A game most foul, p.25
A Game Most Foul, page 25
I was struggling with the urge to try and comfort Holmes after reading all that he had been through—Watson too—but how?
Even more confusing was wrapping my mind around the fact that Ashley had somehow been responsible. What could she have possibly done that would leave Holmes and Watson in such a state?
This also meant that she had to be in some way responsible for the death of Violet Ramsey.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Percy said, taking the book from Holmes. “Look here, there’s only one entry left, and it’s from nineteen-eleven.”
“What, a whole eleven years later?” Suruthi said. “What were you getting up to in that time, eh, Holmes?”
“Experimenting,” a voice said behind us.
Chapter 27
And I Suppose You Conveniently Forgot to Share?
I wasn’t the only one who screamed at Watson’s sudden arrival.
Percy was stumbling his way to his feet while Suruthi outright fell off the bed, she’d started so badly at hearing Watson’s voice. I only narrowly avoided landing on top of Holmes as I tried to get off the bed without my face meeting the floor.
Watson was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, and seemed to be paying no attention to the fact his bedroom had just been ransacked.
“Please, continue,” he said politely. “Far be it from me to stop you.”
No one said a word for one tense moment, and Watson scoffed. “You might as well finish the last entry, for heaven’s sake. You’ve already read everything else, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Holmes agreed, somewhat suspicious of Watson’s calm demeanor.
“Off you go then.”
November 8, 1911
It comes and goes, my desire to write and chronicle my “adventures” with my companion, the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. Today it is still “gone.” Though I have not picked up a pen to do so for some time now, I just had the strangest encounter and wish to document it.
It was an unusually bright day in London despite the season, and I desired a walk after Holmes informed me that I had been gazing longingly out the sitting room windows for several hours.
So off I went without a particular destination in mind. Paying tribute to my friend, I wandered for some time, up and down the surrounding streets, and somehow ending up near Grosvenor Square.
No sooner had I entered the park than I was being stopped by a woman who appeared as if she were looking at a ghost. The woman was unaccompanied and dressed plainly in black. She looked familiar in some way that I could not place, otherwise she would not have stood out as different from any other woman out for an afternoon stroll.
The first thing this woman asked of me was, “How are you alive?”
“I do not know what you mean, madam,” I confessed.
My response seemed to upset the woman. She gripped my forearm when I attempted to offer her my arm to escort her home, and I saw that there was a ghastly burn scar on her wrist. Her skin was significantly marred and difficult to look away from, but her shout was loud enough to rattle my skull.
Most of what she shouted at me I could not make any sense of, but what I did understand sent a fierce chill down my spine, unfeeling as I have been these last dozen years or so.
Before the woman was led away by an incredibly mortified man who must have been her brother or husband, she had screamed, “I saw you die!”
Years of foolhardy attempts at ending my life through various means had me convinced that perhaps Holmes and I had somehow been cursed to walk this earth forever. It is somewhat reassuring to learn that we were meant to be dead after all.
There was a chilling silence in the room as we read Watson’s last journal entry. Watson himself had gone to the desk and was investigating the content of the box we’d lugged all the way from Adele’s shop.
“So . . .” Suruthi cleared her throat, sounding uncomfortable as she said, “I suppose we’re going to talk about this now.”
“What more must we discuss?” Holmes said, shutting the journal with a loud snap. “I believe Watson has said it all through these meticulous journal entries of his.”
Watson made some noise of agreement as he started rifling through the packing peanuts in the box.
“Well, if you’re not going to ask, I will then,” Percy said, surprisingly bold. “In your last entry, the woman you wrote about was that medium, wasn’t she? Adelaide Shaw.”
“So it was,” Watson said.
“So that means she was responsible for . . . whatever it is that happened to you,” I said.
I couldn’t tell if I was growing more excited as the pieces began to fall into place, but something still wasn’t sitting quite right with me. Watson was far too calm about having found his room turned upside down, and I could practically feel the fury radiating from Holmes where he stood less than a foot away from me.
“Correct me if I am wrong, Watson,” Holmes began with a tremor in his voice, “but I believe you conveniently forgot to share any details of your impromptu meeting with Miss Shaw—then and now.”
“Or just didn’t mention it at all,” Suruthi added in an undertone.
“Holmes, would you care to remind me of the outcome of the nineteen-ten case concerning Lord Harrington?”
Watson posed this question so casually that we were all taken aback. Watson spoke as if he meant to have a conversation about the changing weather, not something so clearly life-altering.
Holmes stared open-mouthed at Watson as he waited patiently for a response.
“You do remember the case I speak of, yes?” Watson said politely. “Lord Harrington and his attempted assassination in parliament? The poor man was certainly a right mess, showing up at our lodgings in Baker Street day and night, begging us to figure out who wanted him dead.”
It was obvious that Holmes had absolutely no idea what Watson was talking about, and he was struggling to come up with a way around admitting this.
“Sherlock, you took a bullet for the man,” Watson said, his expression turning grim. “Surely you remember.”
