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That morning I spent a lot of time trying to settle on a flower for my boutonniere. It was St. George's day, but I found that a customary red rose gave me an air of pretentiousness; I tried a formal white carnation next, but, combined with my tired expression, all it did was make me look like I was attending a funeral.
I looked at the mirror with some hostility. Looking back at me was a drab retired soldier with an awkwardly stiff left leg. In truth, there wasn't much flowers could do to improve that appearance. I gave up and settled on a small lily of the valley. Unfortunately, I did not quite remember what these looked like, and I suspected the eventual result was somewhat botanically dubious.
Finishing my morning dress, I masked my limp, smoothed the creases on my jacket, and – something I could never quite refrain from – put a small golden anchor on my right sleeve. Of course, I would not go out like this; I wouldn't even permit Mrs Hudson to see me with it. But just for a moment, I could give myself an air of charm and romance, and imagine the distant seas raging all round me as I made my way to foreign shores.
"Ah, my dear Watson! Good morning!" I heard a voice. Startled, I clapped a hand over my anchor like a guilty child. Of course, it was Holmes – confound him and his catlike tread.
He surveyed my appearance with curiosity, his dark eyes sparkling merrily. He was, I could see, in a remarkably good mood.
"Your lily of the valley is all wrong," he remarked. "You and your colourful imagination, Watson! If only you put as much effort into studying the underlying mechanisms of the art of illusions as you do into creating them, your accounts of our adventures would be quite the educational reading for the general public."
"Good morning, Holmes," I replied somewhat coolly. Sensing, of course, that I had taken offence, he spread his hands pacifically and offered a beguiling smile.
"I only came to tell you that Mrs Hudson is about to serve breakfast," said he. "What do you think about a serving of porridge with blackberry jam, Captain?"
Unable to be angry with him any longer, I laughed and nodded. We quickly descended the stairs to the drawing room.
Naturally, it was all beyond Holmes' understanding. The man himself despised the idea of illusions and never used any – save for his intricate disguises. I, on the other hand, had done more than my fair share of formal learning, if not quite in the way Holmes meant it. Our regiment in Kandahar had to stand ground against a few powerful enemy illusionists, and, of course, we tried to put up as many defence illusions as we could. It was not a time I particularly wished to remember, or a power I had any desire to reawaken.
We'd had our porridge and went out for a short walk along the boating lake in the Regent's Park. I'd have to see a few patients later in the day, and Holmes was planning to work on the latest of his oddly specific treatises, but otherwise it was not a busy day. There was no particular goal to our walk other than to spend time in each other's company. Besides, Holmes delighted in pointing out to me all the minute details that betrayed the nature of the illusions surrounding us.
"Would you know, my boy," he'd say, "half of that gentleman's hair only exists in his imagination. Notice how the wind doesn't ruffle it?"
"What a shame," I'd laugh, "because that is a remarkably tasteless hairstyle. I imagine he could do better with his own hair."
Some of his observations were very amusing; some – sad or even unsettling.
"That man isn't real," he once told me calmly. Incredulous, I looked at what appeared to me to be a perfectly normal elderly gentleman walking hand in hand with a young girl in a crumpled black dress. I spotted a couple of medals attached to the thick chequered fabric of his frock. His lips under the light ginger moustache curled in a sad half-smile.
"Come now, Holmes," said I, "surely-"
"Oh, the level of detail is admirable," he interrupted. "But look at him when she turns away. Why, he stops breathing."
I shuddered and averted my eyes involuntarily. It felt, for a moment, as though I were intruding upon something very personal.
Holmes laid a firm hand on my shoulder and we walked on.
"You'd be surprised how many people do this," he said gently. "And not all of these ghosts are those of the dead."
Indeed, such walks with him often made me feel like a part of a ghostly world. So many things around us had no reality but that created by imagination that one had to doubt one's own existence.
But at least the gentle April air, the smell of wet earth, and the delicate colours of the surrounding nature felt real enough to me. As did the sensation of Holmes' wiry arm linked through mine.
"Mr 'Olmes, Mr 'Olmes!" called someone. I snapped out of my reverie. We were rounding the corner from York Gate to York Terrace, and someone was running towards us, his footsteps heavy against the cobbles. I shielded my eyes from the sun with one hand and could make out a black helmet with a shining silvery star. It was a young police constable, and the next moment we knew, he caught up with us and hastily shoved something into Holmes' hand.
