The crowd roared its approval.

'Take him away and see to him,' Jitter commanded. One of the punishers clamped a dirty handkerchief over the stump and dragged him off to, Holmes presumed, where the shady doctors who serviced the bareknuckle fights would be waiting.

The second man, a small-time cracksman named Froome who had crossed Holmes's path before, was led to the block. His face was waxy: his eyes were almost starting from his face.

'You know the score, Alf' said Jitter, standing at Yeovil's elbow. 'Tell us who paid you off.'

Froome seemed to be fascinated by the blood trickling from the blade of the cleaver.

'Tell us, Alf,' Jitter prompted.

'I been a good family man,' Froome whispered. 'You ain't 'ad cause to complain, Mr Jitter. I always been faithful to you. I ain't taken no money, an'

I don't know nothin' 'bout any books bein' stolen.'

He seemed to take courage from his words. Drawing himself up, he said, 'An' that's the truth.'

The cleaver moved so fast that it had severed Froome's hand before anybody saw it move. Froome didn't even seem to feel it: he raised his arm triumphantly to the crowd, and it was only when he saw the blood jetting from the stump that his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell to the floor.

He was carried off, with a grimy handkerchief acting as a makeshift tourniquet.

'That's the end of it,' Jitter shouted to the crowd. 'Let that be a lesson to anybody who thinks about crossing either of us.'

Holmes had seen enough. He was about to make his way to the fringes of the crowd when he felt a sudden stir close to his chest. He lashed back with his boot, and felt it connect with a satisfying crunch. A cry rang out behind him and a hand whipped out from his coat. He grabbed at it and turned. A small man, whose hair stuck out at all angles from his face like a fretful porcupine, was hopping up and down and cursing. He was clutching a shilling all the money that Holmes had left.

'Give easy!' the pickpocket cried. 'You dropped it. I was only puttin' it back!'

'Ger'cha!' Holmes growled, trying to stay in character, and shoved the pickpocket away. The smaller man staggered back into a large, spade-bearded fellow, whose tattoos covered every exposed portion of his skin.

He, in turn, cuffed the pickpocket into the back of a rat-faced man wearing a dilapidated top hat, who whirled and thumped the bearded lout between the eyes.

The crowd, excited by the sight of blood, was like a tinderbox, and this was the spark it had been waiting for. Within seconds a fight had started.

Holmes, aware of the fragility of his position, attempted to extricate himself from the widening sc.r.a.p. It was no use. He managed to fight his way to the fringes of the crowd, his knowledge of baritsu proving less effective than a good underarm punch to the groin, but a flailing hand caught his cheek just as he thought he was clear. He felt a tearing sensation as something ripped.

His false whiskers.

'E's wearing a sham 'tash!' somebody shouted.

'E must be a rozzer!' someone else cried.

Holmes looked around. The fight was frozen, with everybody looking at him. The rat-faced man was drawing a thin flensing knife.

'Hold him,' the man said. 'If he's a rozzer we'll find out what he's doing here, then we'll cut out his lights.'

Holmes could see several outcomes, most of them unpleasant. He briefly debated yelling out to Mr Jitter for help, but the man was unpredictable at the best of times and might not wish to acknowledge his connection with Holmes. Instead, he elbowed the nearest men aside and raced away. The crowd had thinned somewhat, and Holmes found he could easily avoid or outdistance his pursuers. His heart pounded. The stalls and the scenery blurred as he ran. The sounds of the chase diminished behind him.

'Set the dogs on him!' yelled a distant voice.

A great shout went up behind him, and, with a cold heart, Holmes could just make out the baying of the bulldogs. He increased his pace. His heart pounded in time with his legs. Hackney Downs station shimmered remotely in the distance, like a memory of childhood. Sweat trickled into his eyes, burning and blurring his vision. He shook his head, spraying the water away, but failed to see a tree root which emerged from the ground like an old, gnarled worm, and stumbled.

Behind him: a rapid pattering.

He turned and faced approaching nemesis.

The lead bulldog was less than fifty yards away, well ahead of the pursuing crowd. Its companion, the one with the scarred nose, was not far behind.

He took a deep breath, and waited.

The first dog approached in a blood-dappled blur and launched itself without hesitation at his throat. He braced himself, and caught its forelegs in mid-air. Its teeth gnashed widly a few scant inches away from his face.

Foam spattered across his eyes. He jerked the dog's legs apart. The dog shrieked as both shoulder joints dislocated with a terrible ripping sound.

Holmes threw the carca.s.s away as the second dog skidded to a halt before him. He started to back slowly away. Knowing that if he turned his back, the dog would fasten itself upon his calf muscles, he picked up a stone and threw it with unerring accuracy at the dog's mutilated nose. It howled, and retreated.

The crowd was only a few hundred yards away, and most of them were carrying staves ripped from the arena fence.

