Package to Mr William. P. Turner of 221 B Baker street, regarding the passing of an old fellow. Faithfully yours, Dr John. H. Watson MD
Dearest Billy,
It is with a heavy hand that I must relay: He is dead, and passed away among his bees only some hours ago. I, too, am not long of this earth, thus it falls to you to publish my final wish. The attached parcel is my tin box--you have ferried it hither and thither before--and it is where notes from all our adventures, spanning two centuries, as many wars and three monarchs had been safely kept. The remaining bundles within, however, we agreed some time ago to never publish, lest our reputations be shredded. However, with his passing heavy on my mind, I cannot forget such cases, so singular and impressive that they prove, without a doubt, that Sherlock Holmes was the greatest detective London, Britannia, and Worlds beyond our farthest imaginations could ever have known.These cases will confuse you--perhaps even tarnish your memories of us--but mark my words: they are as true and real as the paper upon which you read this letter.
Case One: The Adventure of the Centurion's Helm; Part the First. Paper_mate_Pony
“I should swear ‘pon my life, sir, It spoke! It spoke to me in the frankest of tones. I may be a drunkard, sir, and perhaps even senile—heaven forbid, but I am almost sixty five, you see—but every word I say to you, every breath of it, is as true and honest as these hairs upon my chin!”
So went the cry that drove me awake upon a particularly dreary morning in Baker street. These cries were highly irregular, not to mention highly uncalled for. I recall laying on my back stubbornly, to ensure that it was in fact morning, and there were in fact voices coming from below. I seemed to be correct on both counts, as quite soon after our unknown visitor had awoken the neighborhood, the nondescript hum of Sherlock Holmes’ voice could be heard addressing the situation.
“Nay, Mr Holmes,” cried the voice again, in a thick welsh baritone, “‘tis you who appears to be mad—well, you inferred it then! I could see it in your eyes!”
The narration continued as I ambled through the threshold of my bedroom and down toward the settee of our humble flat. Holmes replied in a calm voice, but it appeared he was having little effect upon our raving guest. “Oh contend you sir, you have been expecting me!”
The long, supine figure of Sherlock Holmes lay across an armchair that faced the hearth. His spindly fingers met at a point just below his hawkish chin, while his keen brown eyes gazed, non-plussed, at the large character who disturbed our peace.
“Mr Harrington, I have not been expecting you, nor am I treating your apparently dire situation with even the slightest contempt. From the soot I perceive on your right elbow it would appear you have been travelling by rail quite recently. As surface trains don’t circulate soot into their carriages you must have traveled underground at some point. For a long enough, at least, to leave such a stain on your elbows, which were resting up against the windows as you slept, I would gather. As the aforementioned rest and your distastefully creased jacket would portray, you have been sitting down for a while, and through the night as it were. Thus, it is not too hard to imagine that you left Somerset upon the Great Western eleven o’clock to London, the only evening express to make use of our marvellous underground rail network. Ahh, Watson,” he turned to me, “so good to see you up at this hour of the morn! If you aren’t too hazy, may I present to your scrutiny: one Charles Harrington of Somerset.”
Our guest fidgeted as my gaze was brought to bear. He was a large fellow, his shoulders spanned the width of our doorway yet his face appeared two sizes too small; two beady eyes peered over a thin hooked nose. I assumed age was the culprit, as the thin blond hairs that waved to and fro as he stood looked as thin and numerous as the wrinkles around his permanently furrowed brow. His pants were pinstriped, as was the jacket he wore beneath a cavernous green travelling coat. The whole ensemble was speckled with both fresh and ancient specks of mud.
“Sir, if you wouldn’t mind,” he asked Holmes, eyeing me suspiciously, “would it be, perhaps, too much to ask if your friend here were not privy to all of our dealings?”
“Mr Harrington, Watson is the final word on privacy. Your narrative—which, I must admit, seems like it is little more than that—is safe within these walls. I can assure you that any and everything said in this room shant leave it.”
“Is that what you told Norberton?” he asked, the question for me more than Holmes. “The man is a ruin, you know. Not that it was undeserved, but his reputation died beneath the good doctor’s pen. I would rather not have such a thing happen to me. I may look like a drunk, indeed I smell like one, but I had a reputation, and somewhere on God’s great Earth is a man who remembers the name Charlie Harrington!”
His face was livid but his speech seemed incoherent and rambling, as if his mind were on other things.
“Mr Harrington,” Holmes rose from his chair, “Sir Robert Norberton deserved all that he received. If justice could not be served in the plane of law, then it most certainly may be upheld in the social one. If you have read any of my biographer’s works it would become apparent that the most colorful of cases has been dealt with in such a tentative manner; that if any sort of derision should arise, it is from myself alone, condemning my boswell here for his inability to lay out the most vital of facts. However, I can almost assure you, Mr Harrington, that your case will seldom reach the annals of the public, for I refuse to deal with time wasters. Now, if you are quite finished insulting my intelligence, and that of my friend, please, be off!”
When Sherlock Holmes normally concluded an investigation so tersely, it was not out of rage nor emotion, but to raise a point: that diplomacy was over, and the offending party should either leave quietly, or remain loudly. In my experience, those who meant well left without another word. Those who did not remained, to their eventual failing. Harrington was a member of neither party, as the man began to beg at Holmes’ feet.
The change that came over Mr Harrington was brief but decisive. Tears formed at the creases of his ancient eyes and a dark expression mounted his face. I doubted I would ever witness such pain upon the features of a man again.
“Ohh, Mr Holmes, No! No, you could not! I am not an insane man, nor am I a time waster. Oh Lord, you know not of what I have been through! It spoke to me, sir, such a foul beast it was. Oh, God bless you if ever the day comes whence it stalks you through the twilight gloom!
“The Devil, sir! He stalks the hills of Somerset! Ten feet tall, at least! Eyes of fire and rage! Oh I shall see it in my nightmares, on the day I die! It had the tail of a snake, but an arm of a lion, and another of some vile bird. And the head of a goat, sir! Oh and the horns, one cannot forget the horns!”
Finding no solace on the face of Sherlock Holmes he turned to me, bowing to the floor and almost kissing my bare feet.
“Oh, but you will listen, won't you, Dr Watson? I meant no insult before! If you wish, you may write my little tale to all the publications of the world! I would not care! But, you see, it was through the evening gloom I trod. It is true, I am a drunk! A vile, rotten old man. I should be dead, Mr Holmes, yet I walk amongst the living! How else does a liverpool industrialist while away his days staggering through Somerset? And there I was, upon the gloomy downs. I sleep ‘pon the hills, for old men are not permitted to rest ‘pon the cobbles! I may never remember the terrible days I spent ‘pon those fields, but I shall certainly remember that night! A great flash, of blue and red, before me! I was blinded, sir, but my ears worked fine for I heard hushed gasps, and the sound of hooves around me! My eyes returned to me as I lay, but what I saw? I wish they never had.
“The beast, it’s foul neck stretched to the ground, peered at me through those devilish eyes! And he was not alone! Horses—ponies? I know not, but there were ten of them in all. They wore helmets—helmets, sir! And they followed the Beast’s orders to the letter! He told them to stand me up, and they did. He brought himself to his full height, such a horrible sight it was, and then... then he spoke!
“‘The way to Shoscombe Old Place, peasant’ he demanded, and I damn nearly fainted, sir. But a welshman never faints, not even for the Devil. So I stood my ground, and I asked of him,
“‘What... who are you?’
“He chuckled, as if he were the schoolmaster receiving his prize pupil! ‘I am the lord of chaos,’ he said, ‘the master of that which cannot be mastered!’ and I swear upon it, sir, his cackling wrung thunder from the skies, and lightning from the heavens! But then, then he came very close, right up to my face, and asked quite frankly, ‘The way to Shoscombe Old Place, If you please?’
“I pointed him over the downs, toward Norberton’s villa, and he doffed his cap—where did he find a cap, sir!—and was off, carried by his... servants? Slaves? They could have been centurions for all I know! And then I ran, sir! I ran toward the station. I knew of your exploits—there is not a man, woman or child in Shoscombe who doesn’t—and took the very next train to London. Please, sir, for whatever its worth, do not let to-day be my very last day on earth!”
He sniffled upon the floor, almost caressing my legs as he would a lover’s. Holmes’ face took upon itself a demure gaze, and I knew he had begun to consider the man’s plight. My friend seldom undertook cases out of pity for the victim; only those which presented him a challenge, for he played the game for the game’s sake as you know. But the sheer desperation that Mr Harrington presented us with must have made some effect on my normally mechanic friend.
“Mr Harrington,” he finally said, and our visitor looked up at him through bloodshot eyes, “I am a very busy man. However, if I should hear anymore of this incident—recall that while its owner is disdained, Shoscombe remains the very best training stable in England—I shall rectify myself and pay you the very respect you are entitled. Until then, do the page a favor, and leave our house!”
Mr Harrington excused himself with the most pathetic of gestures, bowing even further toward the ground and muttering blessings until he was through the door.
The subject was dropped for the duration of the early morning. Holmes lazed on the couch, while I removed myself to my Kensington practice. My wife was attending a funeral with her family in Swansea, and so I had moved to my old lodgings of Baker street—at Holmes’ behest—for the duration of her grieving. Very few patients were to visit me that day, however, and I had seen each one before eleven o’clock. With nothing to entertain me there, I left for Baker street, in the hopes that Holmes had become entrenched in another of his adventures, rather than the solemn contemplation that dogged him whenever cases refused to come to fruition.
I caught a cab from Kensington to Regents Park, where I thought to brave the dour weather and stroll to our flat. However, it seemed that it had taken a turn for the sour since I had left my lodgings. Nary a soul walked the streets, and snow had banked high upon the corners. Dressed in only my business frock and my Westinghouse coat, the walk was long, cold and desultory. Instead of spending it contemplating the morning’s event, such as I had intended, I could not but think of how silly I had been.
It was a ten minute trudge through the snow banks, and I was glad to see the lights of our apartment shining through the fall. The door was, however, opened upon me by an unseen urchin, who bowled me to the floor as he sped through the threshold of 221B. I slipped to the cobbles numerous times trying to right myself. Not wishing to make chase through the cold, and even more certain that I would have lost him anyway, I rose tentatively and entered.
“Tell me, Watson. How does a house on fire get on?” Holmes asked through the threshold as I ascended the stairs.
“I surely do not know,” I answered my colleague, who curled up upon his worn armchair as I docked my cloak upon the hanger and made for the fire roaring at the hearth.
“The fiends of Britain appear to be weathering, Watson. I have seen not hide nor hair of their numerous exploits in The Times,” he said with a frown. “Yet this message here perplexes me. Watson, I sincerely value your input, now as much as ever. How does a house, on fire, get on?” he said methodically, gesturing with his hand at every pause.
“Well,” said I, “one would expect a house on fire to go down rather quickly, I should think.”
Holmes chuckled. “Watson, should I ever rise so high that I lose sight of land, surely you would be there to reign me back among the mundane. Yes, I think that a house on fire would get on rather nicely. Why, then, does this anonymous correspondent wish for me to know this? Furthermore, why would they send it by hand in this dreadful weather, when a telegram would no doubt have been far more worth his while.”
“That was your messenger?” I ejaculated, still feeling the throb of where I had collided with the unforgiving ice.
“If you mean the urchin who knocked you asunder—oh, don’t make that face at me, Watson. You know very well that the damp patches upon your rear and the bruised expression you wore as you entered told me everything I needed to know—no. He was their messenger, ‘they’ being whomever wrote this missive. So what do you think of it?”
I shrugged.
“Indeed, perhaps a quick glance at this little note shall clear the fog of our minds, no? Here, what do you make of it?”
He handed me a small, thin rectangle.
How is it getting on? [It read] Like a house on fire, Mr Holmes, like a house on fire.
“It is a typed note,” said I, “so the author wishes to remain anonymous. What more can I say?”
“Well,” said Holmes, “whomever wishes to remain anonymous lives somewhere in the vicinity of Charing Cross, an accountant, I believe, who works at Geofferys, Geoffereys and Jones’—is high in the firm but does not share the namesake—and happens to be left handed.”
“My dear Holmes!” I ejaculated.
“Watson, surely by now you know of my methods? First and foremost, what do you see along the very top edge? Three little bars, it would seem. But, through close examination, it is indicative of a water mark. Thus, we know that for whomever this perpetrator works for, they happen to be a well known firm. Well known enough, one should think, to watermark their paper. You also know that there is a monograph—penned by myself—In circulation upon the identification of typewriters. Now, you shall see here that these letters are relatively even, and by that I mean there is no evidence of a certain lean, indicative of long usage. However, if you would look closer, every letter has almost been punched in, meaning that the back-plate has been worn down to such an extent that the paper does not rest evenly upon its surface. Old typewriters that have yet to see their fair share of type all share this trademark. Thus, we have an old typewriter that is rarely used, but is still fed with paper for official documents pertaining to an important firm. We can be sure, then, that the user of this typewriter does not do the bulk of the paperwork yet still maintains an office typewriter as opposed to a personal machine. One should be in a position to deduce, therefore, that this certain individual is in a managerial capacity.”
“Why, it is as clear as day!”
“So it is, Watson. But we are seldom finished. How do I know his handedness? Even his home parish?”
The pause and his keen gaze told me that the question was not rhetorical.
“Well, taking the day into account,” said I, “his urchin will have had to walk, as I doubt he could afford a cab on a day such as this.” I recall thinking “or ever” out of spite. “Charing-Cross is the closest business centre,” I continued, “so it makes sense that the author should be sending it from there, and it is therefore doubtless that he also lives in a similar region. But for the rest, Holmes, I am still in the dark.”
“Watson, you are too hard on yourself. Yes, that is most likely where he is from. As to his sinister dominance, take a look at the top edge of the note. Notice that there are four notches, cut along this edge on the left here? They form almost non-existent, but still visible, steps, you see. Scissors, Watson. He has cut this rectangle from the original sheet with scissors. We know he did this with his left hand as these steps, of a kind, move outward to the left, where the most pressure would have been evident on the tool he used. As to his employer, well...”
He slithered out of his armchair and made toward a thick tome upon the shelf. Upon opening, it was clear that it was full of telegrams, letters and other assorted roughage. He rifled through them, his long, thin fingers blurred by their speed.
“Aha!” he cried. “Here it is Watson.” He extracted a large rectangle of official looking card, and brought it back towards me. “Observe: a letter from one Hamish Geoffreys, congratulating us on our fine work clearing the name of his dear brother, Gregory. Note, the watermark.”
The three names, Geofferys, Geoffereys and Jones, were formatted thusly:
Geofferys, Geoffereys, & Jones
“The three bars on this note here are surely the bottom of the ‘o’ and the two stems on the ‘n’ of ‘Jones’, are they not?” said he, prodding a long thin finger at the card beneath my nose.
“My word, so they are. Holmes, you have outdone yourself!”
The warm grin that marked his face reminded me that, behind his usually mechanical exterior, Holmes was keen of praise.
“Perhaps, yet for all our present knowledge, we are still lost. But, If I am not mistaken, that is Mrs Hudson upon the stair. Ahh, good morning, Mrs Hudson! Yes, coffee for two, please, and might we lunch early to-day? Capital, and beef should be fine. Oh, and send the page up, would you?”
She disappeared down the stairs, and not a moment later our fresh young page, Billy, bounded into the room.
“Billy, I have task for you,” said Holmes, scribbling out a small note. “Hie thee to Charing Cross—yes, Billy, in this weather—and find the Geofferys, Geoffereys and Jones’ accounting firm. I want you to deliver this note to Hamish Geofferys himself. He is an old fellow, but warm of heart and knows of our exploits. Now, I should expect you to be back by noon, but if by some chance we are not here, Mrs Hudson will no doubt point you in the right direction.”
He nodded grudgingly and stomped away, leaving Holmes and I to our pastimes. It was almost noon when a step could be heard upon the stair, however, it was the sweet face of Mrs Hudson that opened the door.
“Mr Holmes,” said she, “letter.”
“Well, Watson, it seems not every of london’s fiends is hibernating,” said he, plucking the letter from Mrs Hudson’s hands with a dainty bow. He read the note with a keen eye, and a wry smile warmed his face. “Aha, well, I should think the good Mr Harrington will have me eating my words before the day is through. Pack a night bag, if you will, and I shall start on lunch. We leave for Shoscombe by the one-thirty train. Mrs Hudson, If Billy should return after we have left, Shoscombe Old Place is where he may find us.”
The rest of the afternoon was a whirlwind of action. Holmes remained tight lipped, caught up in his own musings, whereas I had no time for such luxuries. Perhaps one of the setbacks of living with the great detective was the lack of a steady timetable. I spent the next hour organising replacements for my long suffering patients—how lucky I am that our neighbor, Dr Benjamin Cummings, was content to practice in my stead. We were met upon the step of our house by a bedraggled and chilly faced cabby, another Londoner dealing with the bitter weather. It was only once Holmes and I were sitting in the first class cabin to Somerset that my companion finally broke his silence.
“What do you recall of the name John Mason?” he asked, pulling the folded letter out of his breast pocket.
