CHASING THE THUNDERBOLT
W
e’ve found the perfect flat—one room with two gables and a tattered Indian screen that will allow Anna to sleep in privacy while Thomas and I pursue our experiments. I take a moment to analyze the contraption—a box with a crank on one end and black wires extending from the sides, each ending in a large alligator clip.
“Peculiar gadget,” I say as I set the thing on a small table beside the chair in which I sit. “Part science and part magic.”
“That’s the whole issue. Bad science and black magic,” Thomas replies dubiously. He is wetting a rag with a bit of red wine—which I’d purchased in part as anesthetic and in part to aid the conductivity of the skin. Thomas wipes the rag on each clip and on my fingertips, toes, and earlobes. “The current turns you into a five-pointed star, like the five points of the Celtic pentacle. The Finns used to create a similar pattern with lightning rods. It was a sort of shaman-generator—or an exorcism device.”
I take a swig of the wine—ah, good French wine—and set it aside for the experiment. Holding two of the clips in one hand, I idly turn the crank. A stinging jolt leaps from clip to clip. Then, I reverse the motion of the crank, and the electrical sensation is altogether different—smooth
and soothing. “Perhaps it’s not a matter of voltage, but of polarity.”
“What?”
“Which way did you turn that crank, my boy?”
“What do you mean? Clockwise, I suppose, being right-handed.”
“Try it counterclockwise this time, and let’s see if we gain a different effect.”
Thomas’s face is a study in annoyance, but he dutifully sets the clips on my toes and hands and ears. The metal bites into my skin, and red wine weeps down as if from wounds. “Counterclockwise,” he says heavily.
“Yes, and slowly.”
Thomas takes hold of the crank, mentally traces a clock’s path, and then gently begins to turn the device. A warm buzz begins in my every extremity, propagating itself out across my skin. The sensation tingles, like ants marching up my legs and arms and down my neck. I feel as if I am faintly glowing. Still, though, my mind remains dark. “A little faster.”
Thomas increases the speed of the revolutions.
The energy feels hot now, arcing out of the electrodes and into my muscles. Legs and arms flex, neck and jaw clench, and some of the stray bolts jag through my mind. Still, it is not enough. “More!”
Thomas spins the crank vigorously.
My skin snaps tight across my skeleton, and my hair sizzles. I shudder.
Next moment, I cannot feel a thing. I only see:
A MAN sits alone in a train compartment—a large man, though he is curled in on himself and seems small. His brow
is graven with grief. He stares down at a blank sheet of paper that lies on a board on his lap. Opening a jar of India ink, the man pokes a pen within, lifts it, and begins to write:
It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished.
This is not a hallucination. Nor is it a memory. It is an out-of-body vision. This train compartment truly exists somewhere, and this man truly sits within it, writing just those words.
I move toward him—though I have no body. I am only a location in space, a consciousness. I reach out to touch the man’s shoulder.
He starts, looking toward me. A bead of sweat creeps its way down his temple. “Holmes?”
“Watson,” I say.
Somehow, he hears me, and he stands. His eyes dart about the compartment, but then he blinks, flustered, and sits back down. “Only a phantasm … a dream.”
“Watson.”
His mustaches bristle, but he shakes his head. “Some stray memory from Baker Street.”
Suddenly, the portals of memory open in my mind.
I remember the book-lined drawing room with the wingback chairs by the grate and the pipe and the violin.
I remember Irene Adler, the opera star who bested me at my own game—the only person ever to see through one of my disguises.
I remember the speckled adder used to murder the rightful owners of a mansion in Stoke Moran.
I remember the beryl coronet and the young man accused
of breaking off a portion of it, though in truth he wished only to save the honor of a lady without any.
I remember the great black hound that haunted the family Baskerville in their lonely house on the moor.
But most of all, I remember Moriarty, that Napoleon of crime. I remember how I drew my web tight around him, and how I escaped his henchmen only to be cornered by the man himself at the Reichenbach Falls.
