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charleygirlTitle: The Hand of Seth 6/?
Author: charleygirl
Rating: PG
Type: Gen, mystery
Characters Involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade
Summary: A visit to the mortuary...
Disclaimer: These characters are out of copyright but still don't belong to me. Doctor Who elements are the property of the BBC
Author's Note: Holmes and Watson as they appear in this story are based on the performances by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada TV series. This fic is ostensibly set between The Sign of Four and The Devil's Foot in the Granada run.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
THE HAND OF SETH
CHAPTER SIX
I must confess that mortuaries are not places in which I care to linger.
During Holmes’s three year absence following the incident at the Reichenbach Falls, I had supplemented my income by working as a police surgeon. Though I welcomed the challenge of assisting in the solving of a crime once more, always I have believed that as a doctor my duty is first and foremost to the living. I was not sorry to abandon the work when the opportunity presented itself, even if I did still find myself examining corpses for Holmes from time to time.
The mortuary at Scotland Yard was on the lower ground floor, and as we descended we all but ran into Professor Litefoot as he was leaving the building.
“Ah, inspector! Excellent timing – I was on my way to present you with my report,” the eminent pathologist announced when we had generally apologised for almost knocking him down.
“Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson have come to view Lord Amsworth’s body,” Lestrade said when Litefoot raised his eyebrows at our presence.
“I see. Jolly good, jolly good. I thought that perhaps you might be working with us again, Doctor,” said the professor, glancing at me.
“My days of wielding a scalpel are over,” I replied without regret.
“Unless of course he is required to lance some unfortunate’s boils,” said Holmes in a voice tinged with impatience. He darted through an archway into the whitewashed room beyond. “Is the body through here?”
I had stood in that chamber many times before, the most memorable of which having been the day I made my examination of poor Ronald Adair, mere days before Holmes’s return from the dead. I would always recall the tiled floor, the low sinks ranged along one wall, and the underlying scent of death that nothing could remove.
On the long table in the centre of the room lay a shrouded form. Professor Litefoot drew back the sheet to reveal the features of Lord Amsworth, but those features were so twisted as to make them almost unrecognisable. The eyes were staring; the lips drawn back from the teeth as the mouth opened in a silent scream…it did indeed seem that the unfortunate young man had died from a very paroxysm of fear.
“There is little I can tell you,” said Litefoot as Holmes produced his glass and began to make an examination of the body that was at best uncomfortable and at worst downright disrespectful, “This was a perfectly healthy young man. He had a blister on his heel, no doubt from a new pair of shoes he was walking in, and a small abrasion on one hand, but apart from that I can find nothing wrong with him at all.”
“No heart condition?” I asked.
The professor shook his head. “Nothing. The heart was strong and fully functional. There is absolutely no trace of poison in his blood.”
“As far as you are able to ascertain,” said Holmes rather indistinctly, his lens focussed on Amsworth’s right shoulder.
“I have a wide knowledge of poisons, Mr Holmes, possibly enough even to match your own,” Litefoot said affably, “but I can find no trace of anything I recognise.”
“That does not surprise me. What do you make of this, professor?” Holmes straightened, and passed Litefoot the glass, indicating the spot on Amsworth’s shoulder that had attracted his attention.
“Good Lord! However did you find that, Mr Holmes?” the professor exclaimed.
Lestrade and I exchanged a puzzled glance. “What is it?” I asked.
“It appears to be a bite of some kind. Made by what sort of creature I can’t quite tell,” Litefoot replied, still peering at the corpse’s shoulder.
“It is an insect bite,” said Holmes. “I am familiar with over thirty different types of insectoid marks, but this one is something quite new to me.”
“A bite from a fly or something killed him?” asked Lestrade incredulously.
“I find that highly probable. But it was no fly, Lestrade. This was something much larger and far more deadly.” Holmes’s attention dropped to the corpse’s left hand. He raised the arm (with difficulty, given the rigor mortis), and we could all see that the fingers were tightly clenched. “Now that is odd.”