"From Inspector Lestrade, sir," blurted the constable. He evidently had to suppress the urge to throw his hand up in a salute; but finally he settled for awkwardly scratching his neck instead.
Holmes nodded at him benevolently and unfolded the note. As he read on, a cold shadow came over his face; he knitted his brow, crumpled the paper into a ball, and stuffed it into his pocket.
"Tell Lestrade to come meet me with a few of his men," said he. "Come, Watson. We need to get back to Baker Street."
"You haven't had a case in a while," remarked I quietly as we hurried along Marylebone Road. "I'd have expected you to be delighted to get one. This must be a disturbing message indeed."
"The whole of Huntsworth Mews is overrun with illusions. One man has already lost his life. And considering the sheer scope of the incident, I am sure these illusions will prove to be slightly more... real than what we're used to seeing. The man behind them must be a natural."
"I thought all illusions can be seen through," I said. "Don't you always say that there's no perfection for one who looks closely?"
"I do," he winced. "And what a damn arrogant fool I am. Oh, Watson, perfection is rare, but it's real enough."
"Good God, but what does he want?"
Holmes shook his head.
"I don't know." He swung the door open and ascended the stairs in a few jumps. I caught up with him a few seconds later; he was standing in the middle of the drawing room, feverishly ransacking the drawers of his bureau. I looked out of the window, trying to locate Lestrade's police cab.
"Should I bring my revolver, Holmes?"
The noises behind my back abruptly stopped.
"What?"
I turned to him. He was looking straight at me, clutching a light beige folder. The look in his eyes was a little wild.
"I've never had to deal with something like this before," I said with some hesitation. "So I don't know if a revolver would be useful against him."
"You were intending to come with me, then?" he asked quickly. "This is out of the question."
"What nonsense." I laughed a little. "You won't get rid of me this easily."
"You will die."
That gave me pause. In that moment I started to perceive that he was serious, and a feeling of unease settled in my stomach. I offered a somewhat forced smile.
"I'll take the risk."
"I do not think you understand," Holmes said flatly. "This is not a risk – it is a certainty."
I looked at him just in time to register something flicker and shimmer around his temples. His expression was calm enough, but in that moment I saw that that expression wasn't his. It was an illusion, and one sustained through a great effort of will – a mask of indifference covering what I suddenly realized was pain.
"Holmes!" I said, troubled.
"I beg of you not to go." His voice was strained. "Watson, I have been disrespectful of your talents. In truth, they can be an enormous force. But they won't help you against someone of the same inclination. You're too... susceptible.
"Would anything convince you to stay?"
I was at such a loss I could hardly begin to answer. With any other, I would've embraced and comforted him; but this was Holmes, a proud man if ever I knew one, and even under those circumstances I was afraid he might take offence.
Holmes must've taken my silence to mean hesitation. What followed did not make my position any easier.
He lowered himself from his improbable height all the way down to the floor and knelt in front of me.
"Would this?" he asked. The mask he had conjured was in a deplorable state, all distorted and transparent, and beneath its blind eyes I could see Holmes' own.
I felt my heart break. Something in me was screaming that this was wrong, wrong, and I felt such a sharp sense of humiliation on his behalf that I'd have sunk to the floor myself if I couldn't stop him from kneeling.
Awkwardly I rushed to raise him up. My bad leg very nearly gave way, and I imagine it was an otherwise all around laughable scene.
"Holmes," I repeated, foolishly. He didn't move away, and I could feel that his breathing was heavy and uneven.
"I apologize," he said. "I had to investigate something like this before. It's not an experience one readily forgets. I apologize."
"I will not go," I promised, and drew him closer to spare him the need to hide his face. "This is quite all right. I will merely accompany you and Lestrade to Huntsworth. You needn't fear – you needn't."
There was a sharp knock at the door. It must've been Lestrade with the cavalry, and for once I inwardly cursed their timing. But there was nothing to be done, and Holmes and I both stepped back.
I avoided looking at his expression.
"Let us go, then," I said, smiling disarmingly, and spread my hands. "I am not taking my revolver."
