Whelp, last installment.

Enjoy!

Chapter 6

“I felt rather than saw Moriarty scramble to his feet and run away, and I sat alone in the moonlight, staring at the body for a long time.

“A cough behind me recalled me to my situation. I turned and saw Bennett, Finnegan, Goodpoole, Jameson, Mulgary and Wuthers huddled together in the shadows staring at what I had done, wide-eyed and lost, as the children we were. Wuthers raised his head and asked me pleadingly, ‘What do we do?’

“Suddenly all the pain, the chaos, and the confusion in my brain shut off, and all that was left was logic, supreme and concise. It was the first time I had ever felt that, though it has happened many times since. Your doctor’s training will no doubt argue with me that it was some stage of shock, but I promise you, Watson, all I felt was logic.

“‘We hide the body,’ I said. ‘There’s no way to explain it all, and I don’t know if Moriarty will even back us up, so we hide the body.’

“‘Where?’ Wuthers was being supremely helpful, organizing my thoughts in the proper directions.

“‘Dead man’s ditch. We carry him there, and we throw him in. Then we come back, and we wash the blood off the grass, and then we never speak of this again.’

“There stared at me a moment in fear, wonder, and horror, and then they rose and approached. Between the seven of us, the body was not too heavy. It was well I could not feel the full horror of it, for even in memory, that long trek through the dark, with a dead man’s shoulder resting upon mine... is not a pleasant memory.

“We did as I prescribed. When the grass was clean, they left me standing beside the chapel, all but Wuthers, who hesitated a moment a few feet from me, not quite meeting my eyes. ‘Can I do anything, Holmes?’

“I looked down. My hands and the entire front of my jacket and waistcoat were slick and black with blood. ‘Please... a towel? And a change of clothes?’ More than any of those things, I wanted him to look at me, but he nodded at my feet and went to fetch what I asked for.

“When he came back, he laid them at my feet and turned to go. ‘Wuthers...’ I pleaded.

“‘I have to... go, Holmes. I’m... sorry.’

“And that’s the last thing he ever said to me.

“I went down into the woods where there was a small stream. I stripped off my clothes and tried to wash away the blood. It was getting light enough to see the crimson swirling away, and I remember the water was like ice. When I put on the clothes Wuthers had brought me, my entire body was shaking so much it was difficult to put my legs through my trousers, let alone fasten the buttons. I left my bloodied clothes under a stone large enough to conceal them, and made my faltering way up to my room, half-dressed.

“I made it as far as the landing of one of the stairwells up to my room when I could not go any farther. I curled myself in the corner shaking and hugging my knees to keep warm as best I could.

“When I awoke, I was in the infirmary with a wet towel on my head and too hot for the thin blankets over me. I wondered if it was brain fever, brought on by guilt, and I wondered if I would be delirious and rave about my crime, like all the stories I had read of such things told me I would—but neither happened. It was a simple, everyday fever brought on by the chill, and in a few days I was back in my room, with the same schedule and the same routine, minus Latin, and no one but the eight of us knew what I had done.

“I was safe from the police, but the curious looks of other boys hunted me wherever I went. I’m sure I imagined some of it—I am certain, after all, that none of us told anyone what had happened—but I think everyone had some idea that there was something about me to be feared, and whatever friendships I had had melted away. Perhaps it was not entirely their faults; perhaps I was the one who avoided all contact with them.

“I certainly avoided all contact with Moriarty. I did not know his guilt then, nor did I ponder the matter more than I could help, but our friendship was over. Whether he had orchestrated what had happened or not, things could not have turned out more in his favor. The two men who had known his secret were dead, one untraceable to him, and the other done by another’s hand, while I, the only person who could have deduced his crime, was guaranteed never to investigate the matter again.

“I stayed at the school for another week, trying to fall into the routine I had once had and put everything back the way it was... but I could not do that any more than I could have put Dalton’s blood back in his chest. When I understood this... I left.”

Holmes looked at me with a slight sad smile. “Left?” I asked. “Where did you go?”

“London,” he answered. “To the city, where no one would know me or question me, and absolutely no one would know what had become of me. Dalton had taught me how to blend into a working class crowd, and I did so, and not a ripple betrayed the presence of the thirteen-year-old middle class boarding school boy that anyone would be looking for.