“It is indeed,” agreed Litefoot, abandoning the glass and moving to stand at Holmes’s elbow. “I have not been able to prise open his hand. Most unusual.”
“A convulsion at the moment of death?” I suggested.
“Surely then the body would have relaxed as life left it,” said Holmes, retrieving his lens and looking closely at Amsworth’s fist. “He must have been holding whatever was in his palm with incredible ferocity.”
“You think he was holding onto something?” asked Lestrade, scenting a clue.
“Of course. There is no other reason his fist would be clenched in such a manner. If you would assist me, Watson..?”
Litefoot watched with interest, Lestrade with curiosity as, between us and with no little effort, Holmes and I managed to prise Amsworth’s fingers apart. There, in the palm as Holmes had predicted, was something rather curious: within Lord James’s hand was another, small and made apparently from wood, holding a key-like implement that reminded me of something I could not immediately place.
“Good Lord,” said Litefoot. “I take my hat off to you, Mr Holmes. I would never have imagined such a thing.”
“What the devil is it?” demanded Lestrade.
Holmes opened his mouth to respond at the exact same moment that the place I had seen that strangely-wrought key sprang into my mind. “The hand of Seth!” I exclaimed, and added when they all looked askance at me, “It is identical to that of the figure of Horus in the British Museum. It must have come from the missing statue.”
Holmes smiled. “Well done, Watson. That is exactly what it is.”
“This rather gives the impression that Lord James was trying to prevent the intruder from stealing the statue. There was a struggle, and Lord James came off the worse.”
“That is certainly how it appears,” Lestrade agreed. “But how did they kill him? Run a spider up his sleeve?”
Holmes rolled his eyes at the suggestion, but the inspector rounded on him. “Well, how do you explain it, Mr Holmes?”
“I don’t propose to. Not yet, at any rate.” Holmes put his glass away and bent over the corpse, carefully plucking the piece of carved wood from the claw-like hand. As he straightened he suddenly stopped, one hand to his chest, a faint frown on his face.
“Holmes?” I asked, stepping forwards.
Holmes’s frown became a grimace of pain. He coughed, hard, a spasm of some kind wracking his body. He would have fallen had Litefoot not caught his arm to steady him. I was at my friend’s side in a moment, putting my arm around him to take his weight. “Holmes, this is ridiculous,” I hissed, “We should get you to a hospital!”
“Do so, Watson, and our friendship is at an end,” he replied through clenched teeth.
“Then you must come home with me at once. If you continue here you will surely collapse!”
With an effort, and, judging from his ashen face, a great deal of pain, he straightened. He took a step and stumbled once more. “Very well,” he agreed at last, and fell to coughing again before we had gone more than a few yards. Lestrade despatched a passing constable to hail us a cab, and I helped Holmes to sit down upon the stairs while we waited for it to arrive. The inspector looked genuinely worried at the sight of him hunched there, attempting to catch his breath.
“Lord, Doctor,” he said to me in an undertone, “the way things seem to be going we’ll be laying Mr Holmes out before long!”
“I sincerely hope not!” I replied with feeling.
“As do we all, but still…he looks bad, Doctor.”
I knew it, and I now knew the cause, but when dealing with Sherlock Holmes nothing was ever as simple as it might appear.
***
By the time we returned to Baker Street, Holmes had become so very weak that he accepted my assistance in alighting from the cab without argument.
Mrs Hudson, having evidently been watching for our arrival, met us on the front step and helped me to get Holmes inside. Together we almost carried him up the stairs to his bedroom. Our landlady muttered and shook her head throughout, her eyes betraying her concern.
“What are we to do, Doctor? He is getting worse!” she exclaimed the moment we were alone in the sitting room. “When I saw him getting out of the cab I thought he would drop dead in front of me!”
I could naturally not tell her of my conclusions regarding the cocaine. Instead I said, “He is working too hard, and he will not rest. The sooner this case is over, the better.”
Mrs Hudson clucked and shook her head once more. “Have you eaten, Doctor?”
