A
Study In Satin
by Tigger
Holmes' first challenge was clothing himself. Nothing in his
austere personal wardrobe remotely fit him anymore. Although his
loss of stature was not so much as to preclude him passing as an
adult (albeit a very young adult), the reduction was sufficient
to draw undesired attention to him were he to appear so attired
in public. The cut of the arms of his coats and the legs of his
trousers were obviously too long for his new frame. His
waistcoat was now unfashionably loose about his torso and fell
several inches below his waist. His day-wear hats, he
discovered, looked patently ridiculous on his markedly smaller
head.
*What does that indicate about the measure of my brain?!?* he
wondered in horror as he stared at the reflection of his famous
deerstalker riding low on his forehead, nearly covering his eyes.
Yet another effort of will set that fear aside and Holmes focused
on the problem at hand. "What I need is a messenger," Holmes
mused. "Unfortunate that I have not kept contact with my Baker
Street Irregulars . . . WAIT! Bloody Hell, that's IT!"
Animated by the inspiration, Holmes was shortly examining himself
in his mirror. A pair of old work trousers had been shortened
and strategically holed using a rough hand and a pair of
scissors. A piece of manilla hemp replaced the necessary belt
and held the pants in place. His disguise drawer had given up a
rough seaman's shirt and a leather vest that hung on him, but
served his needs well enough. A ratty, oversized knit beret hung
over his eyes effectively masking his features. For shoes he
wore a pair of decrepit work boots that threatened to slip off
his feet. Coal black from the now cool fireplace dirtied his
features and made him look even more the street orphan that he
wished to portray.
It would work, he thought with a touch of satisfaction, this
time, in any case. He would need better in the future, however.
He'd have to visit a few of his disguise apartments and collect
the raw materials - including his sewing kit. If he had any hope
of presenting and adult appearance, he'd need to alter his
clothing. That would be time consuming, but he'd need at least
one suitable set of attire before he could call upon the pawn and
second hand shops to complete his wardrobe. The proprietors of
those establishments would likely consider a lad such as Holmes
now saw in his glass to be a thief and would show him the door
rather quickly and rather forcefully.
Another thought struck Holmes. He frowned as he tried to find a
suitable argument against that particular course of action, but
found none. He'd go to his special apartments and collect his
few feminine disguises, too. And he would go to the pawns and
second-hand shops for women as well.
"DAMN your black soul to HELL, Moriarty," Holmes snarled, and
then strode to the servants' quarters and the back door of the
Baker Street apartment. Moments later, he returned to his study.
Holmes found what he wanted and quietly slipped into the grimy
back alley.
~------------~
The trip to the chemist took somewhat longer than Holmes had
anticipated primarily because he chose to remain in the shadows
of London's many back streets and alleyways. This disguise would
be noticeably out of place on the busy lanes of a well-to-do
neighborhood. That could draw unnecessary and potentially heated
attention. The very last thing Holmes needed was a confrontation
with some outraged middle class merchant or worse, one of
Scotland Yard's finest. The thought of attempting to explain
himself to some contemporary edition of Inspector LaStrade made
him shudder.
Holmes arrived at the chemist just as Big Ben was tolling the
hour. He stayed in the shadows of a building across the way,
waiting for the blinds to open, the "closed" sign to be taken
down and the proprietor to unlock the front door.
Thirty minutes later he was still waiting. A frisson of anxiety
curled in Holmes' chest as he considered the possibilities.
Quickly, he made his way to the back of the small storefront shop
and located its delivery entrance. Holmes carefully tested the
latch and found the door unlocked. Silently, Holmes pushed the
door open and slipped inside.
He didn't notice a fine gossamer thread breaking as the door
finished its opening swing.
The back of the shop was deserted, but a dim, thin arc of light
directed Holmes to the connecting door into the public areas of
the establishment. Holmes abandoned stealth and moved into the
main shop where he found precisely what his instincts had
anticipated.
The body of the chemist lay in a heap behind the service counter,
an oval of well coagulated, rusty red blood about him. He'd
obviously been dead for some time. *Moriarty must have visited
him immediately after leaving my lodgings. And while *I* was
wallowing in emotion, Professor Moriarty was dealing with this
man,* Holmes thought. "DAMN me for a FOOL!"