“I vanished for two years, Watson. I found work where I could—honest this time, for all memory of Dalton’s influence was repugnant—and slept in lodgings when I could pay for them, and on the streets when I could not. It was then that I tried the occupations that many have since recommended for me: I played violin in the streets for money—it was the single possession of any value that I retained. I learned boxing, and earned money in the ring. My acting skills on the street brought me to try them on the stage, and I joined a theatre company. Looking back, I realize that these were strange occupations for a boy on the run. I don’t know why I chose them. Perhaps I was just stupid. Perhaps I wanted to be found. Perhaps I just wanted to know whether anyone had bothered to look.

Those were my main jobs, when I could get them. It was the boxers that first introduced me to morphine, initially to dull the pain of a pounding, but I found it a fine damper on the pain of memory as well. You have often noted (and objected to) of my use of cocaine, but I have used morphine only rarely since then. Cocaine I have used to clear my mind—but morphine I only used to cloud it, and in those days I wished it would cloud it entirely and forever.

“And I think that is certainly enough about that time of my life, Watson. It only remains to tell you how it ended.

“We had finished the night’s rendition of Macbeth (I was Malcolm, but I often thought that if we were back in Elizabethan days when there were no female actresses, I should have insisted on being Lady Macbeth... I could sympathize with her hands) and I had retired to my squalid room and my drugs as soon as I possibly could.

“My brain was just clouding with the haze of morphine when I saw a broad, heavy figure outlined in my doorway. I tried to scream, but I don’t know if I succeeded. It was a big man, dim in the darkness, and he was bending over me, then lifting me up. I kicked and struggled, but I was fast losing consciousness, and remember nothing past the first few lamps of the street outside.

“When I awoke, I found myself in a broad, soft bed in a room of such decency as I had not seen in two years. I leaped out of bed with more ambitious intentions than my present coordination permitted, and sat back down heavily. A slight noise of no particular meaning except to announce his presence alerted me to another person in the room. I knew that noise...

“Mycroft sat leaning back in his chair, his heavy body immobile and his light eyes gazing abstractly upwards. A glass of whiskey in his hand was his only concession to humanity. Without a word, I poured myself a glass as well. He did not comment.

“Such a man to whom to have to explain such a story! He might know all at a glance, but it could not possibly be in him to understand. I saw myself through his eyes—long-haired, razor-thin, unkempt and dirty, bleary eyes and an arm full of puncture-marks, one of the passion-ravaged curiosities that populated the great theatre of life that he saw through his window.

“‘Mother and Father believe you dead, Sherlock,’ he said, ‘what with the Latin master disappearing around the same time, and all sorts of unsavory details about him coming out.’

“‘Obviously Mother and Father are wrong.’

“‘Obviously.’ He looked me over. ‘The Latin master is dead, then?’

“I remained silent, waiting for him to lay it down in a bald list of comprehensive facts as we had done to passersby in happier days. He began to converse lightly with my mute but writhing face.

“‘Were you present when he met his end? I see that you were. Did you do it? Yes... interesting. Poison, knife, no, no, a gun, that makes more sense. Yes, I see the shock of the blast still on your face. Accomplices? Your accomplices... had nothing to do with the act itself—that was yours. But they helped you dispose of the body. I know of no bodies of water in the vicinity, and it has not yet been found... buried perhaps? Some ditch somewhere? Ah, yes, I see. You are too smart to be found out, so, I suppose, even if the police find the body, they will never know anything.

“‘Well, that’s an end of it, isn’t it.’

“‘An end of it?’ I croaked. ‘Mycroft, this blood on my hands...’

“‘I see your acting career has not dulled your taste for histrionics. (You have a bit of stage paint on your ear, and I saw the playbills in your room.)’

“I rose unsteadily, and with some vague notion of fleeing I blundered past him towards the door. He reached up his broad hand before my chest, and I stopped, defeated.

“It was unbearable—this coldness, dissecting my pain, this familiar and loved, witness to my disgrace.