“The fellow who hired us to investigate his employer, Sir Robert Norberton? My, I cannot say I recall Sir Robert in the best of lights. Was he not the gentleman who hired an actor to impersonate his deceased sister to avoid losing the stables to his Jewish debtors?”
“The very same, and I’m inclined to agree. It seems that his prize colt—the Shoscombe Prince, you will recall—was purloined from the stables two days ago.”
“Two days ago! Why on earth should the man call for us now? On a further note, why are we helping the blackguard! Surely the local forces can handle a simple robbery?”
“Watson, I apologize for uprooting you in such a manner. Indeed, If it were any other slight against the man this letter here will have served its purpose as kindling long ago. But this case is a singular adventure—I need not remind you of a certain raving old man who would believe the Devil himself stalks the Somerset Downs, and shows a keen interest in the local turfing community. Surely you and your readers can suffer Sir Robert for another few days? Here, allow me to dictate,
“Dearest Sherlock Holmes [he read] You will undoubtedly recall the tricky business of Sir Robert’s not more than two years ago. However, I implore you to come to my aid once again. There is some curious business regarding Shoscombe Prince. Two nights ago, I returned to find the stallion gone, without a trace. Yet, within two evenings, he reappeared as if he had never left. At his hooves, however, a Centurion’s helm and a pool of blood. I notified the local forces, and upon searching the area the dead body of some breed of miniature pony was found in a nearby thicket. We are collectively clueless. Come with haste.
P. S. A warning regarding Dr Watson. Sir Robert has taken his ruin to heart, and holds the good doctor personally responsible. Please be cautious. If it does not shine through his demeanor, then I should think his rage is held in some other capacity, just inching toward the brim. Again, be cautious.
John Mason Shoscombe Telegram Office
“A Centurion’s Helm. Telling, is it not? Now, I don’t expect us to take that drunkard’s words as truth, but you see why I had us at the station within the hour. So, Watson, what are your thoughts?”
We made small talk for some of the journey, but the majority was spent in a comfortable silence, watching as the fog slowly dissipated into a thick white blanket across the downs. It appeared that the nefarious weather choking London had come to pass, but thrice did we ride through a snowfall; heavy flakes built drifts upon the sills of the windows. “Curious weather,” my companion commented on numerous occasions, his brow knotted and his thin fingers tapping his knee. Aside from a furtive glance at the telegram as we passed Swindon, he seldom moved. The cab ride to Shoscombe Old Place was a bitter affair, and Holmes and I were glad to see the lights of the old Georgian Villa hovering over the undulating drive.
No sooner had our coats been taken from us were we ushered into Sir Robert’s vast study. Upon our previous occasion here, we had no inclination to enter the house—save our escapade into its catacombs—so allow me to describe it briefly.
Upon entering, one is met by a lobby bursting through the house’s outer restraints. It is so cavernous that I am sure he uses is as his ballroom upon an occasion. A view supported by the large crystal chandeliers that droop from the ceiling. Through this lobby, a grand staircase rises up and to the left, while two corridors below split the house into two sections. One is the staffing quarters, the other for guests. Only the upstair sections of the villa were occupied year round by Sir Robert.
Other than he, five other staffers lived within Shoscombe Old Place: John Mason, the Head Trainer and our chief employ when last we were present, as now; Stevens, the Villa’s long suffering butler; Mrs Norette, the maid of Lady Beatrice—whom you shall remember as the late sister of Sir Robert; Mr Norette, Mrs Norette’s husband and the actor hired to impersonate Lady Beatrice; and a cook by the name of Gallagher, whom had entered the employment of Shoscombe Old Place a few weeks before my chronicle of it’s dark secret was published.
Once one ascends the great staircase they are met firstly with the study, where a large writing desk, accented by a polished looking typewriter, is walled in by an expansive library, girdered by grand windows that face out onto the training paddocks. Through this study, Sir Robert’s private quarters, the gun room, and a small french style bathroom.
The man himself stood at his desk with his hands crossed behind his back, gazing out at the brooding weather. He wore a white shirt, cream slacks and matching vest. His fair hair seemed ruffled and ill kept, but he stood tall and perfectly poised.
“Sir Robert,” my companion stated atonally.
The man’s hands curled themselves into fists, but released almost instantaneously. “Mr Holmes,” Sir Robert addressed in an acidic tone, “and dear Dr Watson. It appears that he does, in fact, follow you everywhere, even here.”
“Indeed he does,” my companion retorted, “And I should see no reason why it is of any concern to you. He professes the truth, and in my eyes, justice has been served. Now, your horse, Shoscombe Prince.”
Sir Robert was evidently not listening. As he rounded on me, I could see the outlines of veins in his neck, like the twisted roots of some ancient tree. “Imagine if you will, Dr Watson, the effect your little story had upon its publication. Seventeen pages was all it took to turn me from influential baronet to the scourge of the countryside. My sister’s creditors want me out, the town hall wants me out... even the servants, Dr Watson.
“Mason only works for the stables now, he refuses to be directly associated with me. Even the staff keep their distance. Heaven only knows how I managed to convince Gallagher to keep his position. We had only just hired him, after all,” he spat.
We were expecting this sort of reception, but the voracity by which he approached me spurned Holmes into action. Sir Robert was so close, he could have lit my cigarette if it were not for the solid arm that sprung between us.
Sir Robert caught the deadly gaze of Holmes and took a step back, grinning a vile grin. “Enough of the past,” said he, “for I should think you are here on business, and what a business it is. Come, to the stables, Sergeant Hammersmith awaits. If you’ll be so kind as to follow Stevens, I shall join you in but a moment.”
We were led out, down the staircase and across the great lobby. We donned our coats, and were offered thick wellingtons by Stevens. Holmes had said nary a word, his all seeing gaze darted to all manner of places as we exited through the great doors into the bitter evening. As soon as Stevens closed them, Holmes turned on me.
“Watson,” said he in a commanding whisper, “have you your service revolver?” I started, jumping back as Holmes's keen glare caught my own.
I held a hand to my breast pocket, and instantly spited my poor foresight: it appeared I had left it at my Kensington home. I shook my head.
“Bah!” Holmes exclaimed. He turned to me to say more, but the arrival of our third member cut him off. Sir Robert had donned a large winter coat, with a great fox-fur hood and numerous large pockets.
“Braving the cold I see. Well, I suppose the game for you, Holmes, is warming in itself. Dr Watson here will just have to suffer,” he smiled at me, “Come, the stables are a ways past the chapel. I’m sure you remember that from your last escapade.”
Both of us followed obediently. I made eyes at Holmes, an attempt to coax out of him what he planned to tell me moments before, but the steely glare had disappeared, and he met my curious gazes with equally mundane eyes.
The path had been covered—we could see not gravel nor stone of the garden walk beneath our feet. Throughout the journey, Holmes’s eyes were keenly searching the ground beneath us and beyond, towards a thick brace of pines, girded by the thicket.
“I had hoped you would be here sooner, lest we continue this investigation through the night. Alas, it appears our Lord above has not been so willing to grant me such a wish,” called our host ahead, also gazing out across the thicket. We left the light of the house behind us and further into the fleecy snow we trod. “Nonetheless,” he continued, “I fear that if we save, even for a moment, the trail evaporates, like mist. Not that that would trouble you, Mr Holmes.”
My companion merely grunted, and we pushed on in silence. We passed the chapel, where Holmes and I had discovered the grisly resting place of Sir Robert’s sister, and finally a glimmer of light through the ever dimming twilight appeared before us.
“Gentlemen, the stables,” announced Sir Robert. Through the growing twilight, we could make out little, but I was certain that these stables had been here longer than even the old Villa. Stone walls topped by thatches of hay and were further burdened by thick drifts of snow. A light flickered through a small pane to the left of the door. Sir Robert knocked twice, and from within we could hear bottles toppling and the crunch of a chair being pushed back.
“I take Mason is present as well?” Holmes inquired.
“And ready to serve you as ever,” replied our host.
In the interim a heavy weight fell into the left hand pocket of my coat, accompanied by a whisper in my ear, “Take mine. Watch him now, I fear our time together is short.”
I glanced toward Holmes a second time, but still he would not return an answer. It appeared his keen mind had set to work admiring the rusted steel axle resting upon the wall. I was not unaccustomed to wielding a revolver during our seminal escapades, but the accompanying warning shook me slightly.
The stable door opened, and a wave of heat caressed us. “Come in, come in,” cried an unfamiliar voice, “Mr Sherlock Holmes, it’s a long way from baker street, is it not? Aha, well, no matter, I am glad to have you at last. Ooh, do come in from the cold. You too, Sir Robert. And who... ahhh, Dr Watson as well! I must say, Your presence here has given me cause to celebrate.”
The speaker was a rotund, ruddy faced gentleman in a police uniform who we were introduced to as Sergeant Hammersmith. His cheeks were blush red, while his hair was a wispy tone of grey. Beside him sat the thinner and flush faced John Mason, appearing much as he did in my last little chronicle. His face was rough, however, and deep bags beneath his eyes certainly hinted at recent trouble in his life. His cold, self-possessing demeanor was ever present though, and he managed to bow to us all the same.
He shook both our hands heartily, “Good to see you gentlemen so soon! Why, it can’t have been two years since I saw you last. Come, have a swill. The brandy welcomes those from the cold.”
Holmes waved his hand in disinclination. “Sadly I must decline,” he took out his pipe, “as does Watson. I must be clear of mind, while Watson here, well, his small penchant for the drink has turned somewhat serious.”
Their gaze turned upon me, sober and pitiful. I was furious—never would I succumb to such a vice. But, Holmes’ gaze shut my lips, his deep set eyes assuring me that whatever he was planning, It would be for the better if my lips were sealed. Still smouldering within I managed a solemn nod and shot a rueful glare at Holmes. His eyes twinkled, but ne’er would he be more obvious than that.
“Mason, am I to assume that you were the first to discover the missing stallion?” he enquired, turning to our hailer.
“Aye, Mr Holmes, It was me, and what a fright it was too. I eat in the villa, you see—even I cannot stand these stables for long—and it was around this same time two nights ago whence I returned.”
“And what did you eat?” Holmes asked.
“My dear Mr Holmes, why, that seems rather off the track, does it not?” cried Sir Robert indignantly.
“My mind has been on other things Mr Holmes, but It must have been... hum,” Mason's features writhed as he searched his memory. His eyes searched their peripheries aimlessly until his face began to glow with clarity. "Mutton!" he cried. "Curried mutton!"
“Very well, and did it taste peculiar at all?” enquired Holmes.
“Mr Holmes, how can this be at all relevant?” cried Sir Robert once more, his face turning a livid red tinge.
With a sigh, Sherlock Holmes turned to face Norberton, his tall figure easily meeting that of the stable owner’s
“Sir Robert, my business is to know things,” Holmes said in a restrained calm. “What your cook has been feeding your staff could prove very telling. I recall a certain case in Montenegro—1866 I believe—wherein the whole defence rested on the contents of the Regent Prince’s previous meal. Now, if you will please cease your interruption I should like to continue with my investigation! Did the meal taste peculiar, Mr Mason?”
Sherlock Holmes’s voice seldom rose, and only in moments of sheer danger did his soothing tenor ever raise to a shout. But when his fury spilled over it was clear to all that never should Mr Holmes be crossed or angered.
Sir Robert appeared to shrink into the corner, his broad shoulders cambered. Mason and Hammersmith both sat upright in their chairs, the brandy losing all effect for a moment of outburst.
“Well, I can’t say that I have the palette for such things, but think it tasted rather fine. Gallagher made merry with the garlic, true, but I don’t believe it made much of a difference.”
“Quite so. Pray, continue with your narrative.”
“Well, I had just returned from dinner. The snow had only just begun at that point and I could see that the sky was almost smothered by these deep black clouds. I tend to leave the fire smouldering when I leave to keep the my humble quarters warm. That night, however, I was taken aback before I had even entered when I saw through the window that the fire was roaring anew. At first I thought the worst, and perhaps some of the embers had caught onto these timber boards along the floor, but no, the fire was burning safe. I did not notice him missing immediately. As you can see, I can hardly see into the stables proper from here—Mr Holmes?”
Sherlock Holmes was using the stem of his pipe to scrape at the boards upon the floor. “Please, take no account of my lack of attention. I have heard every word. You cannot see the stables from here, correct?”
“No, no you cannot. It is my usual practice to complete a round of the stables before sleep, and as such it was then that I discovered his disappearance. It didn’t appear that there had been any violence before hand, no sign of a scuffle. The feed bin was empty, completely empty—as if one had washed it clean—and the doors to the prince’s pen wide open. I remember almost fainting, and then running to the Villa without delay.”
“And that is all? No sign of a blue flash perhaps, or lightning?” My companion asked, his queer task upon the wooden planks apparently complete.
“No, Mr Holmes, that is all.”
Sherlock Holmes frowned, a sign that Mason’s statement had not shone light onto the mystery.
“Well then,” he finally said, “Let us see The Prince”
Case One: The Adventure of the Centurion's Helm; Part the Second Paper_mate_Pony
John Mason led us past a small threadbare mattress upon the floor, through a short passage and out into the main room of the stables. The roof was low, and it appeared as cavernous as the lobby. There were four horses in all, segregated to their own, simple pens. Each had a wooden feed bin—a halved barrel—and a shared trough of water. The citations for each were hung from the thick oak pillars that held the ceiling aloft, and it was therefore no issue guessing which stallion was Shoscombe’s prize winner. A deep black stallion, fifteen hands at best, nibbled at a deep pile of hay, nickering softly to the mice and the roosting owls.
“Shoscombe Prince!” Mason proudly proclaimed as we reached the furthest pen.
Holmes asked if it was admonishable to take a look at the horse from within the pen. Mason showed no contempt for him, and waved my partner through. For five minutes we watched the master at work, examining each hoof in turn. He then rifled through the hay, examining strands as a curious hound would. Mason, aware of his powers, and I remained quiet and contemplative, allowing Sherlock Holmes to continue his business. Hammersmith, however, gazed on as if he were a school boy attending a cock fight. He swooned whenever Holmes did something he had not, such as skimming the trough or cleaning out the hooves of the beast. Norberton remained quiet, curled up in his corner, contemplating his shoes.
Finally, Holmes was finished and we were led to the deep crimson patch upon the floor. “Have you touched nothing?” Holmes inquired, and Hammersmith decreed that he had not, and everything was as it had been. It was kidney shaped, roughly the size of a small child and the color of satin red turkish silk. Holmes scoured the area, a methodical repeat of his viewing of the stallion’s pen. We watched in silence, and it appeared all was normal. But, I could not help paying special attention to my friend’s manner, to purloin some suggestion of a connection to Mr Harrington's tale.
I was not one to be swayed by drunken wailings of an aging madman, but the sheer coincidence was chilling. What if such a creature did exist, and was stalking the hills at this moment? I personally thought that the old man’s narrative was full of holes, but one thing he had been very adamant of was its almost human qualities. The Hound of the Baskervilles, although not spectral nor demonic, was a living, breathing beast of the like we had never seen, so what then of the queer apparition of Mr Harrington?
He had appeared upon the cusp of sanity back in Baker Street, and although not in my field of expertise, the man exhibited the very definitions of a stress related disorder. It was not, therefore, off the cuff to assume that what he had seen was little more than an imagination losing grip of a very real situation.
Such was the position my thoughts had led me to as Sherlock Holmes rose, his face demure. “And the helm?” he asked Hammersmith, who lead us to the doors of the stable, where a battered-in Centurion’s helmet lay on its side. At this very moment, Stevens, the butler, rounded through the little door.
“Mr Sherlock Holmes,” said he. “A telegram has been received, addressed to your very self from the Charing Cross Telegram Office. Would you like to receive it now, or on the cessation of your investigation?”
“Why yes, thank you, Stevens. Now would be fine.” Sherlock Holmes was handed the short slip of card, and appeared to read it thrice; his keen gaze darted left and right. His face, I could see, took upon itself a whitish gloss, but his features remained demure as ever
“Gentlemen,” he announced, “It appears I must return to London at once.”
“Why, Mr Holmes, you have only just begun!” cried Hammersmith. Holmes nodded sagely in agreement.
“Indeed, but while I cannot continue this investigation, my methods surely will. Watson here can doubtlessly remain for the few days it shall take for me to sort through this slight indiscretion. Watson, what say you?”
I, of course, could not say no, but was furious with him all the same. Dr Cummings had his own practice to attend to, and on the occasions when Holmes left me unto my own devices I rarely made headway. Further still, Holmes had made it quite clear that he saw ill of Norberton, and I most certainly believed that his presence was making an impression on the baronet. But, once again, his gaze forced my hand, and I let slip a solemn nod. “Excellent! Watson, a report of your findings tomorrow morning, if you please. Stevens, would be so kind to call a cab?”
He left through the door he entered and I, for the third time in my career, was forced to become the very brilliance I endeavoured to record in these many diaries.
Hammersmith turned his eyes to me, and looked at my person through his whiskers. “Well, what do you think, Dr Watson?”
I grimaced, unsure of whether I should divulge my adolescent theories, or continue with Holmes’ examination of the Helmet.