I remember writing the letter that Watson even now draws from his breast pocket and unfolds in trembling hands and reads yet again:
My Dear Watson:
I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questions which lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch of the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself informed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very high opinion which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you … .
He draws a shuddering breath, and lifts bloodshot eyes toward the ceiling. “Holmes.”
“I’m still alive, Watson. I’m still alive.”
SUDDENLY, I am once again slumping in a chair in a garret apartment in Paris. Little acrid coils of smoke rise from my hair.
Thomas lets out a yelp, releases the crank, yanks a tablecloth from an end table, and pats down my smoking head. “Sorry, Silence—I mean, Holmes. I mean … What
happened … ? I couldn’t tell if … it seemed almost as it …”
“I went wandering, Thomas.”
“Wandering?” he asks as he drags the singed cloth away.
“I saw my old friend Dr. Watson. I saw his grief, and I spoke some small comforts to him.”
He shakes his head. “I knew it. Driven mad!”
“No. I am not mad,” I say. “For the first time in days, I am myself. I remember, Thomas. Many things. Piece by piece, I’m becoming Sherlock Holmes.”
TRAP
When Anna awoke on their second morning in Paris, everything had changed. Beyond the Indian screen, the boys had made the garret into a war room. They had laid a large map of London across the floorboards and dotted the map with scraps of paper pierced by pushpins. Each scrap held some scrawled epithet such as
orange pips
or
engineer’s thumb.
Beside this cluttered schematic lay another map: the streets of Paris with similar scraps—articles clipped from a newspaper.
The sound of slicing newsprint directed Anna’s attention to Holmes—who reclined in a ragged divan and used Thomas’s dirk to cut another article from Le
Temps.
The moment the article fell from the page, he caught it in dexterous fingers and sent it spinning through the air like a snowflake.
With an air of bleary annoyance, Thomas snatched the article from the wind and said, “Where does this one go?”
“Montmartre,” Holmes said without looking up.
Anna stepped from behind the screen and stretched. “Where’d you get the maps?”
Thomas shot her a weary look as he pinned the latest article to Montmartre. “Mr. Holmes awoke me at three this morning so that we could be at the paper seller’s when the first edition of
Le Temps
arrived.”
“And the paper seller happened to have maps for lost travelers,” Holmes interjected offhandedly.
“He wanted to plot his cases on the map of London, and now, on the other map, he’s plotting the last forty-eight hours of crime in Paris.”
“Patterns,” Holmes said loftily from behind
Le Temps
. “Water follows the lowest course and so erodes canyons. Crime does the same. Thomas and I”—he flung another snowflake of villainy across the room, causing Thomas to dance to snatch it—“have simply been mapping those waterways of crime. When your father—Professor Moriarty—arrives in Paris, we may need this map to track him down.”
“May?” Thomas exclaimed. He had just spiked the newest article to the map and now looked up with the watchfulness of a meerkat. “You said this was vital—absolutely essential to catching him.”
“Absolutely essential if our first plan fails,” Holmes said smoothly. He glanced to the window. “But we’ll have to put Plan B aside for the nonce. We have only seventy-one minutes left.”
Both Thomas and Anna stared blankly at Holmes, but Thomas was the first to speak. “Seventy-one minutes until what?”
“Seventy-one minutes until the next express from Bern arrives, the train that, no doubt, Professor Moriarty will be aboard.” Cupping a hand to his mouth, Holmes leaned confidentially toward Anna and said,
“Le Temps
also has the train schedules.”
“We haven’t a clock or pocket watch,” Thomas said. “How do you know the time?”
“Our window faces due south.”
“So?”