"No, do," he objected sharply, and whirled around to grab the revolver from the edge of the desk where it had sat. He then came close to me and put it into my hands in a fairly no-nonsense manner. I could see that he was starting to regain his composure. Something gleamed in his bird eyes, betraying the quick movement of his thought, rather like sparks from rapidly spinning cogs.
We descended the stairs and were, indeed, greeted by a rather drawn-looking Lestrade. He silently pointed in the direction of a black police carriage.
"Thank God you came, Holmes," said he, as we settled down on the hard leather seats. I heard a sharp crack of the whip, a clucking sound, and then we were off at a remarkable speed in the direction of Huntsworth Mews.
Truth to be told, I had my own reasons to be worried about this particular incident. The place was only a few miles away, and some of my patients came from that vicinity. In fact, one of them lived on the very street – a young lad by the name of Miles Baxter, a red-headed merchant's son.
And then, of course, I did not particularly cherish the idea of letting Holmes go in there alone, even if I could agree that he was far more suited for the task than I.
"What is it, exactly, that you're planning to do in there?" I asked him.
"There are a few feasible measures," he answered lively. He was flexing his long fingers. "I expect these illusions cannot be visually distinguished from reality. But there's the matter of probability. It is unlikely the author put a lot of effort into creating elaborate physical traps when he can simply lure you into whatever deadly position he wishes. Therefore, I will ignore most seemingly life-threatening objects or people in my way.
"I am well familiar with the topography, so he won't be able to simply make me jump into a well or off a roof. With luck, I am confident I can make it through.
"And when I find him, well, then I'll apprehend him, of course."
Not that I was particularly reassured by the plan itself, but I believed him well enough. He may have not liked illusions too much, but he took to them like a duck to water. I did not envy whomever was behind the Huntsworth incident.
The cab came to a halt. We jumped out of it and found ourselves face to face with a dozen sorry-looking folk standing gathered on the edge of the quarter. In their midst, stretched out on the rough pavement, I could make out something covered with an unclean bedsheet.
"Anthony Murray," supplied Lestrade in a subdued voice.
"Where was he found?" I asked, making a few steps towards the body. The crowd silently made way for me.
"He walked out of there," someone said loudly. I turned a little and saw a stately bearded man with a stern expression. He waved his big hand, pointing something out. "From behind that shed yonder. He walked and fell."
At last I raised my eyes and looked at what was behind those poor people, only a hundred yards or so away – that thing that made Holmes fear for my life so desperately. I looked at it and found that I wasn't afraid so much as mesmerized; there was a sense of wonder about that sight.
The familiar houses of Huntsworth Mews were mostly preserved, though I had a feeling that some of them hadn't been there before. Their chimneys morphed into something not unlike enormous dark trees and bushes, and that striking ethereal forest threw a deep shadow on the yards and roofs below.
The cobbles of the road vanished midway through the street, blending with a gravelly country road. A broad black river flowed out of nothingness and into nothingness, reflecting constellations of non-existent stars.
There was a dark, predatory beauty about that place. One got the impression that the more obvious elements of the illusion, those that anyone could identify as false, were little more than a ploy. The true danger lay in those parts of the street that looked almost as if nothing had changed.
Holmes made his way through the crowd and touched my forearm.
"How did he die?"
I uncovered the body. Rigor mortis had not yet set in, and I was able to carefully turn his head to one side. There was an ugly gush on the lower part of his cranium, one that had evidently severed his spinal column and caused instant paralysis and death.
"A blow to the head," murmured Lestrade.
"Yes," I agreed, "but not, I would wager, one inflicted by another human being. The thrust was made vertically upwards. This is an extremely bizarre and uncomfortable way to handle any weapon that could've caused this wound.
"This was an accident. He stumbled and fell onto something like a scythe or a part of a fence."
"Yes," Holmes said grimly, "but was it an accident?"
He took out his revolver and checked the chambers.
"I'll go, Inspector. Make sure that no one leaves."
With some hesitation I glanced at Lestrade and those standing around us, and then looked Holmes in the eye. Are you all right? I wanted to ask, but didn't quite dare.
He must've guessed something, however, because the smallest hint of a smile appeared on his pale lips, and his grip on my arm tightened. Not to worry, I read in his expression, and I like to think that I believed him.