My stomach took the opportunity to remind me that I had had nothing since breakfast. “I have not,” I said, “and neither has Mr Holmes. That is a large part of the problem.”
“I’ll bring something up for you both.” As she reached the door, Mrs Hudson stopped and turned back to me, withdrawing two slips of paper from her apron. “I almost forgot – two gentlemen called while you were out. Very odd one of them was, too.”
“Odd? In what way?” I asked, my thoughts immediately turning to Ibrahim Namin and his peculiar obsession.
“Eccentric, I’d call him. All pop-eyes and teeth. And the longest scarf I’ve ever seen! He wouldn’t wait, just left this and said I was to make sure I put it into your hand.”
I took the folded paper. Written on it, in spidery scrawl, were the words: THE SECOND OF MARCH: SETH GOES FORTH.
“I hope it means something to you, Doctor,” said Mrs Hudson. “I confess it has me mystified! He tried to tell me the message, but I made him write it down. How could I remember something so outlandish?”
“No doubt it will mean something to Mr Holmes,” I replied, wondering what connection the man from the British Museum could have with the case. He had been looking for Namin… “What was the other message?”
She presented me with a calling card.
“’Doctor Moore Agar, 27 Harley Street’. This is all? Nothing more?”
“He said that, should you require it, he will call again at a more convenient time,” said Mrs Hudson. Noticing my blank expression, she shrugged. “It is a day for mysteries it would seem, sir.”
“It is indeed,” I agreed, scratching my head. Once she had left, I spent several minutes pacing the room but could shed no light on either of the messages. I had never heard of Doctor Moore Agar, and could see no reason why he should be calling upon me. And as for the other missive…
Eventually I heard a cough, and went to Holmes’s door to find him stretched out upon his bed, staring at the wall. The curtains had been pulled across the window, and in the half-light he had the appearance of an effigy on a tomb. After Lestrade’s pronouncement of earlier, the sight made me inwardly shudder.
I leaned upon the door frame for some time, waiting to see if he would speak. When it appeared that he would not, I decided that I had to take the bull by the horns. I would have to confront him or I would spend the rest of my life regretting it.
“Do you remember our conversation of last evening?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice conversational. “If you do, you may recall my telling you that if you did not rest you might never work again.” Silence greeted my words. “I was not joking, Holmes.”
A hand waved, weakly, at me in the gloom. “Please, Watson, no lectures. I haven’t the strength,” he whispered.
“That is no one’s fault but your own,” I told him bluntly.
There was a harsh laugh. “Surely some of the blame must be taken by this wretched chill.”
“That chill is merely a consequence of the real problem. It is not the cause.”
Silence again.
“I know, Holmes,” I said.
There was no response. I waited, but when he still said nothing I sighed and withdrew, closing the door behind me. I very much felt that Mycroft’s faith in me was entirely misplaced.
***
For the second day in a row, I ate my meal in solitary state.
Afterwards I took my notebook up to my room and busied myself with writing up the particulars of the case so far. By the time I looked at the clock again it was well into the evening and my fire had burned down low. Reluctant as I was to share the sitting room at present I did not wish to bother Mrs Hudson for more coal when there would be a fire downstairs, and so I gathered my things and descended.
The sitting room was in darkness, but for the orange glow from the grate. In the firelight I could see Holmes sitting before it, head back and eyes closed in a familiar contemplative pose. He did not stir as I entered, and I deliberately said nothing as I methodically moved around the room, pulling the curtains and turning up the gas. Once the light was full I could see that there were several objects spread out on the hearthrug: the wooden hand, which I had completely forgotten as we left Scotland Yard and which Lestrade would doubtless be missing; a perfunctory sketch of the missing statue, made presumably from one of the photographs; two fat volumes about Egypt, and the man in the scarf’s note. There was also an empty soup bowl discarded on the table beside his armchair – perhaps something I said had had an effect after all.