“Of course I do,” Holmes snapped. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Holmes’s hand had begun to tremble. Though his pallor was usually an unhealthy one, he looked even more ill now. “Of course I . . .”
Watson stood and approached Holmes with an outstretched hand, lowering his voice when he spoke next. “I did not share this information with you, Holmes, because I did not wish to—”
“Do not say it was because you did not want to cause me undue stress or worry,” Holmes said with a sneer. “As if I have never endured either before.”
“I will not deny that you have,” Watson said quietly. “But surely you must admit that there are times where you have been most—”
“Insane?” Holmes supplied angrily.
“Of course not!” Watson fired back, raising his voice to match Holmes’s. “Occasionally erratic, perhaps manic even, but incredibly reckless! I cannot count the number of times I have seen you actively seek out danger with little concern for your personal safety, Holmes, and you know as well as I do that will wear on a person after a century.”
“Dear Watson, you know as well as I that we do not—”
“We may exist as an empty shell of a human being, but that does not mean I can bare to witness the closest friend I have ever had the pleasure of knowing displaying such blatant disregard for their own life!”
“What does it matter?!” Holmes voice echoed like thunder. “What I choose to do with my own life should be of little consequence to you! Dare I ask if there is anything else you have hidden from me?”
“A rather foolish statement, to think that I should not care what you choose to do with your own life,” Watson said calmly. “After everything we have endured together. I would have thought you would know me better than that.”
Holmes converged on Watson like a predator closing in on their prey, and real panic had begun to take hold. I moved closer to Percy and Suruthi, and Percy reached for my hand at the same time as I reached for his. I squeezed his hand tight, willing myself to stay put and not flee in terror.
Whatever happened next, we were going to have to see this through to the end.
Holmes chucked the journal onto the desk with considerable force, almost undoing the binding on the thing, and it was as if the proverbial gauntlet had been thrown down.
“I demand you explain,” Holmes said, struggling to keep his voice level. “Now.”
Watson’s face had become a blank mask as Holmes loomed before him, and for one very tension-filled moment, he did not speak. When he did, it was a flat, “Very well.”
“And what are we going to do when Holmes and Watson start to duke it out?” I whispered to the other two. “Make a break for it?”
“I don’t know!” Suruthi whispered back, sounding panicked. “I don’t want to witness them murdering each other, but I also really want to know what is going on here!”
“When you think about it,” Percy said quietly, “this is more than a century in the making. It’s going to take some time to . . . unpack everything.”
No kidding, I thought.
As if sharing the same wavelength of thought, Watson directed Holmes to the chair beside the desk. “This will not be an easy thing to explain. You might as well sit down.”
Holmes did not sit down, instead fixing Watson with such an intimidating glare I felt a shiver go up my spine.
Watson brushed this off, picking up the journal Holmes had thrown, flipping through the pages. Holmes managed about one minute before he was loudly clearing his throat, a nonverbal demand to get on with it.
Watson tossed the journal aside on the desk and crossed his arms. “Am I correct in assuming you read each journal?”
“We read enough,” Holmes answered at once.
Watson nodded. “Very well then. As you have already learned, our troubles began with the last case we took as . . . well, I do not know any other word to use but mortal.”
I exchanged looks with Percy. This was a start.
“Holmes and I never paid much attention to any of the gossip rags publishing endless articles about a séance being hosted every other night or table tipping or connecting with the spirits or any other aspect of dealing with the occult. When the news of the death of a young socialite in attendance at a séance hit the papers, however, we began to pay attention.”
Given what we’d read about the bizarre circumstances surrounding the death of Violet Ramsey, this was making perfect sense.
Watson went on. “Of course we seized the opportunity to meet with the self-proclaimed medium herself and investigate the sitting room where the séance had taken place.” Watson paused to pass a hand over his mouth, debating his next words. “Adelaide Shaw was insistent that she had nothing to do with the death of the young woman, and I suppose I did believe her—at least, partially. She appeared earnest in her work and told us more than once that the spirits would never harm anyone.”
“An absolute falsehood,” Holmes interjected. “The young lady was lying throughout the entire conversation.”
“And you remember all that?” Percy asked hesitantly.
“Of course I do,” Holmes snapped without turning around. “She never once maintained direct eye contact, her respiration was increased, and she would not stop fidgeting with that trinket that adorned her wrist.”
We all looked to Watson for confirmation, who merely nodded again.
“All true,” he said. “I believe that she believed what she was saying, but something was obviously troubling her. When she invited us to attend her next séance, of course we accepted.”
“Yes, yes, I remember,” Holmes said, and he had begun to pace. “The night of August the twelfth, eighteen ninety-nine. It was raining and you were complaining about your shoulder, as always.”
Watson sat back and let Holmes begin to fill in the pieces for himself as he paced, head down and hands clasped behind his back.
“I must confess I do not remember who else may have been in attendance that night, but the scene was perfectly set. Velvet tablecloth, one singular candle, the parlor room dimly lit, Miss Shaw already seated.”