“Perhaps a tipple, Doctor?” asked Sir Robert, still brooding in his corner. Despite our mutual disdain, he raised a fair point. I had missed lunch in favor of last minute organisation, and it was already leaning toward seven in the evening. The faces on Mason and Hammersmith agreed, as they too had been wrenched from their meals, and so we resolved to return to the stables after dinner. Sir Robert offered to host me at the villa, but I declined, claiming that it would be easier for me to dine in the very building of the crime scene. He parted ways, and left us to our humble feast. A leg of mutton roasted over the fire that warmed us from the hearth; as Mason explained, he refused to leave the stables lest some untoward happenings befall his stallion.
We ate quickly, but once the leg had been consumed, Mason turned to me with the air of a concerned friend.
“So tell me, Doctor,” he asked, lowering his voice so that only I could hear, “Why did you come? I believe I expressly mentioned that you were in danger.”
“I saw not hide nor hair of your telegram until we were an hour out of Queen’s Park station,” I answered taking a precautionary glance at Hammersmith, who had drunk himself into a stupor. “Holmes is a considerate man in some respects, but given a case like this one, one must be prepared to drop everything.”
“Well have you protection, a stick, anything?” asked Mason leaning even closer; I could smell the brandy on his breath.
I pulled the handle of Holmes’ revolver from my side pocket, and Mason nodded, before leaning right into my ear. “Watch yourself, Doctor. You may see that you find need for it before tomorrow is through. I cannot vouch for my employer’s self-control, now that Mr Holmes has disappeared. Watch yourself.”
We were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Gentlemen, you should find that it is infact eight o’clock. Shall we continue with this investigation?” came Sir Robert’s baritone through the door.
We convened by the old helmet, and I tentatively began my own examination. It appeared to been a highly polished brass ornament, fit for a head two sizes smaller than mine. The plumage was a vibrant blue color, like indian silk and had the texture of a shoe brush. The exterior, apart from the dent, revealed nothing more to my eyes, other than the wearer had most definitely receiving a kick to the head. The interior was padded using a sort of miniature downy pillow with felt bands to keep the fit snug.
Again, there was nothing to be learned. I stood up, stroking my chin like Holmes did, and felt awfully inadequate. There was no blood within the helmet, and so the dent could not have come from the killing blow. It must, therefore, have been bashed while on the ground, but why? Plus, there was obviously some form of injury involved, as a patch of blood that large could not have come from a mere gash.
“‘Sat it?” wondered the Sergeant aloud.
“Perhaps we should call it a night, Dr Watson,” inclined Norberton, who had regained his composure during the absence of Sherlock Holmes. “The pony should be left till tomorrow. The good Sergeant has flagged its position well, have you not? Quite! So, shall I accompany you to your chambers?”
I shared a glance with Mason, who regarded the offer with caution, but his solemn nod gave me the freedom to enjoy the villa’s hospitality.
“Under the condition that I sleep in the servants quarters, Sir Robert,” I demanded, but added quickly, “I don’t wish to make a fuss, I am here on business after all.”
Mason smiled at me, and with one final glance at the surroundings we made our egress.
“Remember, doctor,” Mason whispered into my ear, “keep your pistol close, he is not to be trusted.”
I nodded without looking back, and followed the baronet through the threshold of the office doorway and into the steadily declining eve.
“I hope you aren’t suspicious of me, Dr Watson,” Sir Robert wrenched the door closed behind me. “You ruined me, it is true, but I am a fair man. What I did was wrong, no? You would agree, would you not?”
I treated his conversation with suspicion, and answered him a simple nod.
“Ah hah! I thought that was the case—well, I mustn’t say that there was ever any doubt, was there? All I did was rephrase the good Mr. Holmes’ words. You see, you are quite a predictable person—no offence intended of course, just an observation. But hullo, who’s that?”
His gaze had snapped toward the thicket, and mine was soon to follow. It may have been a trick of the eyes, but I would swear I saw a figure dive below the thick scrub. My heartbeat quickened, and I could tell that apprehension had struck the baronet.
It was almost pitch black, aside from the weak light that paved the way from the stable to the chapel, and the villa beyond. With a glance at Sir Robert, I ventured into the darkness. Through the downy snow fall, I could hear his footsteps behind me. I pulled Holmes’ pistol from my pocket, and holding it in front of me, I slowed to a crawl and moved toward what seemed like a small dip in the landscape.
“Anything?” asked Norberton as I mounted the dip.
Apparently, there was not. While I could hardly see through the evening gloom, what I could make out was not indicative of the silhouette I had spotted moments before.
“Aye, well, best not to let our nerves get the better of us, Dr Watson. Come, to your quarters if you please,” Norberton stood beside me, and although his frame didn’t show it, I could tell by his voice that he was as rattled by the apparition as I.
The night was spent in abject misery. It would seem that while happy to contend with my wishes, Sir Robert could not do so without spite. The mattress I had been given was stuffed with hay, and although deep in the confines of the villa, my room rather failed to maintain warmth. I therefore spent the majority of the night finding new and imaginative ways of keeping the chill away. By eleven, I had donned every layer of clothing in my night bag; by midnight I had begun to contemplate stuffing some of the extra pockets of my Westinghouse with straw from the mattress.
But upon the forefront of my mind were the ever present curiosities surrounding this case, and how I could in anyway re-create Holmes’ methods. Doubtless, in a similar position, he would have spent the next three days in a smoky haze, allowing his mind to continue where his body and the physical world could not. But then, Holmes would have exhausted every other available course before resorting to sloth. He would not have dismissed the silhouette as an apparition, and nor should I have done. He would have fought the bitter cold to find that pony’s corpse, before having even considered taking dinner.
I leapt to my feet, a not inconsiderable feat given my attire, and bashfully threw open the door to my humble room. I rustled like an oak in autumn, and running was certainly a difficult prospect. However, I made it through the lobby without waking a soul, and brushed through the great doors into the cold once more.
It was a still night, and I found that beneath my ridiculous attire it was rather comfortable. It took much longer to find the very place now than it had been a few hours earlier, doubtlessly because it was far, far darker at present. But, as one struck across the Downs, I was certain I had re-located the very same dip in the snow. Searching through my vast bulk, Holmes’ pistol found itself in my hands, and I very cautiously neared the dip.
Suddenly a broad, male figure burst from the thicket, and waved his arms above his head. The appearance of this apparition by my side forwent any pretence of balance I may have maintained otherwise. I toppled to my rear with a yell, flinging the snout of the pistol hither and thither.
“Hold it!” I yelled in the blind hope that the figure would listen. “Hold it, I’ll shoot otherwise!”
The figure started, and it’s arms flew up to protect its face, “Ahh! No, its me! Harrington! Don’t shoot, for Christ’s sake!”
I was still trapped upon the snow, a pretty detective I had turned out! “Harrington!” I cried, “You blackguard, why are you here!”
“With me, Watson. Mr Harrington is here with me. Now, if you don’t mind, I should think it bad form if you were to shoot me with my own pistol,” a smooth tenor from the patch of black thicket I had fallen in.
“Holmes! How... why are you here! What of business from Charing Cross?” I yelled manically.
“Hush, Watson, hush. The miscreant is close, very close,” Holmes’ soothing tones calmed me somewhat, but did nought to stifle the rage that swelled within.
“Who?” I asked in a harsh whisper, flailing my arms in a hopes the action might recover some of the balance and dignity I had irretrievably lost.
“Aha, but that is the question, is it not! Mr Harrington, if you might help me accomodate my friend here—on three. One, two... and three. Ah, charming outfit Watson—now, you will recall that Stevens came to me with a telegram, regarding happenings in Charing Cross. It was doubtlessly from Billy, as I’m sure you had guessed, but it is through this telegram that Mr Harrington and I have become intertwined. But I should think It would do us both a favor to hear the full tale from the lips of the very man himself. Mr Harrington, if you would.” Holmes gestured toward our present companion.
“Aye, sir, and what a tale I have for you,” said he in a rough tenor. “There is no shame for an elderly gentleman such as myself to see the err in his ways. I was drunk, and those images were perhaps simple hyperbole. But, of course, I have not lost my mind—I am most sure of this—and I doubt my own imagination, tortured or not, is capable of such abhorrent images. I must have seen something, or likely someone, who had set my mind into a maelstrom.
“And so, I recalled a most chilling sight. Upon the train that night, there was a man, you see, who sat two rows back from myself. He was very tall and thin, and his eyes were sunk deep into the back of his head, a great bulbous white thing it was too. But, never before was there a fellow who stared through his beady little eyes with so much hatred and contempt. Nary horns nor the tail of a snake, but the devil within no less. You see, perhaps that gentleman had some connection with what I had seen that night—or so my less than sober mind theorised.
“Shoscombe Old Place is well known for its racing prestige—I remembered hearing of it from liverpool, way back when. A horse robbery perhaps? I knew of Norberton’s ill repute with his debtors—as do most, Dr Watson. A showstopper like the Prince would undoubtedly attract attention from the vile creatures of the Devil, not to mention the subsidiaries one might come upon, if they were to deal with the right person. I pondered returning to Baker street at once, of course, but my musings had already dragged me half the way to Charing Cross.
“God’s hand must have been present today, as I doubt that without it, such auspicious timing should not have been. It so happens that as I was walking through Charing Cross—for I fear my feelings for you had taken a bitter turn, I must admit—who should pass me but the very same gentleman from the train! Oh, he is not a very noticeable sort, and I believe my eyes just fell upon him. He obviously had a very good sense for these things; no sooner had I made eyes on him did he return my gaze. He stopped in the middle of the street and glared at me. Such hatred in those eyes, Mr Holmes. Yet, he smiled at me, in some twisted friendly greeting. So we stood for a moment, taking the other in. I, in my beggar’s rags, and he in a deep black frock-coat fading with age. He never blinked, nor did he fluster. Then, with a curt nod, he disappeared down a side alley—Blithen-Wells corner, or some such.
“I stood rooted on the spot, padding my forehead with my sleeves and feeling terrible emulsified. I had half a mind to chase the fellow down, until a troop of firemen came running up that very same street. I followed as best I could—this frame is as ancient as it is weak—and saw smoke billowing from the highest story of a block of offices, five high in all. How queer it is, Dr Watson, to witness a pyre burning through snow-locked eves. Men were being escorted from the flats, all of them covered in a thick veil of soot. Women shrieked and carried on, as women do, and all around a steady stream of onlookers stopped to gawk.
“I ,myself, got shouldered back, toward the far end of the growing crush, where the urchins and beggars collected.
“‘Whose offices?’ I asked aloud.
“‘Weww, sir, tha’ would be Geoffery’s, Geofferey’s and Jownses accounting furm’ said a small urchin fellow.
"I ignored the boy, but immediately knew that you must be notified—surely that bulbous-headed fellow was involved! So terribly estranged I had become, however, I lost my way completely. For hours, through the biting snow I searched for any sign of your apartment. Alas, It had well gone three by the time I reconnected with baker street, and your landlady informed me you had left hours before. But I knew where you would be headed, It must have been connected somehow, so I spent the final penny ‘pon my person on a train ticket back to Shoscombe.” He smiled, clasping his hands together in front of him.
“And so,” Holmes looked at me, “We arrive at our current situation. As you have no doubt guessed, Billy’s missive said little more than what the good Mr Harrington has witnessed. Through one of the many smiling dealings of fate, we crossed each other’s paths at the Shoscombe station, where Mr Harrington pitched his case once again, to the present effect.”
“But what of the accounting firm? Surely that is where this whole case impinges!” I stipulated.
“Upon what grounds, Watson? Do not believe, even for a moment, that these two cases are not inextricably linked. The gentleman upon the train, Watson. Very tall and thin, bulbous head, sunken eyes and perpetually ill tempered. Watson, you are my faithful boswell, surely you can remember such a striking resemblance as that!” He spoke like a man possessed, holding onto my collar.
“My dear Holmes, we have been in partnership for years, how could I possibly recall such features as those!”
“Ay, well, I suppose you never did have the pleasure of meeting the man in person. Worry not, friend Watson, you shall meet soon enough. A gentleman like he would never leave such blatant evidence, and once we catch him in the act, we are in a most favorable position to ensnare the lesser miscreant who did.”
“Holmes, you’re speaking in tongues! Who is this gentleman, and why does the description of this... elderly fellow hold so much weight to your investigation?”
“Because there is no blood sitting in yonder stables, friend Watson!” Sherlock Holmes shook his finger toward the soft glow of the stable’s window. I gave him a look of pure confusion, as if I had detected the foulest smell. He sunk his chin with a smile, “Ahh, but of course. The simplest way to explain is to show you the err of our ways. We, of course, assumed that the red patch upon the floor was blood. So, our minds immediately turned to the felled pony, yes?”
I nodded.
“Quite, but had you actually examined the poor fellow, you will have found no gash nor mangled limb. My, you came close, most certainly, but you never examined it, did you?”
“Why, Holmes I did not. How can you possibly—”
“Because, Watson, you never gave my silhouette more than perhaps a moment’s notice. If you had trusted your instinct instead of following that blackguard’s advice, you most certainly would have found this sitting below your nose.”
He pulled from the thicket a bundle of what I immediately thought was cloth. But as it fell at my feet with a thud its stubby limbs flailed. I jumped back, shocked at the sudden appearance of our miniature breed. I could see nought of its features through the dark, but rummaging through my notes, a brief estimate of it’s dimensions is not hard to conjure. Four feet from snout to rump, and from the tip of its bristly mane to its hooves I took it to stand perhaps as tall.
“Good God, Holmes, you found it!” I cried, to the reception of a violent hush.
“Indeed, as you dined with Mr Mason we climbed the fence, and Harrington and I spent the evening searching—”
“Aye, and I should swear he fits my premonition perfectly!” Mr Harrington cut through Holmes’ train of thought.
Sherlock Holmes ignored him. “—searching for this. No horrid gash across the temples, and so no head trauma. And we must ask ourselves what, indeed, has been spilled upon the floor of the stables if not blood? It is hard to see, but we need not sight for this examination—I’m bringing his mouth to you now—what do you smell, Watson?”
It was spicy and yet foul, like some rotted vegetable.
“Garlic?” I suggested.
“Arsenic, Watson. At least, in some unconventional form. Our devil must have carried it upon his person, in a powder or such, and reconstituted it over the fire on that very first evening. You will recall how I refused to allow you a tipple, Watson. Well, It was not hard to detect that very same odor in Mason’s hovel. At first I thought Norberton had some part to play, but upon examining the stain the facts lined up. Our devil must have used some form of pot or pan to dissolve his deadly mix, and my mind immediately fixated upon the tin mugs both men were using. One of those had the remnants of this deadly poison.”
I interrupted him with a wave of my hand. “You are talking as if this is a very different fellow to our arsonist from London. You mean to say there are two of them?”
The bright grin vanished from his face. “Watson, this is frustrating to no end. Please, assure me that you recognise the description of Mr Harrington here!”
I shook my head. Holmes’ chin sunk into his breast with a sigh.
“Well, you must take my word for it then. This man, this arsonist—and there is no doubt in my mind that he is both guilty of the fire and this poor fellow's passing—is a cunning fox, an eel or trout. Slippery and hidden behind the murky waters of his deceit. A master craftsman of crime. It has been long since this fellow has fought his war from the frontlines. Yet, he would not be so base, so inable of his own profession, to leave such blatant ties to himself just resting against the floor! Watson, this fellow is working with a whole army, the general of which has failed him, here at Shoscombe. Blatantly defied him, even. He shall be back to clean this general’s mess, and so we must be ready for him.” He grasped my collar again, as the spark in his eyes slowly returned.
“Holmes, I am truly sorry, but you simply aren't being logical! Firstly, what evidence do you have that suggests This 'arsonist' is even guilty? He could simply be another traveler, looking to settle his debts! Further, how do you even suggest that these cases are linked? It seems to me as though you are treating this bulbous headed man as the solution to every particular for these cases!”
Holmes sighed. "Watson, you well know that I am fond of taking liberties with you; I do not feel the need to elucidate, for I have often seen you as intellectually capable and not in need of a guiding hand. However, it seems that when you needed it most, a deeper explanation is simply something I cannot give, as I have told you everything that we need to know. This man is the solution to every particular!"
"In your eyes, perhaps. But I simply do not know a fellow alive who fits your criteria!"
“Pah, you aren’t thinking Watson. Of course there is no man alive such as this!”
His comment surely made me start.
“Pah? Holmes, listen to yourself! You mean to tell us that we have become prey to the undead?”
“Gentlemen, the case, if you please.” Mr Harrington brought his large hands down upon both our shoulders. We glared at him ruefully, and under our doubled gaze his good intentions were stayed. His hands lept off our shoulders and met in the center of his chest.
“Holmes, enough of this. You say this fellow has been poisoned by arsenic. Why?”