He sat there, cross-legged upon the rug, fingers steepled in front of his face, for quite some time. I found a copy of the day’s Times on the sofa and immersed myself in the news, content to avoid conversation until it was requested. It seemed that Mycroft had been successful in keeping Lord Harcourt’s accusations out of the press, as there was no mention of the theft of the statue, merely a small piece with little detail regarding the death of Lord Amsworth.
At length, Holmes opened his eyes. “We have three days,” he said ominously.
“Until what?” I asked automatically, his voice startling me from my musing whether or not to ring for supper.
“Until we have the denouement of this case.” He held up the message brought by the man in the scarf. “The second of March is next Monday. According to your mysterious friend that is when the god Seth will make his appearance.”
“Surely you don’t believe that, Holmes. The man was more than a little odd.”
In response he picked up one of the books that had been lying open upon the rug, and pointed to a paragraph, tapping the page with one long finger.
“‘Seth, also known as Set, or Sutek,’” I read. “‘God of the desert, lord of storms and chaos. Called the Typhonian Beast by some cultures. In Egyptian mythology, Seth was the brother of Osiris, Nepthys and Isis. He quarrelled with Osiris, ultimately murdering him and dismembering his body, scattering the pieces to the four winds. A grieving Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, gathered the disparate parts and restored her husband’s corpse, conceiving Horus as she did so. Osiris was embalmed and enthroned as the Lord of the Dead, the archetypal mummy.’ Sounds like a pleasant family.”
“Isis naturally raised Horus to hate his father’s murderer. The battles between them resound through Egyptian mythology,” said Holmes. “Seth gouged out Horus’s left eye, which represented the moon.” He pointed to the sketch with the stem of the empty pipe he had taken from the table. “Whoever stole that statue had a deliberate purpose in mind. The second of March being one of the ancient festival days of Seth, we can assume that the person behind the robbery may have plans to act upon that particular day.”
“You don’t surely believe that anyone would seriously attempt to raise this god?” I asked incredulously. “Such an aim is ludicrous!”
“You of all people should know not to underestimate the lunatic mind, Watson. Those in the grip of a mania can convince themselves of all kinds of fantastical things.”
There was silence for some moments, during which we both stared at the collection of objects on the rug. Very silly we must have looked; I am sure, sitting before the hearth like two schoolboys.
“Namin is involved. You are sure of that?” I asked eventually.
“As sure as I can be. Mycroft provided me with our quarry’s address, and I have set the Irregulars on his tail.” I must have looked surprised, as Holmes smiled, pleased to have pulled another trick out of his hat. “I have been busy, Watson, while you have been skulking upstairs.”
“Holmes,” I began, rather affronted at his use of the word ‘skulking’, but he shook his head.
“My body may presently be failing me, but my mind is not, and it has been far from idle. We have much to do if we are to conclude this case by Monday.”
“Holmes,” I said, persisting, “We need to - ”
I was interrupted by the bell from below. Immediately, Holmes hauled himself to his feet. He dropped a newspaper over the discarded soup dish, sweeping up the objects from the rug and tucking the wooden hand away in his waistcoat pocket.
A few moments later there was a tap on the sitting room door, and Holmes waited briefly before calling out with something of his old energy, “Do come in, Mr Ravensley! We have been expecting you.”
The door opened to reveal the quietly bemused face of the Honourable William Ravensley, evidently just as surprised to find himself expected as I was myself. With him was a woman in deep mourning, her face shrouded by a thick net veil which she lifted to allow us to see pretty features and a concerned expression.
“I apologise for the lateness of the hour, gentlemen, and for neglecting to warn you of our visit,” Ravensley said and, seeing Holmes’s expectant face, added, “though I see now that it would have been unnecessary.”
My friend waved them to seats upon the sofa, which for once was free from obstructions. “I take it that you have news for me?”
“Of a sort.” Ravensley sat down, and exchanged a glance with his young companion. “Mr Holmes, we have not been honest with you regarding Jamie’s death.”
TBC
Author: charleygirl
Rating: PG
Type: Gen, mystery
Characters Involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade
Summary: A visit to the mortuary...