“‘You do not need to do this, Sherlock.’ I was close to screaming. ‘As the act was justified, I see no reason—’

“‘How do you know?’ I demanded. My voice was rising uncontrollably. Mycroft observed, contemplated, and docketed the rising tide as it drowned me. He rose and took me by the elbows. I took another swallow from the glass in my hand. ‘How do you know it was justified? You were not there, and for all your damned perceptiveness, you have no idea what happened!’

“Mycroft guided me to the bed and pushed me down so that I sat on the edge of it, then knelt before me. ‘My dear boy,’ he said. ‘I know that if you did not have good reason to believe it right, you would not have done it.’ The cold, lazy eyelids lifted a little, and for the only time in his life that I am aware of, Mycroft looked kind.

“It was too much. Kindness from Mycroft was too much. What confusion, morphine, whiskey, two years of panicked fleeing and the blackest thing I could contemplate had left of the rational, reasoning part of my brain shut down and I found myself, after a moment of blankness, face down on the bed, sobbing. Dimly, I felt the glass taken from my hand and heard it clink as it was set on the table, then the bed creaked and sagged as Mycroft sat down beside me. I felt the weight of his broad hand on the back of my head. We remained thus for many hours, I sobbing uncontrollably, Mycroft motionless with his hand on my hair.

“Whatever your opinion of my brother may be, Watson, know that in his life he has done at least one kind thing.”

Holmes stopped and glanced at me, then looked away with a scowl, less, I think, because of any reaction of mine than because he had simply become wrapped up in his story and had said more than he had meant to.

“There is not much left to tell,” he continued gruffly. “We discussed what to do with me. Mycroft had not telegrammed our parents yet, a heinous omission for which I was unspeakably grateful. It would have to be corrected shortly, of course, but at least I had a little while to think.

“They, of course, would want me to come home immediately, which I could not do. After considerable bargaining with Mycroft, we agreed that he would send a telegram, I would send a lengthy letter (I have always hated letters, but it was the lesser horror), and we would tell them that I would stay in London with Mycroft for a while, and study there the next term. In a month, when I was a little more prepared, I would go home to visit.

“Our parents would not be happy with this, we were well aware, but Mycroft generously offered to take the brunt of their fury and stand firm on our resolution. And he did it. I cannot imagine what they felt being told that, and I cannot imagine how much pressure was on him to turn me over to them, but he stood firm, and I was grateful.

“Living with Mycroft was something of an adjustment, as you can imagine. To go from not knowing where you will sleep from one night to the next to rooming with the most predictable and fastidious man in existence is not easy. I was granted leave to keep with the acting and the boxing, on the solemn promise that I would give up the morphine and large quantities of alcohol I had been consuming.

“I visited home when my month of respite expired, was greeted with surprisingly good grace, and left with my sanity and all my limbs intact. I went to a London school but stayed with Mycroft until I was old enough for University.

“I never saw most of my boarding school companions again. Moriarty, of course. And I met Bennett in Scotland Yard once a few years ago when I was waiting for Lestrade and he was being charged with petty larceny. We had some interesting reminiscences.

“And that’s all of it, really.”

Holmes looked at me quizzically, judging my reaction. I stared down at my hands, clasped and unclasped them a few times, then met his gaze, still trying to think what to say.

He raised his eyebrow with an amused air, but I thought I detected a little apprehension. “You have a sort of a shocked look on your face, Watson. I did tell you it was not the pleasantest of stories.”

“Not shocked at the deed, Holmes. For what it’s worth, I’ve agreed with Mycroft from first to last: if they had not been worthy actions, you would not have done them. I’m merely surprised beyond belief that you were willing to tell me all this.”

“Yes, well—” he began sardonically.

“Surprised,” I continued, “and very, very honored.”

Holmes opened his mouth to mock that, then closed it again, and smiled, with a look warmer than the streaks of sun that were beginning to creep over us from the east. Holmes’ shows of unguarded, genuine affection are rare and thus all the more precious to me, and this smile was one of them. I smiled back, and we sat in silence for a long moment, watching the wet grass lighten and warm.

Then Holmes leaped off the low wall with a little laugh and stretched his long, lithe figure in the pink glow of the lightening sky. “I think, Watson, since you don’t seem to think fit to turn me in to the police, breakfast and the early train back to London would be rather welcome now. What say you?”

I laughed and jumped down after him, and together we crossed the sparkling, dew-damp fields back to town.

The End