“I know not, Watson. These facts are all we have. This fellow here,” he motioned at the limp body of the pony, “has been poisoned by arsenic, and there is arsenic residue upon the floor of the stables and before the hearth. I believe our devil did his business by the fire upon the first evening when Mason returned to find his fire ablaze—which is also why Mason tasted garlic in his mutton—and then kept a vial of the substance upon his person. Horse thievery is a most likely cause. If he could not thieve the stallion, perhaps his potential buyers had grown cold feet,, then I believe that he decide that no one could, and wished to use his poison then. However, our fellow here must have consumed it instead, spilling much of it upon the floor there.
“Now, I do believe that Mr Harrington was right, and that this pony was infact sporting that brass Centurion’s helm. He was not, however, bucked in the head, nor did he suffer any serious trauma. The Prince had no brass filings in his iron shoes, as there should have been given the nature of the brass within the helm, so it was not Prince that killed our fellow here. So, upon consuming the poison our devil must have flung the helm to the side in a hopes to extract what he could from the mouth of our victim.
“With half of the poison in this fellow’s belly, and the other half dashed upon the floor, our miscreant must have panicked. He abandoned his pony to die in the thicket, and escaped, leaving all this manner of paraphernalia upon the floor.” Holmes completed his narrative with his normal air of certainty. Harrington was in awe of the man.
“My, it is as if you were there, Mr Holmes,” he cooed.
“Perhaps,” Holmes smiled, “but we are only half finished. The rest of this case rests upon our capture of the arsonist, who will doubtless return to remove the evidence of his compatriot’s failure. Now, I do believe he intends to leave his expedition till the brink of dawn. Until then, we must remain warm—Watson appears to have already done so—and be ever vigilant.”
Over the years I have experienced many bleak vigils following my dear friend Holmes upon his escapades. None, however, were as deadly as this one. I myself was tortured by the cold, even through my many layers, and I cannot fathom the misery of my companions. Harrington, however, was a hardy fellow, and even through his relatively thin green trench coat appeared to remain steadfast. I can only guess that he had spent more nights upon the downs of Summerset than he was comfortable to admit. Holmes had never been one to suffer, as when his body was in strife his mind was most free. Steely concentration marked his eyes as we lay in snow, waiting for dusk to come.
Holmes had brought with him an iron pan covered with an iron lid of sorts, no doubt lifted from the stables, in which he explained were coals from the fire. I can only guess how he came upon such coals, but the warmth was well received, and most likely kept us going for the rest of the night.
From across the hills, we heard the Summerset clock tower chime thrice, then four times, then five as the morning grew even darker. The warmth from the pan had begun to fade, and Holmes and Harrington were now embraced, sharing what little warmth they could muster. I was within moments of calling off the vigil, as my fears for Sherlock Holmes’ health steadily outweighed my desire to see the case through. However, I sensed excitement from Holmes, whose slow and even breathing, despite the cold, halted with a sharp sniff.
“Watson,” he whispered so softly it could have been the wind, “By the line of oaks to the left of the stable. What do you see?”
My eyes panned to the designated spot. Very slowly, a tall figure was ghost stepping through the snow.
“Aye, I see him too,” came a whisper from behind.
“Let him get closer,” Holmes whispered again, “We must make chase, in any case, but we are in no condition to prolong it—hullo, what is that, next to him, do you see?”
The silhouette couldn’t have been further than fifty yards, and yet it was almost impossible to see what Holmes had through the gloom. But there, by the figure’s thin legs was another. It trotted on all fours, and I at first assumed it to be a hound of some form. But alas, it was too linear, too proud. It trotted with a bounce unlike I have ever seen, and its head was held tall and strong, not like some bull dog with it’s snout to the ground.
“Aha! I told you there were more of them, ten in all,” reprimanded Mr Harrington from behind us.
“You mean to say—”
“Yes, Watson, yes he does. Our victim here seems to be in good company.” Holmes, for the first time in his life, sounded as shocked as I.
We waited for the fellow to close upon the stable and his pony followed him diligently. Six struck across the downs, which meant that the brink of dawn could not have been more than a few heartbeats away away, and I could see the pair of figures start slightly. The human figure surreptitiously gestured, and fractions of words wafted towards us.
“My God, the man is insane!” Harrington voiced our collective thoughts.
“As were you, Mr Harrington,” Holmes said with an airy tone.
The silhouette of the pony made what appeared to be some form of bow, before trotting back to the line of oaks. The fellow cast a look around before he made for the stable doors, and disappeared behind the old cobbled building.
“Now!” Holmes yelled, and we rose from our fox hole as one. I sped ahead of Holmes, whose stiff legs hindered his speed. Harrington, falling victim to his age, fell behind immediately but his heavy breathing could be heard behind us all the same. It took us but moments to reach the heavy doors of the main stable. The figure had already taken hold of his prize, grasping the Helmet behind the folds of his deep green overcoat.
From his side, his other arm levelled with us, pistol in hand. He fired thrice while dashing off toward the oak trees, and I felt one bullet come whizzing past my shoulder. From behind me, there was a cry followed by the sound of deadweight collapsing into the snow. I turned, aghast.
“No!” Holmes cried, holding his shoulder, “After him Watson! After Him!” His eyes glinted, and I knew he trusted me. Harrington came puffing toward us, he eyes dancing between my expression and Holmes’ writhing figure in the snow. “Watson!” Holmes cried once more, and I darted off, following my prey’s footsteps in the snow.
I threw my Westinghouse off, which was followed by a colorful sweater of my wife’s creation, and compounded my speed after Holmes’s would be killer. His path lead me to the oaks, and a rustle ahead told me I was close. The branches were thick and knotted, thus it took me far longer than I wish to admit. Through the receding darkness, however, our figure’s silhouette dwindled. I made chase, confidence building now that day teetered upon the horizon.
He turned back, and I could see his face properly in the early dawn light. Two beady eyes, red with rage, stabbed at me from within a sunken forehead. His pistol rose again, but as far away as I was, his shots flung wide and were of no issue to me.
He mounted the hill, and started yelling like a man possesed. “Dawn Hammer! Dawn Hammer you filthy waste, we must fly! Open it! Open it you fool! We shall lose them through the streets!”
At the time, I admit his words paid little effect to me. So concentrated was I on keeping him within reach, that the sheer irrationality of the statement surprises me, even now.
Holmes, his shoulder slung over that of Harrington’s, burst through the thicket behind me. I hesitated momentarily, just to ensure he was not to die on me. His face was far from pale. In fact, this was one of the very few occasions I have seen it livid. “Watson, don’t you dare halt for us! After him!”
I mounted the rise myself seconds after the silhouette of our miscreant, he having half bounded, half rolled, down the other side, where a very nervous pony was fidgeting, entertaining some blue lantern before him.
I should point out now, that this pony was no contemporary breed of horse. The body in the thicket was undoubtedly of the same family; four feet tall, roughly the size of a well fed Great Dane. Its pupils, however, had a most human quality. Large, perhaps the size of my fist, and a similar satin blue to its mane. Such a queer sight, but under the circumstances inappropriate to halt and stare. As the fellow eyed his master bounding down the rise, and myself hot upon his heels, I am sure I observed his eyes grow.
Then, well, the most amazing thing occurred. A large ball of blue light sprung from nowhere, so bright that it outshone the impending dawn like the sun outshines all heaven’s stars in the sky. “That’s it! That’s exactly what I saw!” cried Harrington, having also mounted the rise, burdened by Sherlock Holmes.
“Onward Watson! After the man!” he cried. We closed upon the ever growing ball, and our devil knew I was at his heels. The pony looked to be in considerable anguish, his brow having furrowed as sweat dripped from his mane, even through the frigid air.
“Dawn Hammer! Now! Through!” cried the miscreant, and the pony followed his orders without delay. I could feel the energy of the pulsating ball shift as its creator passed through. Again, had I been of any other demeanor, I would have been stunned at its very existence. Alas, Holmes’ insistence, not to mention my own growing thrill, stayed such thoughts. I was working through instinct alone.
As we neared it, I could hear fizzles and snaps as if some great electric machine was powering the whole apparition. It also became apparent that the great ball was shrinking. I could even feel heat upon my face, as if through this great orb summer itself awaited us. The miscreant’s breathing quickened in desperation and I could sense that his only present goal was to enter this great glowing orb. He was to succeed, as even though I had made gains upon him, there remained a gap yards wide.
“Follow them, doctor!” cried Harrington, whose old frame lumbered down the rise, following a now sprinting Sherlock Holmes. The miscreant entered with a desperate yelp, and I was to follow. I let go a final cry before being engulfed by the dazzling blue sphere.
It was a singularly displeasing experience. My arms entered first, but they felt miles away at the very same instant, stretched to infinity. I felt my navel ram against the back of my skull, and then it too wrung itself into microscopic pieces. I felt a cold chill move down my spine as it twisted itself between one world and the next. What I saw was irrelevant, for I believe my eyes followed my navel and weathered the journey somewhere beneath my skull. I felt the totality of time wash across my back like dew rolls off an autumn leaf, and then pool at my feet. For a single moment, I was both master and servant, everything and nothing, and I can assure that for what little time I spent between worlds, it was far, far too long.
And suddenly, reality congealed before my eyes. High, dark walls stretching toward an infinite sky. Stars dotted the space between spaces, but what different stars they were. I should think that I know my way through the night sky, but never before had I seen constellations such as these.
Time briefly passed, and my mind told me I had landed in some form of alley. Cobbles beneath me, and brick walls to both sides. A great steel container sat to the side, and appeared to be piled high with black, shimmering bags. Between the two buildings, a thin alley stretched. I spun to the left and right, thoroughly disoriented. But there, down one side past the steel box, a shadow in the yellow light. A man was running, his silhouette growing as he disappeared.
Memories of Somerset came flooding back. I gave chase, but It seemed running had become rather harder then I recalled. Left foot, then right, I remember having to tell myself. Slowly, I regained feeling in my lower extremities, and picked up speed. By the time I reached the corner, however, he had gone.
I was met by another intersection. To my left, three yards away, a large chain link fence. To my right, the exit of this bricks-and-mortar maze. Assuming that there was simply nowhere else for our fiend to turn to, I made for it. Slowing to a walk I entered a small sort of square. Edwardian houses were packed in close, and I, for a moment, believed we had been taken back in time. No lights shone through the shuttered windows, but even still, the great moon above provided ample illumination.
Above the rooftops, great ivory towers rose into the starry sky, topped by gilded domes of deep purple. Never, in all my travels, have I seen such a place. Even the clouds seemed otherworldly, thick and white, not like our wispy, thin british clouds. They could have been painted onto the night sky.
“I’ve got you now, y’two legged freak!”
I had only time to glance at a blue sphere careering toward me before getting tossed to the floor. Whatever it was, it stung like a wasp. Yet, as I was brought to the unforgiving cobbles, I noticed how light it felt in my arms.
“Hey! Lemme’ go!” it squealed at me.
“Good Lord, it speaks!” I mumbled, throwing it as far from me as I could before crawling back.
A transformation occurred before my eyes. From lightning fast ball of fur, two wings emerged, a tail of marvellous colours and a neck, sporting a head with eyes of bright cerise. It was—quite infallibly, and rather unbelievably, but wholly the truth—a small, cyan pegasus.
“Ha, yeah, try and run, you hairless freak!” and she flew at me once again. One of her hooves landed in my spleen, and another right across where I had been assailed by a jezail bullet long ago.
“Rainbow Dash, no! That’s not the one!” a second, purer voice cried, out of view.
“What!” cried the blue pegasus—whom shall now be referred to by her true name, Miss Rainbow Dash, “As if this isn’t. C’mon, Twilight, it’s not like they grow on trees!”
“Be that as it may, Dash, I think we’re mistaken. Just look at it... or smell it, even.”
“Yeah, so? It could’a just grown or something, for all we know. C’mon, give me a break, will you? You’re just sore I caught it first!” Miss Dash jeered.
I groaned in pain, the throbbing of my shoulder combining with the dull ache of my torso. Through my bleary vision, a second of these queer ponies trotted up to my captor. Through Miss Dash’s legs, which straddled me like a cage, I guessed it might be the same size, and of similar gate. This new-comer however was a dull purple color, almost that of lavender, and spoke with an air of sophistication the likes of which was not dissimilar to that of a doctor or priest.
“Rainbow Dash,” Miss Twilight Sparkle—as was her own, queer, title—reprimanded, “leave it be. Does it look like that same beast to you? Oh goodness, it's bleeding... Rainbow Dash!”
“Bleeding? Guhhh! gedditoffgedditoffgedditoff!” Miss Dash squealed, taking to the skies like a scolded hound.
I was most confused. Aside from the thankfully subsiding pain in my shoulder and chest, I felt not the searing pain of a bullet wound or gash. I doubted that through my layers of clothes her hooves could have caused me much damage. I did nothing to check for myself, however. The sheer unbelievability of the situation left me without a tongue or single coherent thought in my head.
Images of Holmes' pistol, I must admit, seeped through the haze. However, I was too shocked and too bleached to fully command my body and retrieve it from a pocket two layers down. So I instead lay there numbly, possibly teetering on unconsciousness, and through bleary eyes, watched as Miss Sparkle saw to my apparent wound.
Her soft, purple muzzle twisted my head back a forth, examining the back of my neck. A short cry followed and she darted back, thin strands of crimson trickled down her nose.
“Rainbow! Gosh, you nearly killed it!” her ears were flat against her skull.
“Did not! You saw me, I didn’t even touch its stupid neck!” Miss Dash cried, flinging her forelegs wide.
“Well how do you explain this, hmm?” accused Miss Sparkle, eyeing crimson upon her snout.
Their argument dissolved into stalemate, but I for one was glad that they, at least, had my best interests at heart. Perhaps it was this sensation of gratitude for not striking me further, or simply because I was still too shocked to move for myself that I remained motionless. Even with a most ample window to escape through I did not take it. The exchange grew ever more heated, and both females were now muzzle to muzzle, gnarling through their teeth.
“She would not condone such a... such a weak course of action.” Miss Sparkle was balancing upon the tips of her hooves.
“Yeah, well I bet she would have expected more from her best student, than to drop the most apparent lead we ever had!” Miss Dash took flight, gaining two inches on her counterpart.
Miss Sparkle made a sound like that of a wronged woman. “Fine. See if I care! Its not like we’re the only ones looking or anything! Its not like it could be completely innocent or anything! Its not like we’re going to descend to his own level, or anything!”
“Yeah, well... fine! We won’t torture it! Maybe we’ll just let it go running about, without a care in the world!” Miss Dash squeaked.
A cool, collected male tenor cleared his throat from behind. “Indeed, I should think it very wise to unhand the good doctor this instant!”
Sherlock Holmes, it appeared, could command respect wherever he went.
I must take brief digression here to describe to you the queer features of Miss Sparkle. I would later find that, yes, she was almost exactly as I had estimated from our fellow in the thicket; four feet tall, and just as long. Yet, unlike he—or perhaps through the gloom of Summerset I really could not be sure—she proudly wore a horn that poked through the deep purple bangs of her straight cut mane. And most sincerely confusing, upon her right flank was some queer form of tattoo. You already know that her coat was of a deep lavender, a feature alien in unto itself; but this tattoo—which I later learned was known as a ‘cutie’ mark, or some such—featured at its centre a great, purple star surrounded by what appeared to be a white burst of energy.
Miss Dash, too, featured something similar; her own ‘cutie mark’: a white cloud punctuated with a stylised lightning bolt of fabulous colors, matching those of her mane and tail. She, of course, did not lay claim to a horn of some form for she, as I have mentioned, sported a brilliant pair of cyan wings.
Both creatures started, taking on the image of a stunned cuckold. It appears that while they had been expecting one, the addition of Sherlock Holmes, who stumbled around the corner of that dark alley, caught them completely off guard.
The face of Holmes had taken upon itself a glare he reserved only for the most vile of creatures. It was not accusatory nor, indeed, aggressive, but a clear and present warning to the recipient. From my lowly position, looking up at my would be captors facing off with my good friend remains, in my mind, as somewhat of a spectacle. The clear cut stance of Holmes was parried by the challenging glare of Miss Dash. Miss Sparkle, apparently reticent to this engagement, managed her features in a more inquisitorial manner.
“Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes?” the deep baritone of the hardy Mr Harrington sounded off the walls, and funneled out from our arrival point somewhere behind the ancient apartments. This second voice made a marked effect upon Miss Sparkle, whose confused tilt turned briskly into a more sturdy position. Miss Dash, to her credit, remained locked in silent combat with Sherlock Holmes, but I suspect—although, to this very day, she denies it—she quickly realised her little scouting party had become quite overwhelmed.
Hoarse puffing heralded the arrival of Charles Harrington, whose heavy boots created clear, crisp percussion across the cobblestoned alley.
“My Heavens above, that was unpleasant. Mr Holmes, ‘sat you? And hullo, who‘sat with... oh Lord above.” Upon sighting the two ponies, Mr Harrington lost all pretence of exhaustion. His back straightened, his fists took a brisk turn behind his back, and his heavy puffing halted with a sharp sniff.
“Twilight, what do we do?” Miss Dash paced back, with her withers down by her fetlocks, but never once breaking eye contact with Holmes.
“Celestia above. Where in her name do they keep coming from?” Miss Sparkle’s eyes shone, “Rainbow, do you know what this means?”