Holmes a deep breath, and ran.

'And that's how I come to be sitting here this evening,' Holmes said lightly.

'It was exceedingly fortunate that the train was just pulling out of the station as I ran on to the platform. I ensconced myself safely in first cla.s.s and waved at the hunters as they poured onto the platform. Apart from a slight contretemps with a guard who challenged me for sitting in a first cla.s.s compartment with a third cla.s.s ticket, the journey home was most pleasant.'

He took a contented puff at his pipe.

'Still, if there's one thing that today's escapade taught me, it's that the guards on the Library door were not paid to look the other way. We must look elsewhere for an explanation for the theft, Watson.'

'But Holmes...'

'And I wish I knew what that creature fighting the dogs was. I have the strangest feeling that this case might hinge upon that knowledge.'

I trailed off into an amazed silence. No matter how long I lived, I would never get Holmes's measure.

Chapter 5.

In which Holmes and Watson receive a summons they cannot ignore, and are vouchsafed some secrets. are vouchsafed some secrets.

Following our exchange of tales, Holmes and I spent the rest of the evening quietly. Following a marvellous dinner of Coronation Chicken prepared by Mrs Hudson's fair hands, we shared a bottle of port whilst Holmes smoked his old clay pipe and I savoured one or two of the many different types of cigars which he kept as reference material should he discover cigar ash at the scene of a crime. Later, whilst he hunted through his files for references to Indian religions, I caught up on my notes of the affair which - in memory of Mrs Prendersly - I had tentatively ent.i.tled The Case of the All-Consuming Fire. My account of our first meeting had received some favourable attention after my friend and colleague Arthur Conan Doyle took my notes, changed our names and address to protect us from undue publicity and had them published privately under the t.i.tle A Study in Scarlet. Indeed, Doyle and I had recently been paid the sum of twenty-five pounds to allow its reproduction in the forthcoming Beeton's Christmas Annual. I was of a mind to pa.s.s my notes of another of Holmes's cases to Doyle, and thought that this might prove a suitable choice.

I retired early, leaving Holmes almost invisible amongst a cloud of smoke that smelled as if he was burning leaves instead of Ships' Number One s.h.a.g. As I prepared for bed, my mind kept throwing up images of Mrs Prendersly's blazing hair and her blistering face: a zoetrope of imagination which prevented me from sleeping for many hours. Downstairs, I could hear the rustle of paper and the occasional exclamation as Holmes worked through the night.

In the absence of slumber, I spent some time considering the qualities of my fellow lodger and friend. He had the most amazing const.i.tution of any man I had met. He could stay awake for days on end without displaying any sign of deprivation, and then sleep continuously for an entire weekend. He could also go for days without eating, then gorge himself mercilessly upon anything that came to hand. He treated his body as a tugboat captain treats his vessel: as something that should be fuelled and overhauled to keep it functional, but which deserved no special care or respect, and which could be replaced at any time. As a doctor I knew that he was mistaken, and as his friend I had told him so on numerous occasions. His abuse of tobacco and . . . stronger substances . . . were, I felt, a sign that his body was rebelling against the strain he imposed upon it. I warned him of the risks he ran to his physical and mental health, but he ignored me.

My last thought before sleep claimed me was that there was one thing, at least, that the Great Detective could not discover, and that was the state of his own health.

I dreamed, that night, but I do not care to recall those night terrors now, except to say that the enigmatic figure of the Doctor scurried through all of them. Mostly he was dressed in the same outlandish costume that I had already seen him wearing: once or twice, however, with the peculiar logic of dreams, he was dressed in an Inverness travelling cape and a flapped travelling cap.

I awoke to find bright sunlight streaming through my window, the sound of costermongers and flower sellers drifting in from the street outside, and the reviving smell of fresh coffee wafting up from where breakfast awaited me.

Holmes was still sitting where I had left him. His Persian slipper lay, empty but for a few strands of tobacco, by his side. Plugs and dottles from his pipe littered the floor.

Mrs Hudson was pottering around the table in strained silence, removing the cold items and replacing them with fresh ones, ready for when Holmes deigned to eat. I had seen the process before, and knew that sometimes four or five breakfasts went past before Holmes took notice.

I smiled at Mrs Hudson and bade her good morning. She scowled and limped out. Her ankle seemed to be on the mend, I observed.

'You appear to have incurred the wrath of our landlady, old chap,' I said jocularly. 'If you're not careful, we may soon be looking for new lodgings.'

'Hmm?' Holmes glanced up from the sheaf of notes which he was reading.

'I noticed no change in her demeanour.'

Remembering my thoughts from the previous night, I added human emotion to the list of things that Holmes could sometimes singularly fail to detect.

Holmes joined me at the table as I began to make serious inroads into the scrambled eggs. He ate with one hand and shuffled through the pile of newspapers with the other.