“When we arrived last evening, I received the precise time from the proprietor, counted the number of seconds we
took to climb the stairs, and scratched a single line on the windowsill to mark the sun’s shadow at 8:42 P.M. I marked the shadow also at sunset, which
Le Temps
indicated would be at 9:14 P.M. Well, from there it is a simple bit of math to calculate minutes of arc. Then, I needed merely wait for sunrise—according to
Le Temps
at 6:18 A.M.—to mark the shadow and calculate the arc that would represent 7:38 A.M.—when we must enact our Plan A.”
Thomas laughed aloud. “And yet you just wasted three of your seventy-one minutes describing your cleverness.”
“I allowed four extra minutes—three for me to describe my cleverness and one for you two to stand in awe.” Holmes let the eviscerated
Le Temps
fall from his fingers to the floor and levered himself up. “But enough awe. We really must be going if we are to catch your father.”
“To Gare Saint-Lazare!” Thomas proclaimed
“No,” Holmes replied. “To the Orpheum Theater.” He swung open the door and stepped out.
Thomas clapped shut his dangling jaw and followed. Anna brought up the rear. They descended four flights of switchback stairs, walked down a long hallway, and at last came out on the bustling streets of Paris. Thomas strode up on one side of Holmes, and Anna stepped up along the other, each of them risking an occasional glance his way, waiting for an explanation … .
At last, Anna could take it no longer. “How do you know my father will be at the Orpheum Theater?”
“He won’t,” Holmes replied flatly.
Thomas actually growled. “Then why are we going there?”
“Because they’re preparing the French premiere of A
Doll’s House
by Henrik Ibsen.”
Thomas and Anna chorused together. “So?”
Holmes glanced at each of them and said,
“I’m
Henrik Ibsen.” With that, he rounded the street corner and strode up to the front of a grand vaudeville house with a marquee that read,
“La Comedie Française presente Une Maison de Poupee par Henrik Ibsen.
”
Holmes stepped to the front door and pounded solidly on it. An angry shout came from within, muffled but clearly meaning to repel unwanted visitors. Holmes knocked only the louder. More shouts resulted, growing nearer behind the door. Holmes rapped again.
A bolt shot back, and the door of the theater swung open. A little old man stood in the gap, his spectacles magnifying bloodshot eyes and white hairs standing like electric discharges across his pate.
“Au nom de Dieu, pourquoi me réveillez-vous de cette façon?”
Holmes turned to Anna serenely and said with a thick Norwegian accent, “Would you please tell this man that I am Henrik Ibsen, come to inspect the theater where my play will be performed?” He then lifted a picture of himself, cut from
Le Temps
that morning. Trying to hide her smile, Anna translated Holmes’s message.
As she spoke, the old man’s eyes grew wide with excitement and alarm. He responded in French, and Anna translated for him: “Forgive my foolishness. I didn’t recognize Mr. Ibsen without his muttonchops.”
Holmes replied, “Facial hair is a friend to bandits and renegades. When a man has a play like
A Doll’s House
, though, he must shave so as to be noticed.”
After Anna’s translation, the proprietor responded in French: “Mr. Ibsen. Forgive me! What an honor. Come in! Come in!”
Holmes nodded with the air of a man utterly deserving of the deference given him.
The proprietor led them through the theater, pointing out
the somewhat frowsy foyer, the auditorium with its curved seats, the boxes and balconies that ringed all … .
“The stage, man! The stage!” Holmes cried.
The little man scuttled on, leading the group onto the apron and the proscenium, into the wings, and backstage. Holmes made a show of checking the flies and the lines that secured them before saying, “Thank you, my good man, but I need time to meditate, to explore.” Anna translated even as Holmes went on: “Please get back to your other duties so that I may commune with the place.”
With a grateful bow, the proprietor backed away.
Once he was gone, Thomas hissed, “What’s all this for? Moriarty will be arriving at Gare Saint-Lazare in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty-three minutes,” Holmes corrected, “and we will be there—but in costume.” He led the other two down beneath the stage, finding the wardrobe department and a much-used assortment of face paints, wigs, and prosthetics. “We must work quickly. We have a healthy walk ahead of us.”
