'You can keep this,' he snarled. 'Consider it to be payment in advance.'

Chapter 3.

In which the Doctor is evasive and Watson cannot stand the heat.

We decided to eat luncheon at Kean's Chop House, only a short walk away from the Rookery. Every step I took away from those rat-infested tenements made the sky seem bluer and my heart lighter. And yet, as we pa.s.sed the elaborate frontages of the buildings which lined Holborn, I knew that a part of my mind would always remember the decay that lay behind the ornate facade: the skull beneath the skin.

I tried to discuss our adventure with Holmes as we walked, but he did not want to be drawn.

'Holmes,' I asked eventually, 'what on Earth did you think you were playing at, stealing that book from the Library?'

Holmes made no reply. A waiter brought menus to our table, but I was intent upon getting a straight answer from Holmes.

'Although the cellar here is generally acceptable, I believe that a frothing pint of porter would grace a good English chop better than any wine. What do you say?'

His face was hidden behind the menu. I was convinced that he was deliberately avoiding the issue.

'I have seen you do some pretty hare-brained things in your time, Holmes, but that really does take the biscuit!'

'Wilma Norman-Neruda is playing at the St James's Hall this evening, Watson. Chopin, followed by dinner at Simpsons: what better way to spend an evening?'

'Holmes! For G.o.d's sake, man, have the decency to answer a straight question when it is put to you!'

Holmes lowered the menu and met my eyes. His face was pale.

'Forgive me, Watson. I had not meant that little contretemps to go as far as it did. I needed to test the Library's security. The story about its efficacy was just that - a story - until I could test its veracity. I have always found it to be a capital mistake to theorize until one has access to the facts.' He looked away, to the window onto the street. 'There was no danger. I had five different means of escape from his gang of ruffians worked out.'

I would have been more rea.s.sured had the menu not been trembling slightly in his hands.

The conversation moved to different topics - old cases, the recent death of the well known grande horizontale Cora Pearl in Paris, Holmes's research into the effect of employment on the shape of the ear, and whether or not I should abandon my medical practice. We left the restaurant happier than we had arrived.

Urchins were turning somersaults amongst the wheels of carts, buses and cabs as we made our way home. The golden light of late afternoon made the stonework of Oxford Street glow. The squalor of St Giles was fading away like a bad dream.

As we scaled the steps to our rooms, our page-boy rushed up to the foot of the stairs bearing a silver platter.

'You got a visitor, Mr 'Olmes,' he announced, all puffed up in his new blue uniform. 'E's up in your rooms, and 'e's a strange one!'

'Thank you, Billy,' Holmes said kindly as he took the card from the tray. He tossed a coin to the child, who had to drop the tray to catch it. The clatter as it bounced on the floor bought Mrs Hudson limping out from her lair.

Holmes and I beat a hasty retreat upstairs.

'Interesting.' Holmes pa.s.sed the card across to me as we reached the landing. 'See what you make of it, Watson.'

Printed in a gothic script, it read: The Doctor; underneath, in the corner, was the word: Travelling.

Rather flippant, I thought. I flexed it between my fingers. Good quality, judging by the rigidity of the stock.

'Not a gypsy,' I ventured, 'despite the obvious connection with the word "traveller". A man of some means.' I sniffed. 'Recently printed, I'll warrant.

The smell of fresh ink is quite p.r.o.nounced.'

'Bravo, Watson.'

'Have I missed anything of importance?'

He smiled, rather cruelly, I thought.

'Practically everything, dear chap. Despite the fact that the ink is still fresh there are no traces of it on the back of the card, as there would be had it been stacked with the rest of a recently printed batch. This would suggest that it was printed singly: presumably for us. The logical conclusion would be that this person is attempting to disguise his true ident.i.ty, although -' and Holmes frowned ' - the choice of nom-de-plume and the lack of address seem to suggest that he wishes us to come to that conclusion.' He frowned, then shook his head and continued. 'The slight but noticeable rounding of the card further indicates that it has been kept in a pocket, rather than a wallet. I would suggest a waistcoat pocket: trousers would have left it too rounded and a coat not rounded enough. And, most important of all, remember that "The Doctor" was one of the names on the lift of visitors to the Library of St John the Beheaded that we were given this morning.'

'The list that you did not wish me to see.'

Holmes looked away, discomfited, and said nothing. He took the card from my hand and walked into our sitting room.

The Doctor was standing in the window alcove. In his hands he held one of Holmes's files: the volume marked "T". I recognized him at once as the man I had conversed with in the Library, the one who had babbled of custard and metaphors.

'I will trouble you to put down that file,' Holmes snapped. Within two strides he was towering over the Doctor and removing the offending object from his hands. 'It ill behoves a visitor to rifle through private papers unasked.'

'It wasn't Spink, you know.'

'What?'

'I couldn't help reading the details of one of your cases. The terrible murder of the Atkinson brothers in Trincomalee. Spink was innocent.'

I noticed that the word "terrible" rolled off his tongue with relish. There was the hint of an accent in his voice that I could not place.

'The man robbed the world of justice by taking his own life.' Holmes strode across the room and replaced the volume. 'The case was simple; the solution obvious.'

'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'but did you take into account the significant delay in the onset of rigor mortis in tropical climates? It's all in that file.'

Holmes's face suffused with fury. I thought he was going to throw our visitor bodily through the window, so great was his rage, until a strange thing happened. A look pa.s.sed across Holmes's face: a look of sudden realization and, even worse, shock.