Then he turned and swiftly walked down the road, stepping from the cobbles right into the wet gravel. I could see a gust of what I was unsure was real wind ruffle his black hair, and it was as though Huntsworth welcomed him inside.
I looked at his thin dark silhouette disappearing in the shadows. Soon I could make out nothing but a straight chain of footprints in the gravel.
On our side of the street, the weather was turning foul. The air was cold, and a few small raindrops were already making their way down Anthony Murray's face. I bent down and put the bedsheet back in its place to protect him from getting wet. Then I wrapped my own chequered cape around me and stood, leaning on my cane, in wait for my friend.
I don't know how long we had all spent there, standing in silence under the strengthening rain. My bad leg began to cramp and my clothes were heavy with water after a while. It was nearing noon.
But finally I heard someone shout my name.
"Doctor! Dr Watson!"
A man was running towards me, and with astonishment I realized that this was Miles Baxter Senior, the father of my Huntsworth patient. His appearance was fairly dishevelled, and a few bruises were darkening on his cheekbones and under his ginger sideburns.
He approached me and grabbed both of my arms.
"You have to come with me, Doctor," he blurted out. "You have to come help Miles. He's feverish and in delirium. I couldn't risk leading him out of there. Please!"
I took one look at Baxter's face and realized that I couldn't say "no". I remembered Holmes' pleading eyes and hoped to God that he would forgive me.
"Very well," I said, in a voice as calm and authoritative as I could make it. "But you are not coming. Stay here and wait. I'll go to Miles myself."
I could almost hear Holmes' voice in my head, berating me for being a fool – which was, to be sure, not a reproach I could entirely disagree with. But he had to – he would – understand that I had my own responsibilities, and that for some of my actions I was answerable only to my own consciousness.
It was, surprisingly, warmer in the other Huntsworth. A bush of peonies by the side of the road had been warmed by the hidden sun, and its sweet smell was dizzying. I came closer to it and stooped to touch its silky petals.
It was a strange feeling. My hands could pass through the flowers freely, but they weren't quite immaterial; touching them felt like touching foam or fairy floss.
The Baxters' house was a little under half a mile away – I could see it from where I stood. I did not yet know how long a journey this half a mile would prove to be.
Walking down that road was queer. I felt myself descending and ascending; here and there I would stumble across an invisible stairstep or have to open an invisible door. And yet as far as my vision was concerned, I was outside and the ground under my feet was perfectly flat. Remembering Holmes' talk of hidden wells and open windows, I began to progress more carefully; I felt the air in front of me like a blind man would. After this tactic spared me a few nasty surprises which made my forehead wet with cold sweat, I no longer looked at my surroundings with the same benevolent fascination. The new Huntsworth was someone's hunting grounds, and I was the prey.
It was all the more surprising when midway to my destination I came across what looked and felt like a perfectly normal yard. There was some straw strewn over the dry dusty ground; I thought I had heard a chicken clucking behind the mossy door of an old sty. And when I lifted my head, the sky, previously obscured by the chimney-trees, was open to my eyes and full of murky fast-flying clouds.
To my left, someone giggled softly.
"I thought they have all left!" a child's voice lisped. I turned and, after a moment of confusion, spotted a girl sitting on the ground. She was around seven years old and very grimy. The lace on her oversized grey dress was grimy also.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, coming closer. "It's not a safe place."
"I know." She raised her dark eyes at me, her expression abruptly sad. "You need to help me, mister. I caught me feet under the gate."
Indeed, I could see now that a part of her leg was stuck under the sagging gate of the sty, and from the looks of it, she was injured. I would've stepped forward at once, but fortunately, something stopped me. Perhaps it was the memory of Holmes pointing out to me the old gentleman who seemed to have no need of breathing.
The girl's face grew sadder.
"Will you not help me?" she asked quietly. "Please don't go away like the others. Please don't leave me here."
It occurred to me that if she was real, I may not have been the first person to doubt her existence and hesitate to save her. And I felt my heart clench so hard I found it hard to breathe.
Forcibly ignoring the urge to rush towards her, I carefully offered her the other end of my cane.
"If you want me to help you, you need to take this and hold it," I said, very gently.
