“Lestrade,” I ventured, “I cannot tell you how glad I have been of your presence, but I’m afraid we must leave at once. We have a great deal to report to Holmes, and I fear very much for the condition in which we are likely to find him.”

“Believe me, Dr. Watson, it has been heavy on my mind. I must return to Dutfield’s Yard, but I’ll leave you the cab. This night would have gone a sight differently had Mr. Holmes been here to the end. Next time our police commissioner takes it into his head to expunge a clue, I’d give fifty pounds to have Sherlock Holmes in my corner. I should be grateful if you would tell him so.” Lestrade tipped his hat to us both and strode off into the first brightening light of dawn.

It was then I noted that Miss Monk had grown singularly pale and drawn. I took her arm.

“Miss Monk, are you quite well?”

“It ain’t nothing to speak of, Doctor,” she replied. “Queer stroke of luck that led us to be so in the thick of it, but oh, Dr. Watson—did you ever in all your life even think on a deed so horrible as what he’s done?” She quickly hid her face in her hands.

“No, I have not,” I said quietly. “I feel just as you do, my dear. Get into the cab with me and I shall return you to your lodgings at once. You’ve found better ones, is that not so?”

“If you could drop me at Great Garden Street, Doctor, I’d be grateful. I’ve taken rooms there. Mr. Holmes will want to know everything, and make no mistake we’ll tell him plain what we saw, but not now. I couldn’t rightly bear it now.”

I shook my head as I helped her into the four-wheeler, searching for words of comfort, which rose to my lips and died there in mute sympathy. Miss Monk had been out all night in the cold, pursuing a creature whose great impulse was to brutally slay women exactly like her. She buried her head in the lapel of my greatcoat and we spent the short journey in silence. We soon reached her street, and I saw her to the door.

“You require complete rest for the remainder of the day. Come to Baker Street when you are able. I haven’t words to express my admiration for your courage, Miss Monk, and I know Holmes would say the same.” I left her, returning to the hansom heartsick and defeated as the first true rays of sunlight stole along the cracks of the paving stones.

I had hardly crossed the three shallow steps leading to our front door, nor breathlessly turned my key in the lock, when the door flew open to reveal Mrs. Hudson’s kind, familiar face, spectacles perched upon her head, and oddly done buttons upon her left sleeve.

“Oh, Dr. Watson!” she cried, grasping me by the shoulders. “When I think of what you must have been through! And Mr. Holmes! Seeing him as he was a few hours ago when he arrived here—oh, Dr. Watson, who has done this to him? He wouldn’t speak a word on the subject. I’ve only just finished scrubbing the blood from the kitchen.” The brave woman then dissolved into a brief sob of long-suppressed tears.

“Mrs. Hudson, you shall know all about it,” I returned swiftly, taking her hand. “But first, tell me, is Holmes in any danger?”

“I can’t say, Doctor. I was awoken in the night by a terrible banging. When I saw Mr. Holmes, I thought he had lost his key, but he leaned on the doorframe in such a peculiar way, his arm tied up in black rags, that I knew something was terribly wrong. I let him in at once, but he had hardly walked two steps before he fell against the balustrade and looked up the stairs to your rooms as if they were the side of a mountain. He said, ‘Kitchen, Mrs. Hudson, with your permission,’ and once inside, he fell straight into a chair. ‘Go at once and fetch a doctor,’ he said, in that masterful way of his. ‘Watson cannot be the only one in the neighbourhood. There is that chap at two twenty-seven—mass of dark hair, boots thrice mended, coming in and out and leaving a trail of iodoform—knock him up, if you will be so kind.’ Then he leaned his head back in a kind of faint. I was in such a panic at leaving him that I sent the pageboy instead, and Billy soon enough came back with the fellow. His name is Moore Agar, and he is indeed a doctor. Between them they took Mr. Holmes to his room. Billy has been up and down the stairs four times to fetch the water I heated. But that was hours ago, and Dr. Agar has not come down at all.”

I took the seventeen steps up to our sitting room two at a time and found a tall, handsome, round-featured young man with a determined jaw, a generous shock of wavy brown hair, and deeply set, thoughtful brown eyes checking our mantelpiece clock against his watch. He was dressed as a perfect gentleman in dark tweeds, and I noted an elegantly styled bowler hat thrown carelessly upon the settee, but the elbows and knees of his garments had worn nearly through, and the edges of the hat were beginning to fray. He looked up at my hurried entrance.

“Dr. Moore Agar at your service,” he said earnestly. “I had the honour of stitching up your friend in the next room. He has lost a considerable amount of blood, I am afraid, but I believe he will come out of it all right.”

“Thank God for that.” I exhaled in relief, collapsing into the nearest chair. “That is the very first piece of good news I have had this night. Forgive my exhaustion, Dr. Agar, but I have been taxed in every way possible. Mrs. Hudson tells me we are neighbours.”

“And so we are! I am quartered a mere two doors down. I am just beginning in practice, which is a black mark against me, but you will corroborate my findings, no doubt, and ensure that all will be well with your friend. You are the celebrated Mr. Holmes’s physician, Dr. Watson, no doubt?”

“Merely his biographer. Sherlock Holmes is elaborately uninterested in the state of his own health,” I replied, warmly grasping the hand before me.

Dr. Agar laughed. “It is of no surprise to me,” he replied. “Men of genius are often cavalier about physical trifles. This injury could hardly be termed trifling, however. No fear of muscular impairment, but the tissue damage is quite extensive and the blood loss, as you know, severe.”

“My friend will be very grateful.”

“Mr. Holmes has no reason to be. Perhaps when you have both recovered, you can relate to me more of these extraordinary circumstances, but for now I will leave you in peace. I have injected morphine, but if it is convenient to you, Doctor, I’ll not leave any of my own supplies behind. I imagine you have access to fresh bandaging and so forth; poverty compels me to be rude. Or practicality has trounced my manners. Whichever it may be, I apologize. A better morning to you, Dr. Watson,” the young physician said as he saw himself out and down the stairs.

I made my way quietly into Holmes’s bedroom, where I was peered at malevolently from every angle by the images of infamous criminals carelessly tacked to the walls. My friend, though deathly pale, was breathing regularly and at last, blessedly, unconscious. I swung the door to but did not shut it and returned downstairs for a soothing word with Mrs. Hudson. Then finally, retrieving a quilt from my bed and a generous glass of brandy from the sideboard, I made my home on the sofa within easy call and fell asleep just as the sunlight poured over the windowsills and struggled to flood the room in defiance of the closely drawn curtains.

CHAPTER ELEVEN Mitre Square

When I awoke, I was startled to discover that it was nearly night once more. I sat up groggily and beheld at my feet a tray, laden with a few meats and a cup of cold broth, which did wonders for my state of mind. Supposing my own exhaustion had prompted me to sleep through the day, I at once chastised myself for failing to look in on Holmes. Peering into his chamber, I was comforted by the presence of a candle and another tea tray, partially used, and evidently provided by the conscientious Mrs. Hudson. I made my way upstairs in hopes a wash and change of clothes would restore my energy, but upon my finishing, the dizzy ache in my head revisited me with a vengeance. I tended to Holmes’s bandages and then collapsed once more upon the sofa in hopes that we both would be capable of more upon the morrow.