Disclaimer: These characters are out of copyright but still don't belong to me. Doctor Who elements are the property of the BBC
Author's Note: Holmes and Watson as they appear in this story are based on the performances by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada TV series. This fic is ostensibly set between The Sign of Four and The Devil's Foot in the Granada run.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
THE HAND OF SETH
CHAPTER SIX
I must confess that mortuaries are not places in which I care to linger.
During Holmes’s three year absence following the incident at the Reichenbach Falls, I had supplemented my income by working as a police surgeon. Though I welcomed the challenge of assisting in the solving of a crime once more, always I have believed that as a doctor my duty is first and foremost to the living. I was not sorry to abandon the work when the opportunity presented itself, even if I did still find myself examining corpses for Holmes from time to time.
The mortuary at Scotland Yard was on the lower ground floor, and as we descended we all but ran into Professor Litefoot as he was leaving the building.
“Ah, inspector! Excellent timing – I was on my way to present you with my report,” the eminent pathologist announced when we had generally apologised for almost knocking him down.
“Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson have come to view Lord Amsworth’s body,” Lestrade said when Litefoot raised his eyebrows at our presence.
“I see. Jolly good, jolly good. I thought that perhaps you might be working with us again, Doctor,” said the professor, glancing at me.
“My days of wielding a scalpel are over,” I replied without regret.
“Unless of course he is required to lance some unfortunate’s boils,” said Holmes in a voice tinged with impatience. He darted through an archway into the whitewashed room beyond. “Is the body through here?”
I had stood in that chamber many times before, the most memorable of which having been the day I made my examination of poor Ronald Adair, mere days before Holmes’s return from the dead. I would always recall the tiled floor, the low sinks ranged along one wall, and the underlying scent of death that nothing could remove.
On the long table in the centre of the room lay a shrouded form. Professor Litefoot drew back the sheet to reveal the features of Lord Amsworth, but those features were so twisted as to make them almost unrecognisable. The eyes were staring; the lips drawn back from the teeth as the mouth opened in a silent scream…it did indeed seem that the unfortunate young man had died from a very paroxysm of fear.
“There is little I can tell you,” said Litefoot as Holmes produced his glass and began to make an examination of the body that was at best uncomfortable and at worst downright disrespectful, “This was a perfectly healthy young man. He had a blister on his heel, no doubt from a new pair of shoes he was walking in, and a small abrasion on one hand, but apart from that I can find nothing wrong with him at all.”
“No heart condition?” I asked.
The professor shook his head. “Nothing. The heart was strong and fully functional. There is absolutely no trace of poison in his blood.”
“As far as you are able to ascertain,” said Holmes rather indistinctly, his lens focussed on Amsworth’s right shoulder.
“I have a wide knowledge of poisons, Mr Holmes, possibly enough even to match your own,” Litefoot said affably, “but I can find no trace of anything I recognise.”
“That does not surprise me. What do you make of this, professor?” Holmes straightened, and passed Litefoot the glass, indicating the spot on Amsworth’s shoulder that had attracted his attention.
“Good Lord! However did you find that, Mr Holmes?” the professor exclaimed.
Lestrade and I exchanged a puzzled glance. “What is it?” I asked.
“It appears to be a bite of some kind. Made by what sort of creature I can’t quite tell,” Litefoot replied, still peering at the corpse’s shoulder.
“It is an insect bite,” said Holmes. “I am familiar with over thirty different types of insectoid marks, but this one is something quite new to me.”
“A bite from a fly or something killed him?” asked Lestrade incredulously.
“I find that highly probable. But it was no fly, Lestrade. This was something much larger and far more deadly.” Holmes’s attention dropped to the corpse’s left hand. He raised the arm (with difficulty, given the rigor mortis), and we could all see that the fingers were tightly clenched. “Now that is odd.”
“It is indeed,” agreed Litefoot, abandoning the glass and moving to stand at Holmes’s elbow. “I have not been able to prise open his hand. Most unusual.”
“A convulsion at the moment of death?” I suggested.