Her lower lip shook, though she bit it hard. Her eyes were wet.
"Will you leave me?"
"Please hold this," I repeated stubbornly, closing my eyes. I don't know how much longer I would've held on. A couple more supplications from her, and I might've well forgotten about my own safety.
But I was spared any more of this ordeal. For Sherlock Holmes stormed out from behind the corner, caught both of my wrists and dragged me forcibly away. He stood between me and the sty.
"Holmes," I said, "Baxter pled with me- the girl-"
"There's no girl there," he interrupted, and I could feel his fingers stroke my forearm awkwardly as if in an attempt to soothe me. His face was ashen. "You're on the roof of a house, Watson. I found you on the edge, right above the yard of a local steel factory. It's a thirty-two feet-deep well littered with discarded metal.”
“That explains her unwillingness to touch my cane,” I huffed breathlessly. He gave me an unnatural thin-lipped smile.
“I’m sorry, Holmes,” I said at length, my voice low. “I broke my promise.”
“I understand,” he said equally quietly.
For a while we stood in silence. Holmes was evidently reluctant to let go of me, and he switched to holding the lapels of my coat, fingering one of them awkwardly.
“You’re heading to the Baxters’ house, then,” he said at last without looking at me. “I fear you may encounter something of an obstacle on your way there.”
We made our way to what Holmes claimed was the actual street and what looked to me like someone’s abandoned greenhouse. From there, it was only a few hundred feet to the house occupied by the Baxter family; but, as Holmes had so aptly put it, we immediately encountered “something of an obstacle”.
The closer we came to our destination, the darker it became. At last it was as though we found ourselves in the dead of night; and we were no longer alone. All around hid and crawled fantastical terrible creatures, glimpses of whom I caught every now and then. There went a large scarlet muzzle; here was an equally disproportionate blood-red claw; green eyes hung in the gloom before us like delicate glistening flower buds. I felt dizzied and disoriented.
Soon Holmes stopped.
“I cannot take you any farther,” he said. “I’m fairly sure the epicentre of the illusion is very close. But I cannot tell my way inside it nearly as well as I can in the rest of Huntsworth Mews.”
“I have to take care of Miles Baxter. If he’s in there, he may have already been killed.”
“And I have to take care of you,” he objected fiercely.
“You mean to imply that you would take the risk if you were alone,” I rolled my eyes. “Oh, Holmes, truly I am not the one in need of protection.”
B ut the problem was there, and I had no idea how to solve it. Holmes would not let me go; and even if he did, under the circumstances I had a slim enough chance of rescuing Miles. In some dismay I looked at the living darkness surrounding me, and it seemed that someone inside it laughed at my misfortune.
Holmes’ methods would not help me.
But could my own methods not be of assistance?
What lay before us was an illusion; someone forcing us to see the world a certain way. Could I, a decently talented illusionist, not un-see it? I had used my powers to gild reality and make it more interesting; my literary efforts, too, were illusions of sorts, worlds I had built to my liking. Could I not use the same skills to see things how they truly were?
There were some people who could do that. It is only that I had never dreamt of being one of them. I had thought, before that, that I could not reveal; only deceive.
“I’m going to try something,” I said. And at once I raised my hand to the sky, and a large translucent flame burst out above it, illuminating all around us starkly.
Gone was the darkness. Gone were the creatures crawling in it; within fifty feet from us, there were only the familiar cobbles of Huntsworth Mews, glistening with rainwater, and warm gleams from my flame danced all over them.
This was not quite the real world. I could see that my intervention had brought some changes to Huntsworth, as well. The road was strangely clean; here and there I could see young flowers growing through the cracks in the cobbles – primroses and meadowsweet, heart’s ease and catmint. Considering the season, this was patently ridiculous. But this was a stable, solid reality, and it permitted us to see our surroundings well enough.
“Watson,” Holmes said, stricken.
“Well, I believe this problem is solved, then,” said I. This was a fairly graceless statement of the rather obvious, but I didn’t know what else to say in response to his awed tone.
Not bothering with any more niceties, we all but burst into the Baxters’ house and ran upstairs. From the corner of my eye, I could see that beyond the range of my flame the illusions were getting worse. Something terrifying crawled and hissed all over that darkness, and I worried all the more about poor Miles’ state.
