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“Telegram!”
Rapid knocks on the door below interrupted my book, and I looked up as Mrs. Hudson hurried out of her rooms, then up the stairs.
“Mr. Holmes?”
Though Holmes ignored the interruption. One hand waved an acknowledgement and asked her to leave the envelope on the edge of his table, but his concentration never left the solution he slowly heated over a tiny flame. Miniscule amounts of reactants carefully dropped into an evidently finicky experiment. Mrs. Hudson rolled her eyes at me but set the missive well out of range before returning downstairs. I refocused on my book.
“Ha!”
Though only for a few minutes. Silence broke beneath satisfaction as his solution turned a bright blue, and he quickly scribbled something on the sheet of paper nearby. Two more tests evidently confirmed his results before he started cleaning up. Only when he had neutralized the reaction and cleaned most of his equipment did he remember the telegram Mrs. Hudson had brought.
“I need to go to the Yard,” he announced, his eyes still on the text though his hands returned to cleaning. “Are you coming?”
I merely frowned at him around my book. He ought to know that answer by now.
As evidenced by the twitched grin he failed to stifle. I always accompanied him if I had the choice, and I had no plans for the day. A few minutes sufficed to finish tidying his work area, and a cab soon lurched away from the curb.
“Telegram or experiment?”
“Both,” he answered, not needing me to spell out the entire question. “The experiment proved that the man Gregson arrested yesterday was framed. The telegram from Lestrade asked us to stop by for the files he promised me a few days ago. Gregson is not on duty this morning, but Lestrade will pass the information to Gregson when he comes in.”
“What was he framed for?”
“A robbery.” He spent the rest of the ride describing the armed robbery the accused’s imitator had committed last week. Holmes had evidently read about the incident in the paper and started his own investigation, and between Gregson’s “blind fumbling in search of a scapegoat” and the information found in the various newspaper articles, Holmes had linked the incident to one of the gang members he had been tracking for a while. Gregson’s target just happened to share an unfortunate resemblance with the true culprit.
“If this man was on the other side of the city,” I asked as we stopped in front of the Yard, “then how did Gregson tie him to the scene?”
“Purely by appearance,” was the reply. “An artist happened to be in the shop during the incident and sketched the attacker for the Yard. Gregson then started searching based on that drawing, never knowing that two unrelated men have nearly the same face.”
So perhaps not a purposeful framing, I mused, but the result remained the same. With one a member of a gang and the other apparently a quiet family man—and both too old to have a completely smooth face—I wondered how two very different lifestyles could create the same age lines to make the features match, but I had no chance to ask. Lestrade walked out of a nearby office as the door shut behind us.
“Good morning,” he greeted. “I did not expect you here for a while yet. Did you receive my telegram?”
Holmes nodded in combined greeting and reply. “I have information for Gregson’s armed robbery case, as well. Perhaps your office?”
Understanding bloomed as Lestrade waved us down the hall, dropping a pile of papers on one of the constables’ desks as he passed. I could not contain a smirk at the constable’s grumbling, but Lestrade completely ignored the muttered protests. Holmes started describing the morning’s experiment without bothering to close the office door.
The building’s front door slammed to capture my attention before I could join them. The noise startled a cry of surprise from one of the secretaries at the front desk, and I turned to find a very familiar man frowning at the front door, then apparently apologizing to the secretary he had startled, who returned to her task to let the man direct his steps toward the back offices. The vengeful grin aimed at me announced he had followed either me or Holmes—probably Holmes—but he failed to notice the two sergeants that had also recognized him and laid their own ambush at the first pair of offices. He would not enter the building far enough to reach us.
Holmes and Lestrade would charge out of his office momentarily, however, putting themselves in range even after the sergeants sprung their trap. When my first thought of locking us all in Lestrade’s office failed—I would discuss that with Holmes later—I took the second option. Protests rose from inside the office when I locked the door and pocketed the key, but I lunged for the neighboring office as the two Yarders dove at the repeat murderer brazenly striding through the Yard.
Light glinted off a wet spot on the floor too late to avoid it. A scream of frustration lifted from the attacker as my bad leg slid out from under me. The grunts of a scuffle. A burst of pain. The click of a latch—or a firearm. Slamming into the doorframe I had tried to hide behind. Several calls for assistance. Fighting to inhale when the spinning impact drove the air from my lungs. A gunshot as officers pinned the intruder. I barely heard a different scream as I slumped against the wall. Pain ricocheted from shoulder to heel and back again, each fresh burst stealing my breath anew. Hazy vision noted the pile of Yarders pinning a struggling murderer just before Lestrade’s office door dented the wall to let Holmes dart into view.