“Surely then the body would have relaxed as life left it,” said Holmes, retrieving his lens and looking closely at Amsworth’s fist. “He must have been holding whatever was in his palm with incredible ferocity.”
“You think he was holding onto something?” asked Lestrade, scenting a clue.
“Of course. There is no other reason his fist would be clenched in such a manner. If you would assist me, Watson..?”
Litefoot watched with interest, Lestrade with curiosity as, between us and with no little effort, Holmes and I managed to prise Amsworth’s fingers apart. There, in the palm as Holmes had predicted, was something rather curious: within Lord James’s hand was another, small and made apparently from wood, holding a key-like implement that reminded me of something I could not immediately place.
“Good Lord,” said Litefoot. “I take my hat off to you, Mr Holmes. I would never have imagined such a thing.”
“What the devil is it?” demanded Lestrade.
Holmes opened his mouth to respond at the exact same moment that the place I had seen that strangely-wrought key sprang into my mind. “The hand of Seth!” I exclaimed, and added when they all looked askance at me, “It is identical to that of the figure of Horus in the British Museum. It must have come from the missing statue.”
Holmes smiled. “Well done, Watson. That is exactly what it is.”
“This rather gives the impression that Lord James was trying to prevent the intruder from stealing the statue. There was a struggle, and Lord James came off the worse.”
“That is certainly how it appears,” Lestrade agreed. “But how did they kill him? Run a spider up his sleeve?”
Holmes rolled his eyes at the suggestion, but the inspector rounded on him. “Well, how do you explain it, Mr Holmes?”
“I don’t propose to. Not yet, at any rate.” Holmes put his glass away and bent over the corpse, carefully plucking the piece of carved wood from the claw-like hand. As he straightened he suddenly stopped, one hand to his chest, a faint frown on his face.
“Holmes?” I asked, stepping forwards.
Holmes’s frown became a grimace of pain. He coughed, hard, a spasm of some kind wracking his body. He would have fallen had Litefoot not caught his arm to steady him. I was at my friend’s side in a moment, putting my arm around him to take his weight. “Holmes, this is ridiculous,” I hissed, “We should get you to a hospital!”
“Do so, Watson, and our friendship is at an end,” he replied through clenched teeth.
“Then you must come home with me at once. If you continue here you will surely collapse!”
With an effort, and, judging from his ashen face, a great deal of pain, he straightened. He took a step and stumbled once more. “Very well,” he agreed at last, and fell to coughing again before we had gone more than a few yards. Lestrade despatched a passing constable to hail us a cab, and I helped Holmes to sit down upon the stairs while we waited for it to arrive. The inspector looked genuinely worried at the sight of him hunched there, attempting to catch his breath.
“Lord, Doctor,” he said to me in an undertone, “the way things seem to be going we’ll be laying Mr Holmes out before long!”
“I sincerely hope not!” I replied with feeling.
“As do we all, but still…he looks bad, Doctor.”
I knew it, and I now knew the cause, but when dealing with Sherlock Holmes nothing was ever as simple as it might appear.
***
By the time we returned to Baker Street, Holmes had become so very weak that he accepted my assistance in alighting from the cab without argument.
Mrs Hudson, having evidently been watching for our arrival, met us on the front step and helped me to get Holmes inside. Together we almost carried him up the stairs to his bedroom. Our landlady muttered and shook her head throughout, her eyes betraying her concern.
“What are we to do, Doctor? He is getting worse!” she exclaimed the moment we were alone in the sitting room. “When I saw him getting out of the cab I thought he would drop dead in front of me!”
I could naturally not tell her of my conclusions regarding the cocaine. Instead I said, “He is working too hard, and he will not rest. The sooner this case is over, the better.”
Mrs Hudson clucked and shook her head once more. “Have you eaten, Doctor?”
My stomach took the opportunity to remind me that I had had nothing since breakfast. “I have not,” I said, “and neither has Mr Holmes. That is a large part of the problem.”
“I’ll bring something up for you both.” As she reached the door, Mrs Hudson stopped and turned back to me, withdrawing two slips of paper from her apron. “I almost forgot – two gentlemen called while you were out. Very odd one of them was, too.”