“That we’ve been outnumbered? ‘Cus, we kinda have been... y’know, if it hadn’t occurred to you at all,” Miss Dash sidled up against Miss Sparkle.
“Ohh, but Rainbow, look! They’re hardly a threat, and do you honestly believe that—”
Her monologue was cut off by a choking cough; her muzzle gagged by a cyan wing.
“Yes, Twilight, I really kind of do! That other one, only she knows where it came from, and you see what happened! Has that already slipped your mind?!” her voice had taken upon itself a most falsetto vibrato as she rose, once again, into the air.
Currently, I had begun to encounter a queer scent, wafting from where Sherlock Holmes stood. It was soft at first, a metallic tinge not too dissimilar to that of ozone, but it quite rapidly compounded until my head was filled with nothing else. Simultaneously, the glare on Holmes’ face blunted in degrees, as sweat formed upon his furrowed brow. His lips pursed, then relaxed as his eyes retreated into the back of his head.
Almost instantly after that, the strong figure of Holmes toppled quite swiftly, buckling at the knees before falling to his side with a muffled swat. My eyes were instantly drawn, as were Mr Harrington’s, but our would be captors seemed oblivious. Miss Dash and Miss Twilight had once again become ensconced in argument, but I really cared not. I had become drunk upon the reality before me; the conversing ponies; the city that had simply materialised around me; and it all came to null once Sherlock Holmes collided with the hard cobbles before me.
An ecstasy of fumbling followed, as I attempted to rise henceforth with a stone in my heart. I dove atop his chest, and set at tearing the now blood stained trenchcoat—still damp from the snows of Summerset—away from his breast. I pressured the wound, a deep crimson maw just below his left shoulder. Harrington stood above us, confusion chasing fear across his features.
“Oh Celestia!” cried Miss Sparkle, cutting some retort of her fellow’s short and galloping over to the little pile of men that was myself and Sherlock Holmes.
“Hey! I’m talking to you... ponyfeathers!” sighed Miss Dash, who upon being snubbed by Miss Sparkle, also awoke to this present reality.
I was conscious of their presence above my shoulders; too pressing was the matter of quelling the bleeding, however, for them to be acknowledged.
“Doctor, Dr Watson,” Mr Harrington was at my side. “What do you need me to do?”
He, too, was ignored. Quite ignominious was my behaviour, but I feel I may repent given the circumstances. While rummaging around Holmes’ person, patting down pockets and such in a hopeless, frantic manner, I came across a small, solid bulge. I slowly removed it to reveal a small wooden box, roughly the size of a cigarette case. It was of pine construction, with dainty iron hinges across it left edge. It’s face was bare, but I knew immediately that which was contained within.
Holmes, as I have mentioned at least twice, was a fanatic for cocain. He has sworn to me on numerous occasions that he resigned the habit, but I had always suspected there was always a modicum of un-truth.
However, this presented me with an opportunity: within the case I found one vial, full of that most popular, powdered vice and one brass syringe; all nested within a tasteful red-velvet form. Here was Holmes’ salvation.
“You,” I spun my head in desperation to find the gaze of Miss Sparkle, “have you a-a flame, or tinderbox. Anything?”
A quaint smile spread across her lips. “I have better.”
“Well, out with it then!” Mr Harrington cried on my behalf.
I lifted the vial from its home and held it above me, oscillating the contents.
“Could you please hold your flame just below this bottle, here is fine,” said I, tapping the base with my forefinger.
Quite instantaneously, a bright flash of lavender effervescence consumed my hand and the bottle within. As momentarily, it vanished, leaving in its wake my hand, the vial, and a clear liquid within.
I started. I started a second time, but it did little to reveal the magic that had occurred within my very grasp.
“You may continue,” Miss Sparkle qouthed into my ear with a smirk.
I had little pretty time to split hairs. With one last searching glance at this queer purple unicorn, I turned back to my work. I betook a measure of his cocaine into the syringe, and tapped it methodically.
“Twi, what’s it doing?” from behind.
“Bringing him back to life, I think.”
I furled his left sleeve, and betook his arm into mine as the conversation continued behind me.
“You mean, like, what Nurse Red-Heart was doing back when—”
“Yes. Just like that, I’m sure.”
Harrington wordlessly clasped his hands around Holmes’ bicep.
“Hey, Twi?” from Miss Dash.
“Mhh?”
“We’ll find her, ‘kay.”
“Thanks, Rainbow.”
I took the point of the syringe and sheathed it into a prominent vein just above the joint. The plunger descended, and the clear liquid shrunk.
The effect was almost instantaneous. A great tremor shook his supine form, followed by a hollow gasp. Miss Sparkle and company ceased their chatter as the figure of Holmes exploded to his feet with tremulous hands.
“Good... Heavens!” Holmes spun left then right in a ballet of confusion, swatting Miss Sparkle and Miss Dash apart; stumbling over the latter’s polychromatic tail with a painful tear, and landing across the former’s withers. Still to-a-knee, his sudden acceptance into the living realm was treated with dilatory actions on my behalf, but it had not gone unnoticed by either of our ‘captors’.
“Eiieee! My tail!” cried Miss Dash, stamping her rump to the floor as a solitary tear escaped from her eyes.
Miss Sparkle struggled under Holmes’ weight before crowing to the floor with a yelp. Harrington entered the fray, leaping over my still hunched form and wrapping the very pale Sherlock Holmes in his arms.
“Up with you, Mr Holmes. On your feet, sir!”
“Oh... Heavens. Why, bless you, Mr Harrington. And you too, my dear; Miss Sparkle, was it? Oh, and my most sincere apologies, my blue friend: the damage is most perfunctory, I pray.”
It appeared that the confrontation had dissolved, in light of the present circumstances. Miss Dash gave a glancing inspection of his figure, from head to toe, before retorting with snide shrug. “Yeah, sure.”
Harrington brought him to his feet, as Holmes’ wandering hands came upon the syringe, still deep within the veins of his arm.
“Ah, my box of... Watson, I feel an apology is most warranted—although, I suppose I err on the side of repentance myself!” His features, although sallow, warmed the rest of his dour complexion as he pulled the syringe from his arm,“Why, Watson, you need not look at me so! I am simply humoring the situation. You performed most professionally, as I trust. Further, as we are all together, might I ask why the Durham Sundial rests on yonder boulevard?”
“See, I told you I did nothing wrong!” cried Miss Dash to her other, “Now, oh Celestia, he's torn out half my reds!”
She shot Holmes an evil glance before sidling past Miss Sparkle. The latter’s eyes graced Miss Dash’s countenance with a disapproving air, before turning back to mine.
“I’m sorry about her,”—she was biting her lip, as a parent does when apologizing for her offspring— “She’s a little edgy. We all are, I suppose. I’m glad he’s okay, for you I mean.”
Sherlock Holmes opened his mouth to speak, but was sharply cut off as Mr Harrington’s bear paw collided with his back.
“Ah hah! Good to have you back in the land of the living, sir!”
“I quite agree, Mr Harrington,” Holmes cringed as his fingers danced lightly across his breast, “but may I supplant this issue of my present injury—which is hardly more than a glancing wound—with the pressing matter of—”
“Oh, yes, but we have plenty of time to get that scar of yours sorted out! And such quick thinking on the good doctor’s behalf, as-well!” cried Harrington, his face beaming and jovial.
“Thank you, Harrington, but we are not through with this ordeal,” I turned to Miss Sparkle, whose head was tilted in Holmes’ direction, and whose features err’d on the side of intrigue, “Miss Sparkle?”
She turned my way, and pursued me with a blank expression.
I made to speak, but halted. Given the nature of the previous excitement, the sheer irrationality of my present reality had quite passed me by. This, before me, was a functioning, well mannered, lavender, unicorn. Not only was she fully in control of all her faculties, they were, indeed, faculties that could have brought empires to her hooves, yet she paraded them as if they were a mindless trick. And her fellow, of lesser airs but far from dull, Pegasus of Herculean fame!
“You were saying something?”
“I-I’m rather sure that I was. My apologies, but it seems, well, it seems I’ve rather... I've rather forgotten. This is queer, is it not?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, there are a few ponies doing that these days. Was there anything important? Such as finding some dressings for your friend, there?”she nodded toward Sherlock Holmes, who tapped his foot.
This was, of course, exactly what I had meant to ask of her, but embarrassment stayed my hand too much to admit it.
“Eventually, yes. The wound is only skin deep, as he claims, Miss...”
“Twilight Sparkle”
“Might I now interrupt,”—the stern tenor of Sherlock Holmes rang with impatiens—“and say that there is a far more pressing matter, at present, than my state of health. It, being, the rather curious placement of the Durham Universit—”
His monologue was again interrupted, presently by Miss Dash.
“Well, I’m sure that's all well and good, but what about my tail, huh!” She was standing upon a sizable and hastily collected pile of iridescent hairs, lest they should be lost to the wind. “It’s not just for show, you know.”
Miss Sparkle groaned.
“Rainbow, for your own sake, behave! I’m sure you’ve done far worse,” she reprimanded with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s a hefty pile of hair,” Mr Harrington inserted into the conversation from above Holmes' shoulder.
“Ha, y’see!” cried Miss Dash, gesticulating wildly in Mr Harrington’s direction, “I’m totally injured! Even the hairless monkey agrees!”
A biblical shot silenced us all. My ears rang, and my heart shot through my breast. His arm raised to the air, smoking pistol within his grasp, Sherlock Holmes stood amidst us all and wore a most resolute grimace.
“Thank you,” said he, as he examined us all critically—as if to ensure we should not interrupt him further. “Now, could one of you please explain to me this most curious fact: What grotesque happenstance, hitherto unknown, has precipitated the missing Durham University Sundial upon yonder boulevard?”
The sundial was of brass construction and rested on a column of granite. However, the column of this particular sundial was singular in its grace. Betwixt the surface and the base, the column was at-least four feet tall. At it’s widest, a girth of approximately five.
The wasp-waisted column was fashioned in a style quite bizarre. The base was classical in its nature, and from which four, solid columns, wound like a helix, rose toward the centre. There, like that other time worn timepiece, the hourglass, it tapered to a width of only a few inches; bound with a bronze collar. The four columns exploded from this central nexus, spreading out like a may-day flower toward the open face.
One central column, far sturdier than the other four, shot vertically upward, and upon which all manner of detritus had been carved.
The whole ensemble was quite exquisite, considering these branches were independent of one another, and not carvings from one central mass of rock.
The dial itself was not of notable beauty; for such is the curse of many instruments devised purely for their function. I suppose, dependant on one’s taste, that can be a beauty in-unto-itself. It was of the equatorial variety, and, like the central collar, was entirely of a green and white bronze. It could have been held in the outstretched arms of any average man—or pony, as the case may be.
Regardless, the most important feature—which I choose to emphasize now, solely for its bearing upon these most recent events—in respect to dial was thus: it was the sundial of the Durham University’s Royal Astrological Wing, quite as Sherlock Holmes had rightly observed.
Three weeks preceding our exodus, scandal had racked the university town of Durham: without any perceivable evidence, the three tonne sundial had been lifted seamlessly from its roots, deep in the mortar of the ancient Durham walkways.
The lowly groundskeeper was ignored by the University Management when first he raised an alarm. Perhaps it had been his status, or his arrival at some long forgotten hour of the morn, or indeed the brandy that stained his breath, but the most commonly cited excuse was the man’s story: as insipid as it was preposterous, what worth could a ten foot high demon, working in tandem with what the groundskeeper described as ‘some elderly gentleman or other’, find for the granite monolith and its brass headpiece?
Indeed, it was not until the orchestra of blackbirds played their morning song that the alarm was finally sounded by a wandering constable, who himself only sought to humor the groundsman in answering his pleas. We were, as one might expect, slipped a missive in the morning post, but the case was deemed too ‘shallow’ by my colleague; a mere prank by some clever student of engineering looking to make a point, facilitating a myriad of levers, pulleys and such other paraphernalia, as he explained to me. Before I could query him about such matters of the mortar holding its iron roots in place, he answered that question with a deft nod toward our kitchen table, which on that day, as like many others, was festooned with articles from his chemistry set.
“Simple acidic principles, Watson. I shall, however, send a note to that new fellow at the scene—Inspector Barnaby, I believe? Yes, him! I shall send a note to Inspector Barnaby, recommending he refine his search to the pool of Civil Engineering candidates with a certain penchanté in the fields chemistry.” Those were his exact words on the matter, and little more was to be said.
Needless to say, as I attempted to explained our realm of knowledge regarding the sundial to our assembled cast of four-legged curiosities, little headway was made until I was quite rudely interrupted by a loud snort.
“Bwah! Hah! What a load of rubbish! Hey, Twi, get a load of this guy,” Miss Dash whispered, as Iago would whisper of his devilish machinations for Othello toward his enraptured audience.
“Ughhh! Rainbow, he can hear you!” said she, before turning toward me. “I’m sorry about her, again. It’s just, well, this sundial has been here since my parents were foals, and, well... are you sure your friend there doesn’t need any bandages, at all?”
“I am quite alright, Miss Sparkle,” said Holmes, who was crouched at the knees upon the other side of the column, fondling the coils of granite branches with his long, thin fingers. “Older than your parents, you say?”
“It’s plenty older than that! Ha, the ‘Drummong University Sundial’, my manky left wing!” cried Miss Dash, who had, upon realising that the previous excitement of new guests had faded quickly, sought to entertain herself with another pastime: caustic cynicism
“The Durham Sundial, and I can emphatically assure you that this piece is only three years my senior,” said I. “A fact I would gladly elaborate upon if I could only finish my narrative. The groundskeeper claimed this sundial appeared to have been quite effortlessly lifted from its iron roots, as if it had disappeared completely. Nothing was achieved for a few hours, as most thought the man was both a drunk and a wretch.”
Presently, a small groan erupted from Holmes. It was not one of agony, although I lept to his side all the same. Rather, it was the groan of a man who has proven himself largely incorrect.
“Well, Watson, it would appear we have a ‘stinker’—as that delightful inspector from sussex dubbed them, of course. Miss Sparkle and Miss Dash are quite correct: this column has been here for quite an immense period of time,” said he as he examined a speck upon the tip of his finger.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked.
“Pardon denied, and so it should be, lofty,” quipped Miss Dash, fluttering effortlessly above my head as if she were lounging upon a sofa. “Tell him how denied it is, Twi’.”
Miss Sparkle shook her head, as her chest undulated with well hidden mirth. “I’m sorry, doctor, but Rainbow’s right. This sundial has been in this very spot since the post malalignment period, way back before—”
She was cut off by Miss Dash, who thrust her face between myself and her fellow.
“See! I even have the egghead’s approval, and nopony questions our egghead!”
“Perhaps not, but what we have here is a conundrum. This is, quite infallibly, the Durham University Sundial”—Holmes held his finger up, silencing Miss Dash’s retort on her poised lips—“but it has, as you say, rested here for far longer than three weeks.”
Miss Dash pursed her lips, opened them, then closed them again with a huff.
“Come again?” said she, finally.
“This mortar along the base has already begun to crumble.” Holmes massaged his thumb against his forefinger, as a thin stream of whitish powder settled upon the cobbles. “Indeed, not an indicator of the extreme age you claim, but hardly likely to occur after only a few weeks.”
“I’m following,” said Miss Sparkle, “but I’m not certain where you’re going with this.”
“Unless,” mumbled Holmes, as one does when presented with a brand new set of consequences, “Miss Sparkle, perhaps you may be of some help to me. This mortar, what can you tell me about it?”
Miss Sparkle started; her ears fell as her lips drooped.
“Uhmm, nothing? I don’t really know why you would ask, though. I’m a librarian, not a—”
“No matter,” said he with a shrug, “This appears to be lime based, perhaps with measure of granite—no, chalk. Which would mean...”
Holmes’ words drifted away, as his eyes peered to the sky. He mouthed what I assumed to be dates and calculations as his forefinger conducted his thoughts before him.
“...which would mean that this column has been here for roughly—”
“A thousand years. First year of the restoration period, I think. No, actually, the third year. Hearths-Warming eve, three, Post-Discordia.” Miss Sparkle quoted, as her eyes searched the air before her.
It was Holmes’ turn to start. “Yes, yes exactly. Well done, Miss Sparkle.”
Miss Dash snorted. “Post-Discodria? Ha! Who even says that anymore?!”
She was ignored
“You are a scholar then, Miss Sparkle?” I inquired.
She cocked her head left and right, wearing a hidden grin. “Well, I used to dabble in scholarly fields back in my youth,” said she with a wave of her hoof, as if shooing the comment down the street, “but I still remember a thing or two.”
Harrington laughed. “Scholarly unicorns, and quick tempered pegasi. Where have you taken us, Mr Holmes? Where are we now? Ha!”
“Good question, Harrington. Fine question,” said he, nodding, as he turned to Miss Sparkle, “but one for another time. A thousand years you say?”
“Well, yeah. I’m afraid there’s not much more I can tell you. Gah, if only I had my books here with me!” she sighed, shaking her head with a curled lip.
“Twi, for the last time, we can’t take all your books with you,” reprimanded Miss Dash from her figurative chéz lounge, “It’s stupid. Besides, it’s not like they’ll be going anywhere!”