We entered his room and found him lying in his bed. He was motionless, and large beads of sweat glistened on his white face. His duvet heaved with his heavy, laboured breaths. But once the light of my flame fell on his form and chased away the illusions crawling around him, I saw his muscles relax; his expression grow more peaceful. It seemed that the presence of my new-found powers alone brought him relief, and I was happy of that, for I wasn’t sure that conventional medicine could be of adequate help.
I walked over to his side and knelt to examine him. His whole frame was trembling with fever, but his pulse was remarkably steady. On the whole, I did not think there was a danger to his life. The illusions must’ve exacerbated his condition; now that I kept them at bay, it became clear that Miles had a good chance of a quick recovery. The only tricky part was in getting him out of the new Huntsworth.
“Watson,” I heard Holmes’ voice behind my back. There was some urgency in his tone, and I turned to him at once, my hand still lying on Miles’ forehead.
At first I could not see what he was trying to call my attention to. The room seemed to me perfectly unchanged; it was quite as I remembered from all my previous visits to the Baxter family.
It was quite as I remembered.
The new Huntsworth was gone. There was no more darkness, only the calm twilight of a rainy evening. No one watched us from the corners, shunning my flame like an eclipse of unholy moths. Our surroundings looked reassuringly solid.
It was quite shocking. I felt like a man taken from a deafening crowd into a dark silent room.
“Do you know,” Holmes said slowly, “I believe that you’re tending to our culprit.”
I returned my attention to Miles. The change in his features was obvious. The longer I kept touching him, the less troubled, less ill he looked; indeed, there was almost a smile on his lips now.
“I never do get your limits, Watson,” said Holmes. “Every time I think I know everything about you, you show me something entirely unexpected.”
And he gave me a look of what I, over the years of my association with him, had come to term “a greatly affectionate scientific interest”.
“I don’t believe he did any of this on purpose,” I said. “These things must’ve been a product of his delirium. Miles has always been good at illusions, but… who would’ve thought he had this sort of powers?”
“For a mass murderer, he was remarkably ineffectual,” concurred Holmes. “Out of a street full of people, Anthony Murray was his only victim, and even his death was an accident. Of course, that illusion was a disturbing place, but so is any sick man’s mind.
“I did not think of this possibility, Watson. I remembered my… previous experience and thought that malice must behind this one. But I see no malice here. Only suffering.”
Holmes and I made it outside without much further trouble. He carried Miles Baxter in his arms; I walked ahead of him, holding the flame. I was cautious not to extinguish it, for I was afraid that the illusions might reappear.
It seemed, however, that that was an unnecessary precaution. Miles was in a stable enough condition; even when I dared leave him alone for a while, he did not relapse. I tended to him for a few days after that , and, quite as I had predicted, the boy made a speedy recovery.
I did, of course, puzzle over the question of how to prevent further incidents of this sort. I figured, of course, that Holmes and I would have to tell Miles – if no one else – what had really happened. Perhaps I could teach him the art of overpowering illusions.
“Why, my dear Watson, you will render me obsolete if you carry on like this,” snorted Holmes upon hearing my ideas.
“What nonsense,” said I. “It’s not like I can inconspicuously walk into a room full of people with an enormous ball of fire in my hand.
“And then I am sure you’d find ways of seeing through others even if it didn’t involve any optical tricks.”
He hemmed vaguely in response to this, and the matter seemed to be set at rest. But a few days later, I returned from the club and walked into our drawing-room only to discover him sitting at his analysis table, bent over something he seemed to be utterly absorbed in. I walked closer, looking curiously over his shoulder, and saw that he was carefully handling a small delicate lily of the valley. Its flowers, brilliantly white, trembled slightly under his gaze.
There was something almost protective in the way he cupped it in his palms. He was trying so hard and wanted so badly to understand. An unspeakable feeling of tenderness and closeness came over me, and I couldn’t think of anything better than to put my own hand out and support his illusion. Perhaps I made it a little scientifically inaccurate; I am sure real flowers don’t grow precious gems and don’t have silver ribbons wrapped around them. But Holmes seemed to appreciate my effort, and I could feel him lean into my shoulder when I put my other arm around him.