A closer examination of the body revealed a cheap, brown envelope
pinned to the man's watch fob. Careful not to step into the
sticky blood, Holmes reached over and retrieved the envelope.
Holmes opened it and was not surprised to find it addressed to
him.
My Dear Holmes,
You are, sadly, too late. Not that
preventing my little murder of the chemist
would have assisted you in any substantive
manner. Our dear departed friend only brewed
the potion for me using herbs and ingredients
I supplied. You won't find any of the
necessary compounds here, or anywhere else in
this hemisphere.
Did you really think it would be so simple,
old enemy? For all you are more than half
female, you are still Holmes, and I, for all
my advanced years and physical infirmities,
am still Moriarty. With each passing day,
the hatred that burns in my breast for you
grows ever hotter and my need to bring about
your death grows ever more intense. However,
more than your death, I want your suffering.
Soon, all too soon for you, the withdrawal
will begin, and you will suffer, Holmes, you
will suffer terribly. And the mental
suffering - the knowledge of what is
happening and that I have caused it - will
far outweigh the physical torment.
Eventually, Holmes, even your iron will begin
to erode and crumble before the onslaught,
and you will seek the only relief this life
might still offer you - oblivion.
Thus I win at last. The hand that takes your
life will be your own, Holmes, not mine so
the foul Fate which denies me taking your
life is satisfied.
Live long and suffer terribly, Holmes, and in
the end, endure the total ignominy of your
final, greatest failure even as you end your
own pathetic existence. We could have been
great together had you but chosen to follow
me as I offered all those many years ago.
Now, I alone will live and, finally freed of
your meddlesome presence, will achieve my
great destiny.
At last.
M.
Rage burned at the back of Holmes' tightly shut eyelids, but all
to soon his fury gave way to a rush of despair. He'd lost. Even
if the chemist actually had the herbs, Holmes did not know what
those were or where they were kept. Nor did he know how to
prepare the infusion. All he had between him and Moriarty's
promised torment was three days supply.
Perhaps he should just give up now. Hadn't he already intended -
ATTEMPTED - to end his life? Why not simply do the deed and be
done with it?
"Because Moriarty is alive," Holmes growled, "And so long as
there is breath in his body and mine, and so long as I have the
slightest grip on my mental faculties, I will oppose Moriarty in
every way, in any way available to me." Holmes carefully
smoothed the now-crumpled piece of foolscap paper in his hand and
quickly reread the letter. "Moriarty has the right of it in at
least one area. I am still Holmes and he is still Moriarty.
There will yet be a reckoning. Somehow, there will be a final
reckoning between us."
Holmes made a quick survey of the room, looking for any clues. A
sulphurous black smudge on a nearby wall pointed to the likely
position of the murderer when the fatal shot was fired. Muddy
boot prints indicated that the killer's point of entry was also
from the rear of the building. Holmes examined those prints and
was surprised to find they did not match with the fashionable
footwear favored by Professor Moriarty. The prints were larger,
and their wear pattern was uneven. The left foot print was fully
formed whereas the right seemed somewhat elongated in the toe.
Another anomaly was that the right heel did not fully contact the
floor except for the prints closest to the powder mark, facing
the counter where the chemist met his end. All of which seeded
to indicate a murderer with a distinctly uneven gait - like a
limp. But Moriarty, bent with age though he'd obviously been, had
not limped.
Holmes stood idly considering those facts when his eyes strayed
to the apothecary's wall of bottles behind the counter.
Suddenly, his mind slipped back to the last day he'd seen the
chemist alive. Holmes famous eidetic memory vividly
reconstructed the picture of the shop owner reaching up to . .
"That very bottle!" Holmes cheered.
Scrambling up onto the counter, Holmes reached up and pulled down
a large, nearly empty amber bottle. The handwritten label read
"Mr. Holmes Cocaine Solution" The preparation date was a mere two
days before Holmes had arrived for his final, supposedly fatal
package.
Holmes removed the stopper and sniffed delicately at the open
bottle. The slightly acrid scent of cocaine was not evident. In
fact, what little odor that was in evidence was very subtle,
almost undetectable and unlike anything in Holmes' long years of
investigative experience. "Herbs," Holmes muttered, "Moriarty
said it was brewed from herbs."