“Oh, but still,” pouted Miss Sparkle.
“But nothing. Besides, the grotto’ll have plenty of books.”
This didn’t seem to sate Miss Sparkle’s frustration. It was clear to me that she was one well accustomed with the knowledge of things. I imagine this fact had not been lost on Holmes, who presently regarded her with an inquisitive air.
He smirked and turned his head, as a sparkle lit up his eyes. What he was thinking I should never know, but I assumed that he, as I, had concluded Miss Sparkle’s possible contribution to our manhunt long ago.
As we stood in silence, for the first time since our congregation, another thought also slipped into my head, as a small note may slip, unseen, through a rapidly opened door. And, like many notes that slip through doors unseen, it boded ill.
I had a wife, whom I love dearly. I had, also, a home, a reputation and a practise. We had Billy, Mrs Hudson, and our Baker street flat; within which our collective pasts lined the shelves. Not to mention the small detail of our dainty turkish slipper, Holmes’ alternative to a traditional tobacco humidor.
A stone rocked in my chest, as this sudden realisation dawned across my brow. Holmes, Mr Harrington and myself had become oddities in our own rights; as alien to this world as the apparition of Harrington was to ours.
All of a sudden I felt terrifically faint, and punctuated the silence with a nervous wobble.
“Oh, heavens, sir! You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!” cried Harrington, unfurling his arms reaching them out toward me.
“No, no, I’m quite alright!” said I with a quivering tone, “I have, however, recalled one important note.”
“And as that old proverb goes, we two fools seldom differ,” panned Holmes, who stared, dissapointed, into the bowl of his old clay pipe. “Thankfully, every empire of an earthen-soiled countenance posses, or indeed possessed, tobacco for the folk to deliberate upon. I should think your fears may be put to rest, Watson, for I assure you we will find it eventually.”
He said it all with that fatherly tone reserved for times of despair, cheerfully glowing from the cheeks. I craved to explain otherwise, to conclusively establish my fears and worries. But his tone warmed me, as it was oft employed to do, and his childish worry about our tobacco problems seated a fugitive smile upon my face.
Miss Dash cleared her throat. “Ah hem. Sundial?”
“Ha!” Holmes chuckled, “So our little examination is important to you after all! Well, I should hate to detter your sudden appreciation. But as far as I can tell, there is little more I can ascertain from this sundial, other than its age and it’s origin. I can assure you, once more, that this is indeed our Durham University’s cherished sundial, as much as it is your cherished sundial.”
“No! That’s not fair!” cried Miss Dash. “What about all that other stuff Lofty said, hmm? How everypony thought the groundsman was a piece of work, or whatever! That might be important!”
“Oh ho? Well, I was under the obviously wrong impression that you thought ‘Lofty’s’ story was little more than, as you say, ‘a load of rubbish’. Well, I should think that if you are telling the truth, then we might as well be on our way. Obviously just not an interesting enough tale for young Miss Dash. Come along, Watson, and you, Harrington.”
“Fine! Its not like I care!” she cried.
“Evidently not. Good day!” said Holmes cheerfully.
Miss Sparkle appeared to wish to speak but Holmes shot her a surreptitious wink.
“Shall we, gentlemen? I should feel inclined to study our entry point further—the dull among you needn't apply, for the discoveries we shall make could just solve all our present incongruities!” said Holmes in a voice intended for an audience rather than a private conflagration. We nodded our silent approval and moved off upon his heels.
The face of Miss Dash had taken upon itself a change from anger to frustration. She darted, with impressive speed, just before Holmes’ benign face, settling inches from his nose and halting him in his tracks.
“Yes, my dear?” Holmes asked sweetly.
“Right. I don’t give a hay what you, or Lofty, or nopony else says. I never have.” She delivered the words with a touch of finality in her voice as Holmes listened diligently. “However, Twi’ here agrees with you. Now, Twilight’s our resident egghead. She knows just about everything there is to know. She was the personal protege of the princesses themselves, I’ll have you know, and was taught by the crackiest of the crackpots we have.
“So if, for whatever reason, she agrees with you, I agree with you. Now for her sake, get your tush back there, and tell us what you know!” she yelled, hovering two inches above Holmes and I, with her hooves resolutely curled upon her hips.
“So you swear utter loyalty to the opinion of Miss Sparkle?” asked Holmes, his eyes sparkling.
“Utterly! More utterly than ever could be uttered!”
Miss Sparkle observed the scene with another of her hidden smiles. She then turned to me, and cocked her head to the side.
“Well, doctor. You have our ears.”
I needn't repeat the conversation that was had, as you have already been informed of the circumstances above. I shall, however, endeavour to record the curious reactions of Miss Sparkle, Miss Dash and, rather peculiarly, Mr Harrington.
Miss Dash, as the story progressed, leant eagerly forward. However, as I explained Holmes’ disregard for the police’s missive—who, I must add, reddened at the cheeks—her eyes opened wide. Miss Sparkle, who listened to every other particular with acute attention, treated my intonation upon the groundsman’s tale with a creased brow. Mr Harrington, who was still standing far back with his arms crossed, coughed upon my mention of Holmes’ lever theory.
“No! You guys! What even are you guys! Twi’, did you hear that! The police, the-po-lice, asked them for help!” Miss Dash squealed as I finished with poorly restrained excitement.
“Oh, come-on, seriously? That’s all you heard, isn’t it,” said Miss Sparkle with a sigh.
“Oh, don’t be such a spoil-sport! That’s totally awesome!”
“Among other things, yes, I suppose so. But do you know what is really ‘awesome’? Whom do we know that’s ten feet tall, and works in tandem with an ‘elderly creature of antiquity’, as some-pony we know might have put it!” Miss Sparkle’s face was livid as she stood upon the tips of her hooves, and gazed down into the eyes of Miss Dash.
Miss Dash glanced back, non-plussed. “Yeah, I got that too. I kinda expected it, to be honest. But c’mon, these guys must be like, what? Super-cops or something!”
Mr Harrington, despite his interjection, said nothing, and instead walked over to the sundial itself. This was not lost upon me and I followed him, curious as to what he had seen or heard. He rounded upon its base, and handled each grand strand in turn, patting each one and frowning. His behaviour captured the attention of the other members of our congregation, who stared on inquisitively.
This continued for a further minute, and ceased as Mr Harrington shot a disappointed glance toward Holmes.
“Mr Harrington?” he asked.
“I’m not sure what you were thinking, sir, but for levers to have even made the slightest effect, they would have had to have been at least, say, over three hundred and seventy yards long! ‘Specially if this fellow was about twelve and a half stone, or so. I’ll say it now, this ten foot demon of mine makes a fair measure of sense more than yours, sir.”
Sherlock Holmes went very red at the cheeks, but pleasantly for he, my attention had very much diverted toward this stunning insight from Mr Harrington himself.
“Harrington, are you sure?” I asked, feeling like poking holes in this adolescent theory.
“More sure than anything. This dias is about, say, three or so tonnes, and that fellow will have been about twelve stone. I’ll make that a roughly one to fifty ratio, which means...”
He dissolved into thought, before shrugging his shoulders with a blink. “As I said, three hundred and seventy or so yards long, and that, I might add, is just the distance to the fulcrum. Mr Holmes, sir, surely that will have crossed your mind at some point?”
Holmes remained demure, but as the twinkle evaporated from his eyes completely I knew he balked at the challenge. My first instinct was to defend, but Holmes had been wrong before. To his credit, that very morning we had been in contact with a certain retailer of violins, who promised to parade before Holmes a great many new German designs. Given such an opportunity, I do not doubt that Holmes’ mind was on other things.
Never-the-less, it appeared we might have become embroiled in this business far earlier than today, and perhaps have spared some measure of property and life in the process. Either way, I knew Holmes will have considered this possible eventuality in its turn, and so it seemed past mistakes should have to remain past mistakes.
“Harrington,” said I, “may we leave reparations for another time? One cannot make a judgement on events when these events do not, for all intensive purposes, exist in one’s realm. I will admit, we should have borne notice to the facts upon hearing your narrative, but even you must acknowledge that a ten foot tall terror is neither a fresh nor appropriate excuse for one’s gluttony or sloth.”
He laughed warmly, and slapped me upon the back. “Doctor, you do yourself a credit, sir! I have said, have I not, that my visions ‘must have been machinations of a drink addled mind’. None of our company could have known in the slightest what possible evils awaited us. Relax, please. It is just an observation. Now, Miss Sparkle on the other hand—or perhaps ‘hoof’, ha!—Miss Sparkle seems to have a fair measure to say of the matter! ‘Pon my word, I should think she has the answers we need!”
Indeed, she did. However, she would not allow us the satisfaction of the truth at present. We were to follow her to the ‘grotto’, a brief walk from our current position. Upon our arrival, our own stories were to be observed by a character Miss Sparkle simply referred to as Luna. While, in our own domain, this will have been a nome-de-plume, as such, it occurred to me that it may well have been her own name. Indeed, if ‘Rainbow Dash’ or ‘Twilight Sparkle’ and even ‘Dawn Hammer’ were any measure of custom, a name such as Luna would have been positively dull!
From our position in the edwardian square, the ponies led us through a little alley residing between a shuttered up coffee-house and an abandoned curio-store. This alley forced us to pass through by sidestepping, but allowed Miss Sparkle plenty of room to trot. Miss Dash, making fine use of her faculties, soared above us at any chance she could find, darting between the clotheslines and hanging lamps that punctuated the dark walls surrounding us.
Upon our exit, we were met with a drastic shift in opulence. Where once there had been cobbles, paving stones, of a virtuous purple, lined the streets. Decadent arches of whitewashed sandstone, accentuated by thick, red curtains marked a higher class of boutique. As Miss Sparkle explained, we had entered the ‘new’ quarter, which she added was far older than the ‘old’ quarter of our arrival.
When asked why, she simply shrugged off our question with a warm smile and said simply: “The names are only a couple of years old.” When asked to elucidate upon that point, she could not say; only assure us that we should have a reasonable understanding of events within the hour.
Further on we trod, until we reached a grand pair of gates set between two large pillars. To each side, a high wall stretched around and out of sight. Through this gate, we could see a certain blue pegasus come hovering into view before a veritable forest of ivory parapets, domes and arches.
She placed her back against the heavy gilded steel, and worked her wings in some queer, backward push, swinging the gates back with a glacial pace. Yet, they opened silently, without the crescendo of steel running across rock.
We entered what Miss Sparkle explained were the grounds of one ‘Canterlot Castle’. After throwing both Harrington and Holmes a look of subdued incredulity, I walked on in silence, listening to her monologue.
“These are the outer walls, so we’re about halfway there. The gardens and maze have been here for years, far longer than I care to recall. Ha, you’d think they’d have gone with everything else, but no, they stay, of all things.”
“You know, I used to live around here, up in those towers over there. I must have been in my late teens.” Her eyes glassed over as she paused, looking up at the forest of ivory towers, “Oh, hey, see the big wide one just above the stream? Well, that big double window about half way up was the library. Ha, I practically lived in that library.”
We remained silent, finding wisdom in allowing Miss Sparkle to reminisce peacfully. She said nothing further than that, and I noticed her withers hunched much lower than before. As were her ears, which trailed along at half mast.
Some tragedy had befallen this place, and I found it’s lack of life disturbing. The night we trod through did not sound at all like the night should. Crickets, normally insolent and brash in their nature, were stilled. The wind, fond of whipping through streets as a whetted knife, felt insipid and dry, as if flowing from across a stagnant ocean. Even the hum of activity, pervasive throughout London’s twilight hours, was silent.
Miss Sparkle halted above an alabaster, half crescent bridge. We waited awkwardly for her to break from this idle, but potent, stillness. She was facing away from us, across the stream and up toward a grand cathedral. Unlike the assortment of architecture that had accompanied our arrival, this cathedral was in an insolent state of disarray.
The stain glass windows, perhaps fifteen feet or more in height, were fractured in the regions that had not been completely shattered. The exterior was of a dull grey and heaped with fungal growth; while platforms for grotesques went unoccupied and crumbling. I assumed that this building had been of the same design and splendour of those around us, and my heart sank to think that such beauty had become a boon of dissoray.
I need only have asked Miss Sparkle for the details, but her manner stayed my hand. For the first time since our acquaintance, her steadfast and professional demeanor had dissolved into a dark brood.
“Hey, Twi! C’mon, we need to get this lot to Luna.” Miss Dash, intent on remaining as air bound as possible, fluttered a few feet above our heads. Miss Sparkle made no sign of acknowledgement, her gaze resolutely dwelled upon the ruined cathedral, the swirling waters, and her own reflection.
Miss Dash released a heavy sigh, made to retrieve Miss Sparkle’s concentration, but halted herself mid flight. Her muscles relaxed with a slump, and she hung in the air from the stems of her wings before offering us a deft nod down the road, as if to say “C’mon, we’ll leave her be.”
With one last glance at Miss Sparkle, she darted off in the direction indicated and Holmes and I followed obediently. Harrington, however, hesitated. His lips curled back, his eyelids tightened, and with a resolute nod he turned around.
Without punctuating her silence, he paced up beside her with a measured step. She did not intrude upon him, nor he upon her.
I raised my hand to gesticulate my frustrations—Miss Dash was not one to wait upon the lumbering, it seemed, and had flown out of sight—but Holmes grasped onto my forearm.
“Miss Sparkle will desire some company once her reminiscence is complete, I should think. Leave Harrington be, Watson. The fellow is not as heavy handed as we first thought,” Holmes whispered into my ear before slowly turning upon his heels and following Miss Dash. I passed a final look at the queer pair—the unicorn and the senile drunkard sharing a silent reverie—before dashing after Holmes.
I followed in his footsteps until we came upon a quaint garden, girded by a gilded stairway on both sides that twisted upward and to the left. Miss Dash was nowhere to be seen, and Holmes and I wordlessly assumed this stairway would lead us toward our reluctant guide.
“Psst! Hey! Where do you think you’re going?!” Miss Dash hissed with gusto, popping out from beneath the stairs, “Grotto’s this way. Hey, where’s the other one?”
“Accompanying Miss Sparkle,” Holmes whispered back, for the night was conducive to hushed tones.
She did not honor us with a reply, instead she simply disappeared behind the staircase as quickly as she had materialised. We followed, and found a rotten, soggy, wooden hatch hanging from its hinges. The opening was dark and unwelcoming, but the percussion of hooves upon cold stone echoed around its desolate confines. We hunched and ran after her, keen not to lose Miss Dash in what I feared to be a maze of catacombs.
Thankfully, I was wrong, and the tunnel stretched only a few meters until arriving at a small alcove, carved into the rock. Lit by a candelabra upon a knee high, gnarled oak table, the confines of the room were ample enough for Holmes and I to stand tall, but nothing more.
Three cushions surrounded the table, of the same style and cut. A porcelain wash basin, dug into the earth and gilded with the standard paraphernalia, lay to the left of the threshold.
It was at this basin where we found Miss Dash, who drank greedily from the surprisingly pristine water within.
It impressed upon me the nature of a russian izba, with its low ceiling and earthen confines. Holmes, as one would expect, sensed otherwise. After gazing intently at the wash basin, and at the table, he coughed politely.
“Hmm. Wha’gh?” mumbled Miss Dash, her mouth still brimming with liquid.
“If you are here, and Miss Sparkle is upon the bridge, where lies our royal host?”
At this, the water within Miss Dash’s mouth sluiced through her clenched teeth. She pursed her lips, mouthed what I assumed to be a certain expletive before settling upon, “How can you possibly know that?”
“Simple reasoning. There are three cushions, yet one faces the other two. You and Miss Sparkle have treated yourselves as equals and I thus find no cause for you to face one another, when to sit close to one’s equal is a private joy. Further, this lone cushion faces the door; a significant trait for those who are privy to ownership and leadership.
“Aside from this regrettably circumstantial observation, I have, upon your own admittance, the simple fact that ‘the grotto is full of books’. Yet I see no books. Which indicates two things; firstly, that you have hidden them; secondly, that you have been presented with a circumstance that drove you to see the need in protecting said books. Which pushes us heartily toward our next point of contention. Under what manner has this circumstance fallen?
“This is a royal city. A fact explained both by Miss Sparkle’s admission of ‘Canterlot Castle’ and the city’s layout: all main arteries led us toward that central gate, through which we find ourselves upon this castle’s grounds. Yet, I would gather that very few souls have been wandering those streets as of late. We have all felt its presence, or lack thereof: this city is dead and as such, of the myriad of possible tragedies that could have befallen this fine city two stand for contention: famine, or rebellion. While both are likely candidates, famine should not compel the reservation of knowledge. Thus, we have stumbled upon the cause of this city’s grief: a rebellion.
“Yet, you remain, unperturbed. One should ask why, of course, but I highly doubt you will have orated the truth, along with the obvious. So I fall, once again, to my deductions. Miss Sparkle is an academic. It was her idea to protect the books, I gather. But why, then, if you are here as guardians of knowledge, should you be out upon an eve such as this, ambushing disorientated and, might I add, rather preoccupied doctors?