“Watson!”
Here, but my lungs still argued against breathing. My reply did not reach audible as he strode toward the knot of Yarders. Two seconds realized I had not joined the brief altercation before he turned, finally spotting me crumpled in the doorway.
“Watson!”
Near panic confirmed he had heard the gunshot as well, but his haste to reach me stepped in that same puddle before I could warn him. His pace made him slide nearly a foot, but he grabbed the wall instead of hitting the floor, thankfully. A moment regained his balance before he sidestepped the slick patch to reach me. Shaking hands started looking for blood.
“Watson?”
Where are you injured? that asked. I shook my head. I had driven my shoulder into the doorframe and landed with my leg awkwardly folded beneath me, but I was not injured. I simply needed a moment to push the resulting pain aside.
As he normally understood, but he still worried about that gunshot. He had charged out of that office expecting to find me bleeding on the floor, so when my silent negative sent a spasm racing through my shoulder, gritting my teeth against the pain completely destroyed his remaining patience.
“Watson!”
My vision tinged red as vibrating pressure landed on both shoulders, then white-hot agony lanced from shoulder to heel when that pressure pulled me away from the wall.
“Answer me, Watson.”
Darkness shattered at the sound. One finger tapped my cheek, then two hands squeezed mine. Hard floor suggested I had not been out for long, but several voices lingered nearby. Possibly still dealing with their captured murderer. Probably watching the two…three people leaning over me. Worry still laced the order no longer drowning in panic.
“I know you can hear me, Watson. Open your eyes.”
In a moment, I agreed. Small twitches put me lying on my back. Someone had bound my arm in a sling. Holmes knelt on my right, while two others stood near my feet.
“Watson?”
Here. A deep breath managed to squeeze his hand, but I needed a few more seconds to open my eyes. Deep lines in his forehead announced the concern already evident in the way he leaned over me. Two fingers landed on my wrist.
“Do not do that again.”
I did not intend to, but another moment realized he referenced locking them in the office, not slipping on a puddle. I ignored the order to push myself upright. Agar stepped forward to check my shoulder once more and confirm a lack of other injury before he left. Lestrade thanked him for the help but lingered near my feet. I looked at him first.
“Was anyone hurt?”
Holmes’ grip tightened, but Lestrade shook his head. “The bullet went into the ceiling,” he replied. “One of the others went for Agar when you lost consciousness.”
Better than the alternative, but Lestrade’s glance at the door checked for eavesdroppers before I could move the topic along.
“That was a foolish thing to do, Doctor,” he remonstrated quietly.
“It was the only plan I could accomplish in the time I had available.” A half-hearted scowl scolded Holmes for stealing my cane when I tried to stand, but I willingly leaned on him instead. “We both know he wanted the two of you. Primarily Holmes, but Drexel and Douglas had everything under control. I could not lock us all in your office, so I locked your office and tried to barricade myself in this one.” A gesture referenced the chair I could have braced against the door. “I did not see the wet spot until I had already slipped.”
Holmes’ hand abruptly tightened on my arm. “So you did not—” Try to fight him alone. Purposely make yourself a target. I did not want to know how he would end that.
“No,” I answered when his question choked beneath remembered panic, “and I would not. Not when several Yarders were nearby to handle the problem. You know that.”
Or at least he did when he had not just heard a gunshot right after I locked him in an office. Which reminded me—
“How many times have you picked that lock?” Holmes’ ears flushed a bright red as Lestrade started laughing. Holmes usually needed much longer than a handful of seconds to pick a lock for the first time, but the door had slammed open almost before I stopped falling. He had clearly picked that lock many times over the years.
Though Lestrade evidently focused on a different part of my failed plan. Sudden realization sent the inspector into the hall to check his door, then return to frown at Holmes.
“When did you turn my doorknob around?”
Probably the last time Holmes raided Lestrade’s filing cabinet, but I merely turned my laugh into a wide grin. The two of them started a less than serious argument about the sanctity of Lestrade’s office and Yard privacy as Holmes helped me into one of Lestrade’s spare office chairs, and one of the constables slowly cleaned the floor to listen in.
I threw in the occasional comment to make the “argument” last longer. I would not be able to walk unassisted for at least a few minutes, but I could use them as entertainment while I waited for the pain to ease.
Though I did not miss the way Holmes kept glancing at me. I had not intended to scare him—them—so badly, but to avoid seeing him walk directly into an active ambush, I would have done much worse than lock him in an office to hide in another room, and he clearly knew that. I doubted he would let me out of his sight for the rest of the day.