'I. . ' he started to say, and trailed off into silence. His gaze travelled across the little man, and I had learned enough about reading expressions to tell that he was attempting to descry some detail about our visitor: his work, his character, his manner.

'I see from your appearance that you . . ' Holmes trailed off into silence; puzzled. 'Your cuffs suggest . .'

Again, he halted. He frowned. I could see that he was at a loss. 'That soil on your gaiter, I do not recognize it,' he said finally.

The Doctor grabbed at his foot and pulled it up to eye level.

'Ah,' he said, 'a slurry of clay and dust from Menaxus. Now there's a place to go for a show.'

'Menaxus? I am not familiar with the name: it must be a small village.

Greek, I would venture.'

The Doctor tilted his head back and smiled a toothy grin.

'Menaxus is close to the Rippearean cl.u.s.ter.'

'And the spatulate appearance of your right forefinger. It is similar to that seen in typists, but I would have expected an indentation across your right thumb from the s.p.a.ce bar.'

The Doctor peered at the offending digit as if he had just found it on his dinner plate.

'Ah, he said, relieved, and jabbed at the air with the finger. 'Too much prodding of large, metal creatures.'

Holmes and I looked across at each other. The man was obviously deranged.

'I see that you dabble in chemistry' the Doctor said, walking across to the deal-topped table where Holmes kept his retorts and flasks.

'I am presently researching into coal-tar derivatives,' Holmes replied, drawing himself up stiffly. 'Now, may I ask what your business is with us?'

'Take precautions if you ever manage to distil coronic acid,' the Doctor muttered, picked up three flasks filled with liquid and juggling with them. 'It's a nasty substance. Very nasty indeed.'

'I would be obliged if you would...'

'Yes, I know. You would be obliged if I put down these flasks. Oh, very well.'

He placed them back on the table and turned to Holmes.

'I have no business with you,' he said, finally answering Holmes's question.

'But you have business with me.'

The Doctor threw himself into Holmes's armchair and grinned up at us.

Holmes opened his mouth to make a cutting reply, but a knock at the door interrupted him. We turned as Mrs Hudson limped into the room with a tray bearing cups, saucers, plates, cakes and a teapot.

'I took the liberty of ordering tea,' the Doctor said, grinning up ingenuously at Mrs Hudson. 'Your landlady is a treasure.'

Mrs Hudson pampered the Doctor as if he were the vicar come to call: pouring his tea, sweetening it and cutting him a slice of Madeira cake.

Holmes and I looked on, aghast. Her usual att.i.tude to our visitors ranged from disinterest to barely veiled contempt. Despite my recent lunch the sight of the Doctor gobbling down the cake made my stomach rumble. I sat in my usual chair, cut myself a slice and poured a cup of tea. Holmes remained, raging impotently, on his feet.

'Now,' the Doctor babbled on after three slices and two cups had gone the way of all things. 'Where were we? Ah yes, the robbery at the Library of St John the Beheaded. I presume you will have questioned Mr Ambrose, and received from him a list of recent visitors to the Library. My name will be on that list. I suspect that I want to know who took those books just as much as you do, and that's why I am here, to pool resources, share information, spread panic and sow the seeds of defeat in the fields of our enemies. Now I realize that I am just as much a suspect as anybody else on that list -' he suddenly frowned and looked away ' - a position I find myself adopting with monotonous regularity -' he smiled sunnily and looked back at us again ' - but I don't see why that can't be just as much the basis for a long and fruitful relationship as mutual trust. Now, any questions?'

Holmes held up the Doctor's card.

'You give no address.'

'Ah.' The Doctor stood. 'I travel.'

'No fixed abode,' said Holmes, towering over the diminutive figure.

'Oh, I have a fixed abode.' The Doctor plucked the card from Holmes's hand and slipped it into his waistcoat. 'But it travels. "Not bound to swear allegiance to any master, wherever the wind takes me I travel as a visitor": 'I do not appreciate flippancy,' Holmes snapped.

'I always try to mix a little foolishness with my serious plans,' the Doctor replied, gazing up into Holmes's face. 'It's lovely to be silly at the right moment. But, if it makes you feel any better, I am currently lodging in Hampstead.'

'With whom?'

'Professor Litefoot. You may know of him.'

At this juncture I interjected, 'Not Professor George Litefoot, the eminent pathologist?'

'The very same!'

Holmes was not to be put off so easily.

'And what exactly are you a Doctor of?' he growled.

'Metaphysico-theologico-cosmologo-nigology!' announced the Doctor triumphantly.

Holmes pursed his lips and strode to the window.

'Facile quotations from Voltaire will not help your case,' he barked. 'If you remain unwilling to provide a straight answer then I can only surmise that you are unwilling to cooperate with our investigations.'

'Oh very well.' The little man pouted, and stared down at his gaiters. 'If it helps, I took a medical degree in Edinburgh in eighteen seventy.'

'What a coincidence!' I exclaimed. 'I studied for my Bachelor's degree and my baccalaureate at the University of Edinburgh from that very year onwards! I must say,' and I studied his features more closely, 'that I do not remember you.'

The Doctor shifted uneasily in Holmes's armchair.

'I can't say I'm surprised. I looked different then.'

I stroked my moustache and looked ruefully down at my figure: stockier now than it had been seventeen years ago.

'So did I,' I admitted.

'This is getting us nowhere,' Holmes p.r.o.nounced, staring out of the window.

'Be so good as to tell me what your researchers were at the Library, Doctor.'

'India.'

'More specifically.'

'Hindu mythology:'

'More specifically still.'

'Legends concerning the raksha.s.si.'

'Raksha.s.si?' I asked.