“You are the agents, then. Not only are you protecting knowledge of a bygone era, but you are defending it, championing it! Had this monarch you are so stalwartly aiding been slain, you would only be serving yourselves; weathering and surviving. But you are not, and so she, Luna, must be alive!
“And where else should she be but here! The lines of duress beneath that basin have not escaped my gaze, nor the chipping of paint to its left edge, upon which it must swing. A perfect priest's hole, for your knowledge and your—”
His monologue was interrupted by a sharp squeaking and sloshing, as the basin swung outward to reveal a small, waist high threshold. From within this, two burning eyes, of iridescent blue, belonging to a slender, equine countenance gazed out at him with a challenging bearing.
Sherlock Holmes smiled sweetly, before bowing at the hip.
The face who challenged us through the threshold maintained its bearing for a few breaths, unfazed by Holmes’ sincere offering of feality. This equine’s face was blue, like a twilight sky, and its structure seemed, to me, more wholesome in its resemblance to some of our own breeds of horse. Despite this, the yoke that adorned her slender neck spoke measures of this fellow’s humanity: of some fine metallic form, it’s featured article was a crescent moon of pearl that dominated the piece.
Miss Dash balked at this fine show of Holmes’ deductive strength, and mouthed her approval before focusing upon the newcomer: it seemed that an equally awe-inspiring reception was anticipated. Feeling isolated from the engagement, I took to Miss Dash’s side with the propensity of my species: we are creatures keen of drama, and here was an altercation promising to be one of the most dramatic form.
However, much to my surprise, the face did not twist itself into a frown, or scowl or any sort of emotion at all. Her eye’s twitched—a nervous spring releasing pressure—but for that miniscule feature, her face may well have been dead had not a lascivious smile spread across the royal’s lips—who I recalled must have been the ‘Luna’ mentioned earlier. She crawled from within the knee high threshold out into the grotto itself, taking care to arch her back away from the low frame and to keep her voluptuous, effervescent mane in order.
She, like Miss Sparkle, sported a horn the same hue as her coat. However, while Miss Sparkle’s was a mere stump, the horn the royal, Luna, possessed was perhaps the size of my forearm. Further, as her lengthy body was removed from its priest's hole, it became quite apparent that she was also in possession of a pair of wings.
Regarding Luna’s mane, nota bene: having seen what we had that night, I believe it should have taken some momentous effort to produce from us a further exclamation of awe. However, of all we had seen, and of all the more we were to see, this mane possessed a unique rank among the curiosities. It was stunningly gorgeous, and in tones of both the deepest night and the earliest dawn, shimmering with the aid of a million stars waylaid throughout its bulk. It was also completely translucent, a small factor I was slow to take in, and which only occurred to me upon noticing my own reflection in the mirror of the basin behind her.
Standing to her full height, this Luna dwarfed the other ponies we had seen that day to the point where a tete-a-tete discussion could be carried out without much hassle. Her face still carried a sultry smile as she rounded about the room, taking in both the threshold for the grotto itself, Holmes and Miss Dash.
However, upon catching my eye, her smile dissolved completely. She remained still and silent for a moment, before turning to Miss Dash.
“There were two of them?” she asked impudently, tossing a blank glance her way. Her gaze then hardened as a recollection formed within her mind’s eye, and said she to Miss Dash, “That cannot be right. Rainbow Dash, there was only one! You have managed to bring to me the wrong ones! How?”
Miss Dash’s eyes darted between her face, which had turned and whose features I could not see, and the face of Holmes, who stood with his usual, indisputable presence. Luna cut her response off at the bud, and rounded upon Holmes with speed.
“Yet you knew it all. You... y-you knew everything,” cried she with soft eyes and a hard jaw. “You have a twin, then? There are, indeed, two of you! No, thats impossible! I saw you with my own eyes that day. Rainbow Dash, explain!”
She rang with authority at every point, yet underneath the hard intonation a smaller fluctuation of her voice was quite discernible, and it struck me as a desperate wail.
“Perhaps, Your Highness, It would be wise if you were to explain, “spoke Holmes as he crossed his hands behind his back. “Miss Dash here was simply going about the duties you bestowed, and so there is little fault laying at her door. You are making little sense as it is, and shifting blame to the feet of those around you is going to make precious little difference. Now, I do believe we are in a position to help you, Your Highnes—”
“Help me! Pah! I challenge you to try!” cried she, facing up to Holmes and jabbing a silver crested hoof thrice into his breast. Upon the fourth, however, his deft hand caught her hoof around it’s fetlocks and he dragged it to his hip, bringing her face toward his—making an effort as he did so to avoid the daunting length of horn that accompanied it.
The gaze or Sherlock Holmes hardened and he spoke with the sincere veracity of a man sure of himself and his claims, but in two tones of voice too subtle for myself or Miss Dash to make any sense of the matter. However, his features were agitated and I could see the sides of his mouth twitching momentarily, as did the corners of his eyes and the muscles behind his cheek bones—traits I had never noticed before.
After an extended pause, he let her hoof slid to the floor, and she paced backward, eyeing him from his hawkish, clean-shaven chin to his sodden and mud strewn high-street boots.
“Are you certain it is the very same individual?” she asked finally.
Holmes nodded with eyes shut tight, as if the ferocity with which he governed them added weight to his claim.
“And you can henceforth find this busybody?” she inquired with fervor.
“If that is the name by which you title him him, by all means. But first, we must be privy to the whole account as it is through your eyes,” Holmes assured her. She nodded solemnly, and then looked to both her left and right.
“And Twilight is at the bridge once again?” she asked of Miss Dash, who nodded frankly.
“There’s another one of these guys there as well. Some old dude. Bit tubby,” she added quickly.
“Quite. So, gentlefellows, please take a seat as I have much to tell. Tea?”
At this, I realised how little I had had to consume. The last item to have passed the threshold of my lips had been a shred of mutton, and I mustn’t have had anything to drink since I took coffee with my lunch in Baker street.
“Please. We are simply famished,” said I, nodding enthusiastically. HRH Luna nodded sagely toward Miss Dash, who glanced at us with a tired shrug, before furrowing into the depths of the priest's hole.
Holmes shut his eyes tightly once again, before countering the inquisitive gaze of HRH Luna with a disparaging wave of his hand.
“I needn't impose upon your hospitality, my dear. We are merely here on business, and the tea should simply encroach. We shall abstain.”
Miss Dash emerged from the shadows, with tea leaves dotted around her muzzle. “No tea?”
“Holmes!” I insisted, “It has been hours since we last drank anything. Please, Miss Dash, for the sake of our health.”
“Tea it is, then,” she shrugged with a sigh, before disappearing into the dark.
“Watson, it has only been twenty four hours since last you drank. Surely you can abstain for the precious little interim while HRH Luna here continues with her narrative. No tea, Miss Dash.”
A heavy sigh sounded from within the chamber, “Fine, no tea!”
“Holmes!” I cried, “I simply must protest, if not for my health, than yours! I was able to rest my weary bones, at least! You have had no such comforts and as a practitioner of good repute, Sherlock Holmes will be taking tea under my direction, Miss Dash!”
“Right! Thats it!” cried Miss Dash as she stormed from within the threshold, ramming the basin closed over the priest's hole with her hind legs, “You make the freaking tea, I’m done!”. She glowered at us from behind her now sopping mane, which formed an uneven fringe across her brow. The front of her coat was stained a deeper shade, almost approaching that of lime green, and the sodden hairs upon her chest formed bristles as droplets of liquid were rent to the floor. My cheeks began to glow with heat, and Holmes bit his lips in irritation. I lowered my head in shame, while Holmes wrenched his eyes shut once more. HRH Luna giggled angelically, before taking a saintly sip from a bone china cup, decoratively fashioned with ornate red patterns in the forms of clouds and the wind.
Holmes and I started simultaneously, shocked to find not only the steaming beverage held within HRH Luna’s magical grasp, but three equally ornate cups and saucers elegantly resting upon the table.
Miss Dash digested the information while biting her lips, before throwing her forelegs into the air with a soundless yell.
“One does not hold the elemental powers of night and the heavens without learning first to brew one’s own tea. Please, sit or stand, and listen.
“The mourning process was... well. They discovered me in the throne room—the sizeable hall in desolate condition you no doubt saw upon your entry—surrounded by shards of glass, and...” Her face clouded over. Holmes and I placed out cups down in haste, and even Miss Dash dropped her forelegs, crossed out of spite. Yet, HRH Luna swallowed deeply, shook her head, and then continued with the story.
“I was completely in grief; inconsolable. In an attempt to construe even the most minor of details, I just couldn’t face it. Them, I mean. I-I couldn’t face them.”
“My dear,” Holmes raised his hand to silence to royal, “I must ask you to start at the very beginning. We are here for the miscreants, and as important as the story of your unfortunate demise undoubtedly is, you must start with their involvement first.”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Quite, quite. You wish to hear from the very beginning and as such I must oblige, if indeed you are as certain of the outcome as you say you are.
“We, my sister Celestia and I, were the unquestionable rulers of this land. She was the elder, I the younger. I say unquestionable, because this is the first incident in perhaps a thousand years wherein an alicorn”—she flared her immense wings—“has not sat upon the throne.
“This rule, and the unquestioning fealty of the ponies around us, was sworn in an age ago. I do not remember much about truth surrounding our proclamations or our origins or even the actual events that took place, but the books all say we bested the spirit of disharmony itself. This spirit, whom we named Discord, has been a feature of most recent events starting perhaps only a decade ago. But more of that later.
“My sister and I, having defeated this oppressive tyrant, were entrusted by the ponies to restore complete order. We were to have power over everything, from the ponies to the seasons and even the heavens themselves. Thankfully, for reasons I’m sure lie lost in the fog of the past, we were dutifully up to the task. My sister, being the elder of us, took power over the day, and thus the sun. She was the giver of life: providence. I, being younger and less able, took power over the moon and the night: a post void of much responsibility at the time.”
She breathed deeply, swirling the cup in her ethereal grasp. I listened along with Miss Dash, and we shared similar enraptured features. Holmes creased his brow and scratched his breast before balancing his chin upon his finger momentarily.
“My dear, might I clarify, briefly, a few certain particulars. You say a spirit of disharmony, by which you gave a name. My understanding of the term ‘spirit’ is the, shall we say, nonphysical part of the individual—the soul or conscious or what have you. And yet, disharmony is a concept, or at least it is in my understanding, and so you’re speaking of... an incarnation?”
My ears pricked,
“Perhaps some kind of demon?” I postulated, as Holmes and I shared a glance, “With the tail of a snake and the paw of a lion among other, grotesque, traits?”
HRH Luna blinked rapidly as she pursed her lips.
“The head of a goat, the wings of a bat and a bird. Yes... that is him exactly, how did you come upon such knowledge? He’s been missing s-since, well, the night for which you seek clarification.”
“We are acquainted with an acquaintance of his,” said Holmes, tapping his knees.
HRH Luna nodded subtly, before the muscles of her face convulsed in silence.
“Further,” continued Holmes, “to best a spirit, you must have been in possession of some considerable strength. Surely you could have called upon it again in this most recent calamity?”
HRH Luna shook her head solemnly, flattening the ears upon her head as she did so.
“No. Not quite. The books say we ourselves found, or perhaps forged, a congregation of artifacts called the elements of harmony.”—as she said these lines, Miss Dash beamed—“They were the most powerful faculties we could draw upon, and they worked to utter perfection. Discord was locked into stone before the break of his chaotic day, and from that moment, Celestia and I were to become the upkeepers of this land. And have been, for a millenia.”
“And why could you not, then, turn to these elements upon the night of which you speak?” inquired Holmes, extending his snake-like torso across the table.
HRH Luna faltered and she looked to the floor. Raising her head, her red-rimmed eyes bore into ours, and she looked as if she was going to scream out some vile admission, before Miss Dash spoke, uneasily, upon her behalf.
“Some things happened, and the princess was... not able to carry them. I mean, sure, they’re hardly heavy themselves, but its the power they hold, y’know? And so while the two of ‘em could handle three each without too much trouble, handling all six was just way much for one pony; even if that one pony was the Princess of the Day. So they were locked away until they were needed once again, and only if six bearers, each embodying one of the elements, were to need the use of them” said she, turning to catch the bashful gaze of HRH Luna, who mouthed ‘thank you’.
“It seems to me you know quite a bit about these ‘elements’, Miss Dash,” said I
“As the element of loyalty, she should,” said HRH Luna, directing her gaze back across the table. “Miss Sparkle is the element of magic, and there are... were others, as of yet unaccounted for.”
“Unaccounted for? You mean to say you’re still searching for six bearers, after all these years?” I asked.
The comment caught both ponies like a full broadside battery. Both shot each other worried looks, as if unsure whether it was a simple question, or an accusation.
“Perhaps it is a story for another time?” HRH Luna offered finally, drawing attention back to herself as she laid the tea cup back into its bone china saucer.
Holmes had remained silent the throughout the tangential conversation, examining the faces of HRH Luna and Miss Dash in turn. Presently, however, he took a long drag upon his own tea cup—it had previously sat untouched—and extended to his full height.
“Indeed so. Now, if you haven’t any more to say, may you please continue with your narrative?”
“Yes, but of course. These are all vital details.
“In recent years—seven by my count—he quite abruptly escaped, and we were forced to bring the elements back. It was a simple event, however, and the immensity of their collective power was assured. Before the afternoon of his freedom, he was already locked into his prison of stone. Celestia had very little to do with the entire altercation. She mentioned to me that this was her test for the elements against a true threat. If the bearers were to be incapacitated forthwith, she and I were to step in without delay.
“Thankfully, such an eventuality never arose, and as I gathered from her, the elements faired swimmingly. Either way, we had proven, once and for all, that Discord was no match for us. And so began my sister’s little scheme.
“She came to me, five years to the day, and interrupted a certain meeting with the minister for inquiries.
“‘Luna! Luna, I know what must be done!’ she cried as she burst through the doors to the dressing room we were using. Hmm, you know, the poor minister had quite a shock seeing my sister enter like that! Jumping from one hoof to the other, squealing like a little filly and embracing me as her sister. His jaw just hit to floor with astoundment! She didn’t even attempt to put on any airs or graces in his presence either. Referred to him by his first name, even!
“‘Oh, and a pleasant morning to you, Dotted!’—his name was Dotted Eye—’I’m really sorry, but might I run off with my sister for just a moment? She’ll be back within the hour, without even a scratch! Come on, Luna!’ and she grabbed me by the tail with her teeth and hauled me away.
“Once we were safe behind locked doors, I asked her,
“‘’Tia, what are you doing!? That was the Minister for Inquiries! You know how the nobles hate it when you act like a pony!’
“‘Oh, Luna, Dotted Eye’s the perfect gentlecolt! Besides, blow the nobleponies! You know they’re way past their time! Anyway, I’ve had the most brilliant idea!’
“‘Being?’ I pushed, prepared for both a deeply philosophical solution to the wide spread class divide, and her opinion on whether the maids should have bright pink knickerbockers as part of their uniforms—both have been proposed by her to me at various points in our past under the guise of a ‘most brilliant idea’. My sister was a very amiable soul in her private life, and quite spectacularly eccentric at the best of times.
“‘We must reform Discord! We simply must!’ she cried, holding me by the shoulders and leaping from one hoof to the other.
“‘Tia, are you... sure?’ I asked cautiously.
“‘Of course! Why would I not be sure?’
“I needn’t now explain why I gazed upon her with both incredulity and concern. I even treated her to a pregnant pause, but her sparkling face never wilted. It seemed that, while keen to ask my advice, she was not overly responsive to it. Either way, it was a whole minute before her unbridled passion for her new idea swayed me.
“‘Who, then, is to do the reforming? Surely not us.’
“‘Why ever not us? We can be... persuasive.’ She stuck out her tongue and I rolled my eyes.
“‘Tia. If you are being serious—’
“‘When have I ever not been serious?’ she interjected, with a pursed lip and cocked brow.
“‘If you are being serious about reforming—and truly reforming, not persuading him to swap sides for a few days—are we, his true and only antagonists, the right ponies for the job?’
“Her lips remained pursed, but her brow softened as her eyes searched the air above my head.
“‘Good point. Who, then?” she ruminated, as she sat gracefully upon a cushion, ceasing the excited jittering of her hind quarters. ‘Twilight and the elements?’
“‘Well, if what you say about them is true, would that not be an even poorer course of action? They’re exceptional, I must grant that you know how to pick your students, but is that wise?’
“‘They locked him into stone! He remembers their power, and he’s scared of them. We, he knows what we can do. But them? They’re just simple ponies, and yet he was completely overwhelmed! If I was him, I would be more afraid of what he doesn't know about them, than what he does about us!’
“Her logic struck me as a bit strained, but I understood her underlying reasoning. If an allegory might suffice: it is not the darkness we fear, but that which lies beneath it. Either way, I could tell that she had become completely taken with the idea of using the bearers to tame him: whenever I tried to offer an argument, instead of debating or outright refuting it, she would calmly nod and ask ‘oh yes?’ or ‘Indeed?’, sure signs that she was no longer even listening.
