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The sun beats down on both of us; the July sky in the south of France is like a Delft-blue bowl. We are in our shirtsleeves, the pair of us, scandalously and shamelessly underdressed. The heavy hot smell of the grapes and vines surround me and my lover, as if we were re-enacting a scene from a Shakespeare comedy. I laughingly tell Holmes that he must be Beatrice to my Benedick; in reply he retorts “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me,” as he twists off a great dangling clump of heavy purple grapes, sun-warmed and sweet as he presses them to my mouth. The look in his grey eyes is warmer than the sun; his mouth is sweeter than the fruit.
A cascade of freezing, foul water douses me in my cramped quarters, drenching my entire body; my aching ribs grate like ice-floes as my entire body shivers, knives of pain in my side. The sun-drenched vineyard disappears like a tattered cloud of smoke.
“Toff! You still alive in there?” Coarse laughter from the ringleader’s compatriots.
I open the one eye not swollen from blows and return to what is real in my world now. A chill, dank cellar; darkness; solitude; pain. I am cramped into a tiny hole, knees to my chin; the only thing that passes through the grate overhead is the air that I breathe. No cuffs nor manacles are needed in this cell.
Oubliette. Such a little word to denote such a horrific form of medieval torment. A hole in which prisoners were thrown, and forgotten. Someone’s great old house – complete with dungeon – had fallen into ruin, had seen a foul little neighborhood slum grow up around it, provided a breeding ground for savage predators. My captors have graciously provided a cell smaller than my grave will be. Pray it not be that as well.
At least two of my ribs are broken from the beating I endured trying to avoid capture, and much more of this freezing water will mean pneumonia and a terrible death. No, my dear, I silently pledge to the keeper of my heart. Not this way, not by the likes of these creatures. I will not leave you until you give the order.
Blinking, teeth locked both to prevent chattering and unmanly pleas for mercy, I wait for more from my captors.
How I got here is a sadly prosaic tale. I was tending to some patients in one of the sad little slums in which live many of our Baker Street Irregulars, and foolishly stayed till dusk. A large gang took note of my gentleman’s clothing, and waited till I was alone before jumping me. I laid enough of them low, but their numbers were against me – one lion beset by a score of pariah dogs will be pulled down at the end.
Unfortunately my friend’s fame is a double-edged sword. The thugs only laughed coarsely when I angrily identified myself and my associate: “Yeh, right, toff, and I’m the Crown Prince,” sneered their ringleader as his gang pushed and pulled me toward their lair. “You’re the third bloke we’ve nabbed this month swore ‘is best friend was Sherlock ‘Olmes and we’d catch it now.”
I am afraid my ‘pawky humour’ got the better of me, combined with my contempt for my captors. “Are you completely unaware,” I said through gritted teeth against the pain of my injuries, “of the story of the shepherd boy who cried ‘Wolf’? One of these days the man you nab will be a friend of Sherlock Holmes, and that day is today. Look in my Gladstone bag – my cards are in there!”
Another of the brutes, a red-haired youth with eyes frighteningly blank of all human sentiment, shrugged and grinned, displaying perhaps six decent teeth remaining. “Took the drugs and dumped the rest, guv.”
Oh you idiots, I wisely did not say. Yet at the same time there was a faint stirring of hope. A discarded doctor’s bag in this neighborhood – in good condition, well- stocked, and helpfully carrying my identification – would be sure to catch the eye of someone looking for a reward, or even an Irregular who’d know exactly who to contact.
Into this pit I went, unable to bite back a cry of pain as my ribs shifted and grated. I was forced to draw myself up, knees to chin, to get in, and heard the sound of an iron padlock. “Give you an hour in there by yerself, toff, and maybe you’ll do as we ask,” the leader said. “Or maybe we leave you alone in there to starve. Cheerio.”
Then I was alone in the dark, with only my pain for company, and panic rising at the thought of this premature burial. No. No, what I had that they could not control was my thoughts and reaction to this. And now I had to calm my breathing or the agitation would hurt me even more – and might lead to suffocation if I constricted my lungs.
So I had returned to that French vineyard where Holmes and I had spent a holiday that was like a lover’s dream, a few months after we had declared our true sentiments toward each other. In a reality of cold, dark and pain I conjured a blazing sun in the bloom of love. My heart slowed; my breathing steadied as I took phantom fruit from my phantom lover’s hand.
Gone again – and now I was doused as if under Reichenbach’s bitter snowmelt.
“Right, toff. Now tell us, if you don’t want to spend the night in there. Tell us who can pay for your freedom.”
A kidnapping? They were a ransom gang?
Hol- no, they wouldn’t listen. Nor Mycroft. Lestrade – oh, a policeman, brilliant Watson. The pain and seeping cold was making it hard for me to think. Think, dammit!
“Mrs. Hudson,” I gasp. “My char. She’ll contact someone at my bank.” If she doesn’t yank a claymore off the wall of the British Museum and charge after me in Holmes’ wake, fire in her eyes, to free her fellow Scot.
“Ha! Your char?” another lad guffaws. “The old bat will drink half your money away if we tell ‘er, and scarper with the other half!” Even through the pain, I clearly picture Holmes deducing that this young man’s mother is exactly such a charwoman.
“So who’ll cough up? Give us a name!” The ringleader snarls. “A real one this time, or you bloody die in there.”
Cold. So cold now. I have forgotten what being warm feels like. Harder to think. I am shaking. If I spend the night here I will die of the cold.
Mary. Will I see you sooner than I wished, my love, and leave my other love behind? Go to him, she’d whispered in my heart, that night when I faced him not long after my return to Baker Street, and told him everything – to find that his courage and resolution was my match, for he’d waited for me to come to him. My Mary, to whom her friends had flocked like birds to a lighthouse, such as the night Isa Whitney –
Isa Whitney!
“Isa Whitney!” I gasped, biting back my pain. “Isa Whitney!” The name said, the home location followed. Isa and his wife were respectable enough to vouch for me; they’d know who to go to.
“If they go to the police we kill you,” the leader said grimly, after sending his lieutenants with the message.
Police. Indeed not.
I huddled, shaking, trying in vain to conjure France like a frantic man blowing on a damp piece of wood to kindle a fire. Now to see if I’d live long enough for help to come.