Carefully, Holmes restoppered the bottle and slipped down from
the counter. *Amazing,* he thought, *to be so nimble again. If I
successfully discover a means to blunt the final agonies of this
withdrawal, this youthful suppleness may provide me some small,
as yet undetermined advantages. However, I have not lost all my
masculine strength yet, either. One cannot expect a female to be
this strong or supple.*
Holmes pulled the door behind him as he left, remembering that
while closed, the door had not been locked when he entered.
However, there was no way he could have realized it had
previously been closed with delicate precision. The pressure he
used to ensure the door was seated properly was enough to crush a
tiny ball of acid lodged in the doorframe.
That acid, though minuscule in itself, started a chain of events
that had most dramatic results. A deafening explosion shattered
the pre-noon bustle of the block as the front of the chemist shop
went up in a huge fireball that rapidly enveloped the two stores
immediately on either side.
The concussion's impact threw the unprepared Holmes to the ground
where only blind fate had prevented him from landing on and
shattering the precious apothecary bottle.
"And so the game is once more afoot," Holmes said as he watched
the flames spread up and down the square. Dispassionately, he
watched as men and women who'd been caught in the blast rolled
upon the muddy street to quench flames that licked at their
clothing. Other bodies simply lay where they'd fallen, their
motionless grim testimony to the fury of the initial explosion.
Holmes felt something burn at his eye, and he raised his free
hand to bat away the tears that began to flow. "He must be
stopped," Holmes whispered in an oddly ragged voice, "and in all
of his infernal career, only I have ever succeeded in that
endeavor. So be it."
Holmes resolutely turned his back on the now fully developed
conflagration. There was nothing more he could accomplish here,
but there was a great deal he could accomplish elsewhere. These
men and women would have justice, he swore to himself, even if
they never knew the how or why of it. In the confusion and
tumult of the out of control blaze, no one noticed one ill-
clothed boy disappearing into the shadows.
Holmes was nearly to the back door of his Baker Street rooms when
a large hand locked onto his thin shoulder. "'ere now, and where
do ye think yer goin', me fine lad?"
The powerful hand spun his thin frame and Holmes found himself
facing a huge, filthy man clad in the rough clothes of a London
dockworker. His face had seen rough handling - several scars and
missing teeth attested to years of hard living and fighting. A
nearly overwhelming stench of human waste, bad rum and cooked
onions emanated from man, nearly causing Holmes to wretch. "Oi
think Oi asked ye a question, runt."
Swallowing hard and trying to look frightened. "I'm runnin'
errands for the housekeeper here," he gasped out. "She sent me
to the doctor's for some potion for her master." He held up the
bottle, but then became afraid the bounder might think it
something that might fetch him a copper or two. "She tells me
tis a frightful wicked physic, as the old man she works for can't
seem to do it fer 'imself natural anymore."
"Well, ye listen ter me, youngin', and ye might manage ter grow
into a man someday. I'm here for a fine young gennulman."
"Ye wants to talk ter this gennulman, sa'ar?" Holmes asked, very
deferentially.
"No, runt, Oi want's ter grab 'im. Mother Hell over on the docks
will pay five guineas in silver for such a fine, tender little
pullet for her whorehouse as some of her customers like it that
way, ya see? Oi been told there'd be jest such a one for the
'avin' at this 'ere place if'n Oi was to wait real patient-like -
nice an' skinny, with pretty skin and hair."
"I ain't seen the like of that, sa'ar." Holmes quavered.
"Well, ye'll keep yer eyes open and yer mouth shut, lessen ye
wants me to close both for yer real permanent like. Ya got that,
boy?" Holmes swallowed hard to keep from vomiting in the man's
pockmarked face and managed to nod his acquiescence. "Good.
Oi'll be around, laddie. Yer see anythin', ye'll be tellin' Old
Ned, and Oi might just give ye a coin for it. 'Course, ye don't
tell me, and Oi find out?" He shoved Holmes to the ground and
turned back to leave the alley. "But then, ye'll be tellin' me
so there's no need to go into that."
Holmes watched the man walk away. Only later, back in the
relative safety of his room, did the great detective recall that
his assailant had walked with a pronounced limp that forced him
to drag his right foot.