“The very next day his statue had disappeared from the castle maze, as had the Elements from the vault behind the throne. By midmorning, Celestia had returned. I met her from the carriage, partly out of sisterly care and partly to scare off many of the wanton members of the press—it seems that, post my own reformation, I’ve become so dull the mere sight of me ruins any possibility of a story that’s going to sell.
“Alighting from the carriage, she appeared as regal as ever in the public spheres. However, as soon as we had departed behind closed and locked doors, the facade dropped completely. Throughout lunch, she didn’t even touch a nibble; beads of sweat collected in the fur behind her ears. They say Celestia has an alabaster white coat because she never paled at a challenge, yet I know when she’s pallid, and I saw it that day.
“She would gaze, momentarily, across the valley toward the little town of Ponyville—it is where Twilight Sparkle is based—before catching my eyes and snapping toward some other trinket in the room, before turning back seconds after. She was deathly nervous, I could tell. However, I dared not mention it, least of all to her; she didn’t deserve my provocation. Instead, I took the liberty of having a full outfit of guards prepared, in readiness for the eventuality she so feared.
“Her angst perpetuated for two days, until one morning the fateful letter arrived. She had obviously received it upon her waking, because by the time I myself had awoken her sun was already firmly supporting its day, and my moon was nestled deep within the night beyond. In recent years she had taken to setting my moon as well—old habits die hard, it seems—and, while I should have been irate, I figured that had this letter boded ill she surely would have sought my company.
“Still, I readied the outfit and cleared the day’s schedule. The press, once again, clamoured around the castle walls. I had the staff prepare them cakes and drinks to keep them content with the lack of action they were receiving, but the reprieve would only last a few hours and I was forced to face them around noon.
“They were well mannered—they always are—and had been sated within the matter of perhaps... half an hour? They were generally quite blasé about their questions, though. Some asked me if the Princess would be back before nightfall, others asked if this had anything to do with the Equestrian Games inspectors we had entertained some weeks beforehoof. ‘Why had we been turning away so many official visitors lately?’ was a question, well echoed by those present, asked by a persnickety fellow in a black dinner jacket. But, they were just looking for something that could sell papers. All one in the same, and as such fairly easy to disappoint.
“Actually, no. As I recall, there was one young stallion who struck me as quite removed from the others. He didn’t seem to have a lithographer with him, or even an artist. He didn’t even wear the standard uniform of a journalist or reporter, nor anything else at all. He did have a brown and blue woolen scarf wrapped lazily around his neck, and a wiry pince-nez sitting atop his snout, but nothing else.
“He didn’t ask one question, either. He just stood there, among the throng, and gazed up at me breezily, as if he were attending a public concert. Once the rest of them were happy, or hungry enough to leave their posts for the sandwiches waiting outside, he stayed, until very last. The others trotted off briskly, with the standard parade of ‘Y’highness’ or ‘Your Grace’ but he remained, silently watching by the door.
“I departed the throne, with a formulated plan in mind to go and have a look at Ponyville through my telescope—it sits in the second tallest tower, above the library—before a polite coughing from one of my guards caught my attention. He was silently darting his eyes between me and this fellow by the door, who had not quite caught my attention before hoof.
“‘You should have asked your question sooner, subject!’ said I, as warmly as I could manage.
“‘M’ not here to question you.’ he monotoned.
“‘Then, please, kindly take your leave. We must welcome ou—’
“‘Ah bup bup bup buh,’ he interjected, ‘said I wan’t ‘ere to ask you a question, no’ that I have nothin’ t’say. Thizzis your last... mistak—’
“The guard present snapped quickly to his right, dashed down the platform and hurled the fellow to the ground within two breaths. I doubt the poor young fellow had much of a warning, given his poor eyesight and all.
“Regardless, a threat is a threat and must be treated with the harshest measures. The guard had the stallion between his forelegs, caught is a crossed sword type strangle hold with one hoof pressed sharply against his spine.
“‘Ahhh, gahh!’ he yelped. ‘C’lestia’s sake, m’not dangerous! Ahhh!’
“I marched toward the guard and his charge, forcing all warmth from my voice—you know, I’ve tried so hard lately to be much more amiable, and such events conspire against me!
“‘Remarking to anypony, let alone a member of the royal sisterhood, that any act is one last mistake seems hardly innocuous!’
“‘Aghh, for m’szzak... aughh! Hes’a bloody sp’rit! ‘Sif any pony could control ‘im!’
“I started, and waved the guard off. He took the pressure off his back and released his crossed forelegs from across the fellow’s neck, but still straddled him menacingly.
“‘How do you... how could you possibly know know that!’
“‘Well, it don’ seem too ‘ard to fig’r tha’ out! M’ponyville raised! S’in m’blood and m’bread. I know ‘wo that gan’ly sod is from a m’le ‘way, wot wit’ what he did t’the place! Y’can’t bet’er a soul like tha’!’
“I glared hard at him for the best part of a few moments. Ponyville is quite far away, and if his story really was as important It felt strange that he would have come all this way on the off chance a meeting was to be held. Then again, his accent was hardly one of the intelligentsia and his very presence at such a meet was enough for me to guess his opportunistic motives for attending.
“In the end, I let the poor fellow go with a warning and a few bits in his muzzle for the trouble we caused him. Besides, that afternoon my sister returned, bearing the happiest of news. It had been done! Discord, the very essence of disharmony himself, had been tamed!”
Holmes clapped his hands with a merry cheer, breaking myself and Miss Dash from our fascinated reveries.
“Excellent, excellent! My, you must have been proud of yourselves!” Holmes cried, walking over to her side and taking a knee.
She nodded, glancing at me as if unsure whether Holmes’ sudden ejaculation was perfectly sound, or if it bode ill.
“Now, my dear, shall I assume this merry little tale brings us happily toward the sheer tragedy you deftly avoided beforehand?”
HRH Luna’s face drooped.
“Quite,” said Holmes, his eyes level with hers. “May I also assume that, having had the pleasure of our acquaintance, you are now more comfortable to speaking of it freely?”
She regarded him intently, mulling over what he had said.
“I... I should think so. B-but I’m hardly certain if I can, in full. Without breaking down, I mean,” she hastened to add.
“Aye, I thought not. Well, as worthy of my trust as you are, I simply cannot accept a description that might contain the slightest hints of doubt or untruths. You understand, yes?”
“Yes, yes of course. Well, I can promise you I will try my h-hardest to be truthful.”
“That may not be appropriate, I’m afraid.” He stood, and a wave of uncertainty washed over HRH Luna’s face. “You see, while even if it is in your best intentions, such a heart wrenching trauma can indeed cloud the mind to details, especially if such feelings of angst or fear come from orating them. What if you were to write them down, as a statement?”
She considered this with her teeth clenched upon her cheeks.
“I suppose t-that would be fine.”
“Capitol!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands a second time as he rounded upon her. “Take every measure you need to ensure a level state of mind. Might I suggest finding comfort in your delightful little alcove?”
He stretched his palm towards it, as if ushering her into a hotel room.
“Y-yes, thank you. I have all the stationary I need, I think. This should take only a few minutes.”
“Take as much time as you need, please.” said Holmes, swinging the basin around as she squeezed her lithe body through it’s threshold.
The instant it closed, he spun around with a glint in his eye. His piercing gaze fell upon Miss Dash, who was pruning the feathers of her striking wings. It seemed to be a habitual pastime of hers—she had absent mindedly taken to it thrice throughout HRH Luna’s narrative, even as she gave the royal her rapt attention.
Upon noting our collective gaze, and the feathers within her mouth, she started, wrenching the wing from her teeth.
“Mmph!” she quietly squealed, curling her face as she tentatively placed her wing to her side.
Holmes crossed the room like a winter wind, swiftly gliding across the floor.
“Miss Dash,” whispered he as he leveled with her, “Watson and I—and you and Miss Sparkle and, dare I say, even Mr Harrington—are going to need you to tell us what, exactly, the good princess meant by her ‘reformation’. No, no, don’t look so surprised, Miss Dash, she let slip those exact words: ‘my reformation’. Further, there is obviously a great deal which you both seem to be withholding from myself and Watson. With her, I can permit it: she is obviously troubled. But you...”
The pause that followed was punctuated only by the scratching of a quill beyond the basin’s threshold. Miss Dash ran her tongue across her top jaw, and her eyes examined the face of Sherlock Holmes critically. She would have come off as insubordinately nonchalant had the soft coat above her snout not turned a fainter shade of blue.
Finally, she exhaled sharply through the nose.
“Right. What you want to know is hardly going to work in her favor. I’ll support her either way—I mean, duh, I’m here, right? But I just don’t know what o-or how you’re ‘gonna use what I tell you. And... its a loyalty thing, y’know? I-its her past, and I don’t wanna’ go on—”
“Don’t.” Holmes extended his finger, and shut his eyes tight as he tapped it against his temples. “You needn’t make excuses for her; I am most certain she would do a fine job of her own defence. What I need is an explanation.”
“So... you aren’t going to bring this back onto her, ever?”
“Only if we need to, which is an eventuality I find improbable.”
“Okay, well.” Miss Dash sniffed, and then exhaled again. “Princess Luna was, the-the goddess of the moon, working under her sister, who, you know: goddess of the sun and all. And, one day, she just got jealous, plain and simple! Her night, her beautiful creation, was slept through and avoided, while her sister’s was celebrated! Something changed in her—this was about a thousand years ago, by the way—something changed and simple jealousy became all out rage. She just got evil, like, super villain evil; to the point where she’d pretty much become a new pony all together.”
Miss Dash glanced toward the basin, before ushering us closer to her muzzle.
“The legends called her the ‘Night Mare’ ‘cus, I-it sounded cool, I guess, but she’d become a nasty piece of work. I mean, she wanted to pretty much kill her sister, and bring about eternal night and all that sort of stuff. Celestia just couldn’t let that happen, family or not. So, she used these elements to—they’re like these gemstones, by the way—to lock Luna, or the Night Mare, into the moon for a thousand years.
“It pretty much crippled Celestia—I mean, those little gems are powerful, and I only have to wear one! And this is me we’re talking about here! So, thats what the bearers thing is about; Celestia just couldn’t handle the power, and so she needed six ponies who could donate the course of their lives to the cause—but only when needed.
“She’d realised pretty early on that having these ultimate gems just lying around was pretty bad for security, so she locked them away too. The ponies would not only have to prove to her, but to the stones themselves, that they were worthy of the elements.
“Anyway, about a thousand years later, Twi came along. She was pretty special, even before the whole ‘element of magic’ thing; you know, Celestia doesn’t name just anypony as her personal student! Anyway, I guess Celestia realised the Night Mare was going to be coming back imminently, so she realised that Twilight was probably going to need the elements to get her back under control. Which also meant she was going to need some bearers.
“She sent Twilight to Ponyville, under the guise of some study into the ‘magic of friendship’ or whatever, and she found me and a few others, and we became the bearers. Which is pretty cool: I mean, I was pretty much a hero of the nation before my twentieth birthday!
“So the Night Mare returned, we fought a bit, and then, well, reformed her. It wasn’t really that hard; just a blast from the elements was all that we needed. I guess it was more about the journey than the resolution, but I digress. So, yeah, tears were shed, chasms were fixed, and two sisters were reunited to take upon themselves the mantle of responsibility once more. That’s what she meant by reformation.”
Holmes sunk his chin into his breast as he digested the information. I, however, desired some clarification.
“You said there were ‘others’. Now, I was under the impression that you had yet to find all the elements, even after all these years—for which I apologize—but could you not elaborate?” said I, turning to her and tracing the rim of my tea-cup with my finger.
“Oh!” she intoned, curiously surprised. “You want to know about that?”
“Why, yes. It could all become important, and It hardly seems as if we are to be leaving anytime soon.”
Indeed, the quill upon parchment had yet to cease in its intensity, and neither of our absent company had returned.
Miss Dash sized up her options as she bobbed her head hither and thither.
“Yeah, alright. I suppose we can talk about that. But, like Luna said, thats a story for another time. There were six of us; Twilight and I—well, duh—but there was also Applejack, and Rarity. Now they were the Elements of Honesty and Generosity. Followed by Pinkie Pie”—a wide smile warmed her face—”and I don’t need to tell you about Pinks, you’ll learn about her soon enough trust me. She was the Element of Laughter.
“They’re not the elements any more, though. Like a lot of things, once Celestia was gone and Luna was out of the game, we all became antiquated artefacts. Now, Pinks: she didn’t really leave, and we’re still great friends, so I can’t fault her for that. Nor did Applejack, to be fair, but its been like, three months since I saw that filly last so who even cares, ha! Then there’s Rarity, who just straight up and left a while ago, actually. She followed the money all the way to Manehattan, and set up there. Rarity’s doing well from what the papers say, though it would be nice to have heard it from her own lips. But whatever: that was her choice, I guess.”
“And the sixth?”
Miss Dash blinked.
“Oh yeah, true. Well, there’s Magic and Loyalty, Laughter and Honesty, and then ‘Generosity’ and K-kindness. Now Kindness was...” her voice cracked. A glassy sheen covered her eyes and she shut her mouth very tightly. I could see her tongue searching the interior of her cheeks, and her teeth biting her lips methodically. “Then theres, uhm... F-fluttershy.”
Her voice cracked again, and her ears fell limply by her cheekbones. She breathed rhythmically, and attempted to say something more, before shutting her eyes tight.
“Excuse me, please,” and she stood up and left, without another word. I was simply shocked at the speed by which her emotions had attacked her. Talking about Pinkie Pie and Twilight—and herself—she had been pleasantly disposed. When she had mentioned the other two, Applejack and Rarity, while not overtly disparaging, she hadn’t treated her memories of them with any emotion at all, aside from a snide grimace every time she said the name ‘Rarity’.
But this mention of Fluttershy had destroyed her resolve entirely, if not instantly. Miss Dash struck me as quite a rough soul; capable of harsh duress. And yet, the simple, absent minded mentioning of this name seemed to be enough to reduce her to wretchedness.
And what a queer name Fluttershy was. It struck me as soothing and warm, as one feels when one listens to Saint-Saens. Perhaps it was the timbre of the vowels and syllables, eloquent in their make up and through which emotion had been given a gate to pass. Or, perhaps it was the words themselves: flutter, to do as a butterfly does, and shy, the nature of true beauty.
Indeed, the emotion present in Miss Dash was no doubt a matter of cause and effect: it was the memory of this ‘Fluttershy’ girl, and indeed what horrid end did befall her, that wrought tears from her dry eyes.
Sherlock Holmes, in contrast to his own nature, offered very little reaction to this new circumstance: he simply lifted his chin from his breast for a moment, studied her form briefly before sinking back into his state of reconciliation.
Devoid of a conversation partner, I too quickly sunk into a melancholic reverie. My past worry, regarding our presence here, rose to the forefront of my conscious once again. Thankfully, I had plenty of other material to mull upon before falling indebtedly into lethargy: there was the nature of the sundial and its presence, and the nature of this queer little empire with its, ultimately, sad disposition and still, dead air.
Further, there was Holmes’ dogged determination to hide from me his ultimate theory, and whatever connection he forged between all that I had seen that night.
But the presence of this bulbous headed man!
I attempted to rake through my memories, to find any individual of note who bore such features. But, as hard as I tried, the further the truth alluded me: as I had said before, there simply wasn’t a man alive who fit such a description!
A master craftsman of crime? It had been years since any such accolade could thoroughly portray any member of the great, London crimatocracy. An eel or trout, seeking refuge behind stirred silt? Perhaps, but none that really made any allusion to the first particular.
My mind reached for the clear memory surrounding my chase through the Somerset downs. I saw the face of the miscreant; bold and crisp, as if printed upon a lithograph.
There was one feature which struck me, like a single, lonesome wrong note within a scale: his forehead. When I had been told, by Holmes and Harrington, that our miscreant was in possession of a great bulbous white head, I immediately imagined a creature with a swelling mound, covered limply with vitreous skin like some wretched beast of the ocean.
But, the pallor of the fellow who shot Holmes was almost pearly, and his forehead was quite smooth. Infact, I should rather have described it as a great white dome.
And then, suddenly, I was accosted by a most severe clarity of mind. I knew this man! Of course I knew him! I had used those exact words to describe him almost two decades ago!
And when I had said before that there simply wasn’t a man alive such as that, I was right. But, in a strange moment of what some might say is the twisted humor of the universe, so was Holmes: this man was dead, a disservice done to him by the hands of Holmes himself!
I started with a frightful jump, catching a broad smile caressing the lips of Sherlock Holmes as he gazed at me cheerfully.
“So, was it my description of his bulbous head that threw you, friend Watson? Or was it simply that you, as I, believed the napoleon of crime rested somewhere beneath the swirling cauldron of Reichenbach Falls? Or indeed, was it the sundial of Durham university—his university—that finally pricked your mind?”
I cared not for how he had so deftly read my thoughts—it was a trick he had become fond of parading before me, as of late—because the name that I had conjured, the name that had resurfaced from the deep fog of my well cluttered mind, took all precedence at that moment.
The honorable, intelligent, and blisteringly vile Professor James Moriarty.