“Go on,” Watson encouraged when Holmes faltered.
A few moments passed before Holmes resumed his story.
“We took our seats, as invited, and the butler closed the door, but he . . .” Holmes’s head snapped up as he turned back to Watson. “He locked the door.”
Again Watson nodded.
“Miss Shaw explained how we were to proceed with the séance,” Holmes continued, a frown taking over his face. “We were to stay seated and do not . . . we could not . . . break the circle.”
Chapter 28
Rules Were Meant to Be Broken
You broke the circle, didn’t you?” Suruthi said, advancing on Holmes. “You broke the circle and—”
Watson held up a hand to cut her off, watching Holmes intently as he sagged against the wall, head falling into his hands. Holmes was mumbling something unintelligible, and it was only at another gentle nudge from Watson that he began to speak again.
“We must have broken the circle,” Holmes said, then groaned as if in pain as he dropped his head back against the wall. “But I cannot remember how, or why we . . .”
“Because of that piece of silver Miss Shaw wore around her wrist,” Watson said quietly when the silence became too much to handle.
“Because of the piece of silver,” Holmes repeated, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “It was the silver that . . .”
“Hold up a second,” Percy said suddenly, catching us all by surprise. “When you ran into Adelaide Shaw however many years later, you wrote that she had a badly burned wrist, right?”
“Indeed,” Watson answered. “A third-degree burn, at minimum, I would say.”
I was expecting Percy to start pacing like Holmes. He was visibly excited, and I couldn’t understand why when I personally felt myself rapidly losing any semblance of hope I had left from earlier this evening.
Because apparently Suruthi and Percy hadn’t realized yet that Ashley’s wrists hadn’t been burned. I wasn’t ready to think of the implications of what that meant.
“What are you on about, Percy?” Suruthi asked cautiously. “I don’t like that look on your face.”
Percy ignored her, carrying on with whatever piece of evidence he may have discovered. “She was using the coin as a conduit, wasn’t she? That’s why she wore it during the séance. She was using the coin as a conduit to better her chances of contacting the spirits or whatever.”
Watson looked rather proudly at Percy for having come up with the big reveal on his own, and Holmes had gone slack-jawed as he stared at a spot on the wall. It was the same faraway look I’d seen before, which meant he was probably beginning to slip from the present.
“So, if you broke the circle then, I bet that must’ve seriously pissed off whatever spirits she’d managed to contact,” Suruthi offered, now lost in thought too. “And then the spirits, what? Attacked you?”
The tension in the room as we waited for Watson to answer had become near palpable and I felt like squirming.
“Well?” Percy pressed when Watson remained silent. “Is that what happened?”
I felt myself begin to deflate when Watson grimaced.
“I cannot say with certainty that is what happened, but all of the research I have done would suggest so.”
“Research?” Holmes said suddenly, his voice sharp. “What research?”
“Oh, don’t give me that look, Sherlock,” Watson said exasperatedly. “You have done your own fair share of research over the years.”
“Which I have always made a point to share with—”
“Please, gentleman, can we not?” Suruthi interrupted. “Please. Just finish the story.”
Holmes shot Watson a sullen glare but kept quiet, gesturing grandly for Watson to continue.
“Naturally I have conducted several decades of research at this point,” Watson said. “And it was in a grimoire I found deep in the recesses of the Bodleian Library where I believe I encountered the truth.” He paused to rub a hand across the back of his neck, sighing. “Mister Byers was correct, according to what I read in the text. The young lady was using that piece of silver as a conduit to better connect with . . . the other side, so to say. To what extent and for what purpose, I do not know. I doubt we will ever have a direct answer, but I speculate the young woman was doing it for both fame and fortune. From what I have been able to deduce, Miss Shaw was not born into wealth and nor were many advantages given to her early on in life. I suspect she used what skills she did have to make a name for herself, and that just so happened to be by capitalizing upon the spiritualist movement.”
Watson’s words hung heavy in the air.
For all I was in the know, Watson was making a great deal of sense in a way I didn’t want him to. The type of information Watson must’ve gained from conducting research in the Bodleian Library was unimaginable, and that also explained having a contact there: Joel the tour guide.
“And?” Holmes pressed impatiently. “On with it, Watson!”
Watson ignored this, speaking more to the three of us than Holmes.
“There is a certain delicate balance to this world that most are not aware exists. Some might call it the line between good and evil, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Regardless of what one refers to it as, surely there are those who are . . . less than thrilled when that balance is upset.”
“Meaning what, precisely?” Holmes demanded with a scoff. It was clear he thought little of the turn the conversation had taken. “This speaks of lunacy, Watson.”
“Perhaps so, but think about what the young woman was doing,” Watson said, raising his voice to match Holmes’s. “Regardless of what her intentions were, she was still charging a fee to . . . to . . . perform for the public, to channel the spirits or whatever you want to refer to it as. Granted, she was not the only one doing so, but perhaps if she had angered the wrong spirit . . .”