“Odd? In what way?” I asked, my thoughts immediately turning to Ibrahim Namin and his peculiar obsession.
“Eccentric, I’d call him. All pop-eyes and teeth. And the longest scarf I’ve ever seen! He wouldn’t wait, just left this and said I was to make sure I put it into your hand.”
I took the folded paper. Written on it, in spidery scrawl, were the words: THE SECOND OF MARCH: SETH GOES FORTH.
“I hope it means something to you, Doctor,” said Mrs Hudson. “I confess it has me mystified! He tried to tell me the message, but I made him write it down. How could I remember something so outlandish?”
“No doubt it will mean something to Mr Holmes,” I replied, wondering what connection the man from the British Museum could have with the case. He had been looking for Namin… “What was the other message?”
She presented me with a calling card.
“’Doctor Moore Agar, 27 Harley Street’. This is all? Nothing more?”
“He said that, should you require it, he will call again at a more convenient time,” said Mrs Hudson. Noticing my blank expression, she shrugged. “It is a day for mysteries it would seem, sir.”
“It is indeed,” I agreed, scratching my head. Once she had left, I spent several minutes pacing the room but could shed no light on either of the messages. I had never heard of Doctor Moore Agar, and could see no reason why he should be calling upon me. And as for the other missive…
Eventually I heard a cough, and went to Holmes’s door to find him stretched out upon his bed, staring at the wall. The curtains had been pulled across the window, and in the half-light he had the appearance of an effigy on a tomb. After Lestrade’s pronouncement of earlier, the sight made me inwardly shudder.
I leaned upon the door frame for some time, waiting to see if he would speak. When it appeared that he would not, I decided that I had to take the bull by the horns. I would have to confront him or I would spend the rest of my life regretting it.
“Do you remember our conversation of last evening?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice conversational. “If you do, you may recall my telling you that if you did not rest you might never work again.” Silence greeted my words. “I was not joking, Holmes.”
A hand waved, weakly, at me in the gloom. “Please, Watson, no lectures. I haven’t the strength,” he whispered.
“That is no one’s fault but your own,” I told him bluntly.
There was a harsh laugh. “Surely some of the blame must be taken by this wretched chill.”
“That chill is merely a consequence of the real problem. It is not the cause.”
Silence again.
“I know, Holmes,” I said.
There was no response. I waited, but when he still said nothing I sighed and withdrew, closing the door behind me. I very much felt that Mycroft’s faith in me was entirely misplaced.
***
For the second day in a row, I ate my meal in solitary state.
Afterwards I took my notebook up to my room and busied myself with writing up the particulars of the case so far. By the time I looked at the clock again it was well into the evening and my fire had burned down low. Reluctant as I was to share the sitting room at present I did not wish to bother Mrs Hudson for more coal when there would be a fire downstairs, and so I gathered my things and descended.
The sitting room was in darkness, but for the orange glow from the grate. In the firelight I could see Holmes sitting before it, head back and eyes closed in a familiar contemplative pose. He did not stir as I entered, and I deliberately said nothing as I methodically moved around the room, pulling the curtains and turning up the gas. Once the light was full I could see that there were several objects spread out on the hearthrug: the wooden hand, which I had completely forgotten as we left Scotland Yard and which Lestrade would doubtless be missing; a perfunctory sketch of the missing statue, made presumably from one of the photographs; two fat volumes about Egypt, and the man in the scarf’s note. There was also an empty soup bowl discarded on the table beside his armchair – perhaps something I said had had an effect after all.
He sat there, cross-legged upon the rug, fingers steepled in front of his face, for quite some time. I found a copy of the day’s Times on the sofa and immersed myself in the news, content to avoid conversation until it was requested. It seemed that Mycroft had been successful in keeping Lord Harcourt’s accusations out of the press, as there was no mention of the theft of the statue, merely a small piece with little detail regarding the death of Lord Amsworth.
At length, Holmes opened his eyes. “We have three days,” he said ominously.
