropped open. “No.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
Our friend returned our incredulous expressions. “Honestly. Who is he?”
“Only the greatest detective who ever—You’re joking! Everyone in England knows of Sherlock Holmes. Of course you’re Holmes! Who else could bring down a criminal empire?”
Anna looked a little hurt, “My mother could …”
“Who else would be a match for your father?”
“My mother …” Anna repeated sullenly. Then she gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. “My father threw
Sherlock Holmes
over the Reichenbach Falls!”
“Yes,” mused Silence.
I felt stupid for not having seen it before—the knifelike features, the piercing eyes, the hawk nose … . He’d once said he didn’t need memory as long as he had deduction. “How stupid we’ve been!” I said. “You’re Sherlock Holmes!”
Silence—or Holmes—took the paper back, his eyes darting through the lines of French text. He set a finger on one part of the article and said, “My dear, can you please render this paragraph?”
Anna reached over to pull the paper close. She translated:
The jubilant mood at Scotland Yard was dimmed, however, when police failed to apprehend the head of the criminal enterprise—a Professor James Moriarty, late of Jesus College, Cambridge. Disappointment deepened to remorse when word came from Switzerland that Professor Moriarty, in an apparent bid at retribution, had followed Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his longtime companion, Dr. Watson, to the Continent. According to the good doctor, Professor Moriarty caught up to them at the Reichenbach Falls, high in the Swiss Alps. There, the emperor of crime and the master of deduction battled to their deaths. Dr. Watson has testified that both men went over the falls and were killed.
“Dr. Watson … ?” Holmes mumbled.
“Yes! Of course,” I said, “Watson—he’s your dearest friend—the chronicler of your exploits.”
“Not much of a doctor, declaring two men dead who are very much alive.”
“The article says no bodies were ever recovered,” Anna pointed out.
Holmes took a disappointed breath. “Funny. I don’t feel like the greatest detective who ever lived. Especially since I’m purportedly dead.”
“Rumors,” I said dismissively. “But we know the truth—Anna and I.”
“And Father,” she added.
Silence nodded. “And Professor Moriarty.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and him.” I was a bit annoyed at Silence’s attitude. If I had found out I was Sherlock Holmes, I would have felt … well, honored. Or at least amused. “Look, there’s nothing for it. We’ll have to get our hands on Dr. Watson’s chronicles of your adventures.”
Anna chimed in, “The Bibliothèque Nationale is walking distance from the Gare Saint-Lazare.”
“Well, then,” Holmes said dubiously, “if my identity lies in books, let’s go read me a life.”
FINGERS IN THE ASHES
H
OW strange it is to sit here in the Bibliothèque Nationale at a table piled high with stories of my life: A
Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four,
and countless stories in the
Strand Magazine … .
The whole world knows more about me than I do.
I look to my two young companions, but they drowse on a couch, their chins resting on their chests. I am left to these books, these faded memories.
I start at the beginning, reading Dr. James Watson’s none-too-complimentary assessment of my knowledge base. He seems to think it a character flaw not to know whether the earth revolves around the sun but to care deeply about the different varieties of tobacco ash.
Does the earth truly revolve around the sun? What difference does it make?
Of course … what difference does tobacco ash make? In a world with Mozart, with Tesla, with Kilamanjaro, what sort of fool would spend his time poking about in ash?
My
sort of fool, apparently.
Even as the thought is forming, I am up from my seat, wandering among the reading tables, following the smoke signals. I gather the three nearest ashtrays, bring them back to my spot, and set them before me. The gentlemen who were using them seem put out, but when one of the men approaches
my station and sees me rubbing ash between my thumb and forefinger, he retreats to find a different tray.
I inspect the ashes, noting the colors, the flakiness, the lingering scents of oil and tar. “Yes—this is India btack—a cigarette tobacco, and this is Cuban maduro, and, unless I miss my guess, from a somewhat stale Upmann.” A quick glance at two of the men demonstrates that I am right. “And this—it is not tobacco at all, but a burned paper note.” I find one small, fragile remnant that bears the tops of the letters
l, o, v,
and e, written by a woman’s hand—a distraught hand, judging by the tremulous marks and the jag atop the o. Again, it takes but a glance at the weepy-eyed man who had surrendered the tray to confirm my suspicions.
“How strange!” I exclaim, evincing scowls from patrons nearby. Yes, how strange. How strange I am, to care about such things. Ashes and the composition of soil and the variations in bootblack … While other men filled their minds with planetary declinations and the properties of comets, I do idiot auguries in ash. It seems I have not lost my knack—though what good is such a knack? It’s just a parlor trick, just deduction, when what I really need is memory.
I read on, learning of my considerable abilities on the violin; my left hand twitches, awakening to the notes that reside in these long fingers of mine. And then I read of my mastery of disguises; I can almost feel the thousand false beards and mustaches and fake noses and brows and improvised moles and boils that I have affixed to my face. And then I read of my addiction to cocaine, that white devil that comes in through the veins and pervades heart and soul and all; I need only roll back my sleeve to see its mark on me.
How strange a man I am! Oh, to remember … I’m getting glimpses, but my memory is shot through with holes.
“Thomas?” I say, glancing over to where he and Anna slouch. “Thomas!”
He startles awake and stares blearily at me. “What? What is it? Moriarty?”
“No,” I reply, lifting the volumes in my arms. “Let’s find a flat somewhere, some garret we can rent for cheap, where Anna can sleep and you and I can work through something.”
He sits forward and rubs his hands on his face. “Work through what?”
“I need that electrical contraption of yours.”
Thomas shakes his head slowly. “Are you insane? Last time it drove the soul right out of your body.”
“But you said it had been used to aid in restoring memory. The brain is, after all, an electric system. Perhaps my brain simply needs a shock to get it primed and firing again.”
“At best, it’s quackery, Site—I mean, Holmes.” Thomas groans. “At worst, it’s a form of execution.” Anna stirs beside him, and he looks at her. “But one thing’s sure—we could use a place to rest—”
“Come along then. Pick up that lady fair of yours and your electric box and let’s find a corner to operate in.”