Chapter 4
The Sudden Solution
Holmes sat in the chair across from me, gazing deeply into my face. The harsh sunlight heightened his unkempt appearance. His hair was long and greasy, his face was rough with stubble, and his eyes were sunk in darkened pools.
“Holmes! Why did you dismiss the poor lady in such an insensitive manner?”
“The victim is dead, the assailant is identified, and his whereabouts known. There is nothing to be done, is there?”
“I suppose not,” I said. “But we need to find the colonel before Lanticole and his men kill him in revenge.”
“That is a task so simple even Lestrade can do it. You can take the matter to him, Doctor, if that’s what you want to do. Go downstairs, collect Miss Henley from the parlor and take her to Scotland Yard.”
“But Holmes, don’t you want to apprehend the culprit whose dark deeds caused these tragic events?
“My good doctor, I have found the real culprit in this case!”
“Well, of course. Miss Henley told us it was Colonel Quitnar.”
“No, it’s you, Watson! You are the mastermind behind this crime.”
“Me, Holmes? Don’t be absurd!”
Holmes rose from his chair, towering over me. His stare penetrated right through me. “Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,” he said, as if reciting from memory. “Guilty of perjury and subornation, Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift, Guilty of incest, that abomination; An accessory by thine inclination To all sins past, and all that are to come, From the creation to the general doom.
“Shakespeare, I believe,” he said rather smugly, “The Rape of Lucrece, I believe.”
I slumped in my chair. “Then you have guessed my game.”
“Quite right. Your plot to stimulate my mind with this contrivance was a valiant effort—your witness was authentic.”
“Maid to our commanding officer’s wife, and a bit of an amateur actress.”
“An actress, you say? I admit that I did not catch that. That would explain her mastery of dialect. Very good. You’ll give the girl her due, won’t you, Watson? And the anagrammatic names had even caught me off guard. Quitnar–Tarquin. Lanticole–Collatine. I assume you arranged for former officers to fill the other roles and carry the charade to the end?”
Nodding in affirmation, I said, “I had deduced that the only way to lift you from your depression was by creating a case to which you could ply your mind.”
“Deduced, you say? Ah, yes, that’s it!” exclaimed Holmes as he started to rummage through his stacks of books and papers.
“What did you call it? A Study in Scarlet, wasn’t it? And that blasted list of my shortcomings!” He withdrew a book from beneath some papers and began thumbing through the pages. “Let’s see. Ah, here it is at the very top of your list—the broken cog in your machine. Did you rank these in any sort of order, Watson? Do you consider this my biggest weakness? ‘One. Knowledge of classic literature. Nil.’ Deductions made from faulty facts lead to faulty conclusions, Watson.” He slammed the book shut and tossed it aside dismissively. “I admit that most of Shakespeare’s works are worthless; at least they are of no value to me. But he has done some studies of criminal and insane minds that are quite fascinating. Look at Richard III, the Scottish play, Hamlet, King Lear, or The Rape of Lucrece.”
He lowered his eyelids as if in deep thought then, remarkably, began a recitation: “When they had sworn to this advised doom, | They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence: | To show her bleeding body thorough Rome, | And so to publish Tarquin’s foul offence…”
His eyes opened and he leveled a somber gaze at me. “Need I say more?”
“I am sorry,” I mumbled.
“You’d best go see your friend off, Doctor.”
With that, I rose from the chair, picked up my coat and hat, and started for the door. The light through the window was sliced by the falling drape.
As I opened the door, Holmes addressed me in a not unkindly tone, “My friend, it was not an unpleasant interlude.”
I left without turning, and closed the door, leaving him in darkness. As I descended the stairs, the low, sad notes of his violin drifted through the air. The melancholy tune brought a smile to my lips, for it meant The Adventure of the Lieutenant’s Wife had not been a complete failure. It meant that Holmes had sequestered the vile solution, at least for the moment. Hopefully, long enough for a real case to come along and engage his superior intellect.
Indeed, later in November, two minor cases helped to further lift Holmes from his dark mood. One involved a card scandal; the other concerned a young lady, presumed dead, who had run away to America. By Christmas of that year, Holmes was a completely changed man, as evidenced by his generous handling of the case of the Christmas goose that swallowed a precious gem. Finally, in December of 1896, I was able to wean my friend from his seven-percent solution. Yet, till his death, I knew the fiend was not dead, only sleeping. I think his retirement to the Sussex Downs would have been his ruin if it had not been for the solace of bees.
– End of The Adventure ofthe Lieutenant's Wife –