“Until what?” I asked automatically, his voice startling me from my musing whether or not to ring for supper.
“Until we have the denouement of this case.” He held up the message brought by the man in the scarf. “The second of March is next Monday. According to your mysterious friend that is when the god Seth will make his appearance.”
“Surely you don’t believe that, Holmes. The man was more than a little odd.”
In response he picked up one of the books that had been lying open upon the rug, and pointed to a paragraph, tapping the page with one long finger.
“‘Seth, also known as Set, or Sutek,’” I read. “‘God of the desert, lord of storms and chaos. Called the Typhonian Beast by some cultures. In Egyptian mythology, Seth was the brother of Osiris, Nepthys and Isis. He quarrelled with Osiris, ultimately murdering him and dismembering his body, scattering the pieces to the four winds. A grieving Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, gathered the disparate parts and restored her husband’s corpse, conceiving Horus as she did so. Osiris was embalmed and enthroned as the Lord of the Dead, the archetypal mummy.’ Sounds like a pleasant family.”
“Isis naturally raised Horus to hate his father’s murderer. The battles between them resound through Egyptian mythology,” said Holmes. “Seth gouged out Horus’s left eye, which represented the moon.” He pointed to the sketch with the stem of the empty pipe he had taken from the table. “Whoever stole that statue had a deliberate purpose in mind. The second of March being one of the ancient festival days of Seth, we can assume that the person behind the robbery may have plans to act upon that particular day.”
“You don’t surely believe that anyone would seriously attempt to raise this god?” I asked incredulously. “Such an aim is ludicrous!”
“You of all people should know not to underestimate the lunatic mind, Watson. Those in the grip of a mania can convince themselves of all kinds of fantastical things.”
There was silence for some moments, during which we both stared at the collection of objects on the rug. Very silly we must have looked; I am sure, sitting before the hearth like two schoolboys.
“Namin is involved. You are sure of that?” I asked eventually.
“As sure as I can be. Mycroft provided me with our quarry’s address, and I have set the Irregulars on his tail.” I must have looked surprised, as Holmes smiled, pleased to have pulled another trick out of his hat. “I have been busy, Watson, while you have been skulking upstairs.”
“Holmes,” I began, rather affronted at his use of the word ‘skulking’, but he shook his head.
“My body may presently be failing me, but my mind is not, and it has been far from idle. We have much to do if we are to conclude this case by Monday.”
“Holmes,” I said, persisting, “We need to - ”
I was interrupted by the bell from below. Immediately, Holmes hauled himself to his feet. He dropped a newspaper over the discarded soup dish, sweeping up the objects from the rug and tucking the wooden hand away in his waistcoat pocket.
A few moments later there was a tap on the sitting room door, and Holmes waited briefly before calling out with something of his old energy, “Do come in, Mr Ravensley! We have been expecting you.”
The door opened to reveal the quietly bemused face of the Honourable William Ravensley, evidently just as surprised to find himself expected as I was myself. With him was a woman in deep mourning, her face shrouded by a thick net veil which she lifted to allow us to see pretty features and a concerned expression.
“I apologise for the lateness of the hour, gentlemen, and for neglecting to warn you of our visit,” Ravensley said and, seeing Holmes’s expectant face, added, “though I see now that it would have been unnecessary.”
My friend waved them to seats upon the sofa, which for once was free from obstructions. “I take it that you have news for me?”
“Of a sort.” Ravensley sat down, and exchanged a glance with his young companion. “Mr Holmes, we have not been honest with you regarding Jamie’s death.”
TBC
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-30 07:26 pm (UTC)Is it canon that he'd worked as a police surgeon, or did you make that up for the story? Because it works really well, and I thought it was nifty~
Ahhh I can't wait to see what happens!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 06:56 am (UTC)As for the police surgeon bit, Watson is working in that role in Granada's version of The Empty House.
Glad you're still enjoying! :)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 10:37 pm (UTC)Ah mm~ I couldn't remember if it was in proper canon or not-- thanks~
:DD very much!