Anna lifted a ball gown, very ornate, but with a bust that would have left her exposed. “What am I to be?”
“Actually, my dear, the costumes are for Thomas and myself,” said Holmes, tossing the dress away. “Your father would recognize you in any costume, so you must go as you are.”
Thomas glared. “This is your plan?”
“Anna, you must pose as yourself,” Holmes continued smoothly, “but outwardly repentant.”
“Repentant?” Anna asked.
“When you see him, break into tears and run to him. Tell him I regained my mind and repudiated you. Tell him even Thomas thinks you’re a traitor. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“No she can’t,” Thomas said. “He’ll see through it. You’re putting her in mortal danger.”
Holmes shook his head. “Danger, yes, but not mortal danger. As deranged as Moriarty might be, he has never shown the will to kill his own daughter. No, she must go as herself.”
“Or stay behind,” Thomas said.
“I won’t stay behind,” Anna said.
Holmes nodded happily. “Then it’s settled.”
Thomas gathered the ball gown from the floor and held it up to him. “And so, am I to be the lady?”
Holmes tossed a rumpled pair of trousers to him, along with a dirty gray tunic and a worn-out cap. “You’ll be a porter.”
“Aw, I was hoping to be a scamp.”
“It’s too close to your true self. Be a hardworking man for a change—but do your best not to get distracted lugging luggage. Instead, watch for Moriarty—and guard Anna.”
While Thomas began to change into his costume, Anna turned away and watched Holmes pull a black cassock from the rack of clothes.
“What are you going to be?”
“A priest,” he said as he drew the robe over his shoulders. Then he went to the makeup table, lit the lamp, and set to work on his face. He spread spirit gum across his jawline and attached a very ragged beard and mustache. He also set a round-brimmed black hat on his head.
“You don’t make a believable saint,” Thomas piped, coming up in his ragged work clothes.
“Most priests are not saints,” Holmes pointed out, his eyes flashing at Thomas’s costume. “And you might actually have to do a little work to be convincing.”
“No, I’ll be a loafer,” Thomas suggested.
“Enough fooling,” said Holmes. “Twenty-seven minutes
left.” He led them up a back stairway and into a dark alley among rubbish bins. There, he stopped and looked Thomas over. “It’ll have to do. If it comes to a fight, let me confront the man.”
“Your costume’s not that good.”
“Perhaps. But this is my fight, not yours. It’s a fight that began a year ago on the streets of London and will finish today on the streets of Paris.” He walked out of the alley into the morning throng. Thomas and Anna followed.
The three comrades passed a counting house where a clerk swept coal dust from the pavement, a bakery that charged the air with the scent of yeast and fresh bread, a butcher’s shop where young lads hauled gutted hogs from a wagon through the front door … . The world was going about its daily routine while Thomas, Anna, and their friend Sherlock Holmes marched toward a most desperate confrontation.
“Holmes,” Anna said, tugging on his sleeve. “Remember—this is my father.”
He glanced her way. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat and above his burly beard, Holmes’s eyes were both keen and compassionate. “I have never killed a man, my dear—”
“Never that you remember … .”
“Never that Watson reported, either,” he replied. “I do not intend to start today.” They walked on a few more paces in silence before Holmes hedged. “Of course, your father is a most remarkable opponent, and he is bent on killing me. I will do what I must.”
“That’s Gare Saint-Lazare, three blocks up,” Thomas announced.
“All right,” Holmes said. “We’d better split up here and approach in character.”
The morning’s irritation melted from Thomas’s face. He grasped Holmes’s arm briefly and said, “Be careful.”
The old priest—for that’s what he seemed in that moment, smiling and starry-eyed—gave a nod and scuttled away.
Then Thomas lifted Anna’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “You, especially—be careful.”
Next moment, she was anything but careful, pulling him toward her and kissing him full on the lips.