Eventually he abandoned the last broadsheet and set himself to polishing off the bacon.

'You didn't sleep last night,' I observed.

'Well done,' he congratulated me without looking up. 'I see that my example has not been completely wasted on you.'

I persevered.

'If you're not hospitalized before the end of the year, I shall eat my hat! You have completely reversed all of the benefits of our Viennese holiday. The human body was not meant to be driven the way you are driving it.'

'I sense hidden reefs beneath the seemingly placid surface of this case. I needed time to think.'

'And have you come to any conclusions?'

'Some,' he mused, reaching for the toast. 'But a fresh mind is always welcome. Perhaps you would care to summarize the salient features, Watson.'

I was familiar with Holmes's little game, whereby he would ask my opinion on a case, only to completely demolish it with his razor-sharp wits. I always played along with him. Holmes needed his little victories and they cost me nothing, save a moment of bruised pride. To give me time to think, I pushed the saucer of jam across the table to him. He shook his head.

'Thank you, but no,' he said, with the little twitch of his cheek that pa.s.sed for a polite smile. 'I am not partial to jam, or indeed to any preserve made with sugar.'

'Why is that?' I asked.

'When I was a child, I recall being told by our cook that sugar cane was purified by being put into vats where it would be mixed with bullock's blood and heated up. I have since discovered that the alb.u.min in the blood carries the impurities to the surface, where they are skimmed off.

Knowledge of the chemistry does not, however, enable me to overcome my childhood revulsion. I was a sensitive child, as you may already have appreciated.' He smiled apologetically. 'I cannot imagine what prompted Mrs Hudson to buy any jam. I have made her aware of my taste on many occasions.'

Poor Mrs Hudson, I thought, and applied some to my own slice of toast.

'A theft has occurred from a hidden library in Holborn,' I said finally, 'a library controlled by the higher echelons of the Catholic Church and containing doc.u.ments felt to be subversive to the natural order.'

'One remembers Galileo, and wonders,' Holmes murmured.

'Or rather, an alleged theft. We have no independent evidence.'

I had the pleasure of watching Holmes's face brighten momentarily.

'A fine distinction,' he admitted, 'but a proper one.'

'We have been provided with a list of those visitors to the library who have attended since the last time the books were seen. They are our suspects, since any one of them may have committed the theft. However, all visitors are searched upon exit, by two separate and rival gangs of ruffians, and we saw ourselves how thorough the search is. Your own experience at the dogfight bears out the fact that there is no love lost between Mr Jitter's gang and Mack "the Knife" Yeovil's mob. The chances of collusion are slight. Each gang seeks to catch the other out.'

'Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? as Juvenal so rightly remarked.' Holmes refilled both of our cups with steaming coffee. 'His Holiness the Pope seems to have come up with an ideal solution. I detect the twisted logic of the Jesuits.'

'We have questioned two of our suspects, the Doctor and Mrs Prendersly.

The one is evasive, but seems strangely honest. The other is....'

The coffee suddenly tasted rank. Holmes glanced across at me sympathetically.

'Bear up, old chap,' he said quietly. 'If any human agency is behind the lady's death, we will find them.'

Despite the sunshine I felt as if a dark, chill shadow was hovering over us.

'As G.o.d is my witness,' I whispered, 'the lady was struck down by a supernatural fire. I see no other answer.'

'This agency stands foursquare upon the ground,' Holmes rebuked me. 'I will have no truck with the forces of Satan. Human nature is dark enough, without a vast panoply of demons as well. All problems can be reduced to a set of mathematical relationships, and all mathematical relationships can be solved. The supernatural is not amenable to logic: therefore it does not exist.' He sipped at his coffee. 'I have been corresponding with a young man named Russell upon the subject, a philosopher at Cambridge. He believes that he is on the verge of codifying all of mathematics into a simple set of axioms. I have told him that he is taking the first step towards summing up all human endeavour as an equation. Once that is done, everything can be predicted.'

I could not help but shudder at the idea.

'What a sterile outlook,' I exclaimed.

'Not at all,' Holmes replied easily. 'Would you not like to be able to predict exactly which horse will win the Grand National next year?'

'Not,' I said tartly, 'if everybody else in the country could do likewise.'

Holmes suppressed a smile. I realized that he had been baiting me.

'Alas, ratiocinative logic has some way to go yet. For instance, your summary, whilst admirable in many respects, fails to address the important questions. For instance, why were the doc.u.ments stolen?'

I braced myself for a roasting.

'For their intrinsic value. A collector might pay highly for them.'

'Unlikely.' Holmes leaned back and stared at the ceiling. 'If we take as our premise that one of the people on our list committed the theft, then we can rule out the possibility that they wished to add the volume to their own collections.'

'Why so?'

'Because their names are not known to any of the bookshop merchants or auctioneers whom I have questioned.'