Chapter 4 ― The Resolve of Mary Morstan (Part 2)

I believe that my readers remember the detective showdown which took place in the pages of the Daily Chronicle. Irene Adler’s bold challenge over the title of the greatest detective in Kyoto concluded in her overwhelming victory. Perhaps some of those cases had been voluntarily yielded to her by Holmes, and perhaps Holmes was actively aiding Adler as an assistant—but in any case those facts were never made known to the public.

On the day the winner was to be announced, the broadsheet ran a special column on the victorious detective’s many successes as well as an interview with Shinchō Yard’s Inspector Lestrade, but what references there were to the defeated Holmes were surprisingly gracious. Even they must have been loath to gloat, so soundly had he been beaten. There could be no clearer signal that at long last the world had given up on him.

“I couldn’t be more relieved,” remarked Holmes as he scanned the paper. “It’s easier to let go when one has lost so thoroughly. I’ve never felt so easy.”

Following the conclusion of the duel, the Daily Chronicle sponsored a grand party at the banquet hall of the Langham Hotel in Kawaramachi Oike to celebrate Adler’s victory. Neither Holmes nor I were quite self-effacing enough to attend the festivities, but Mary, as Irene’s assistant, put on her best dress to go. Later that night in bed, she regaled me with all the details.

“The hall was so filled you could hardly move! It was like being in the Gion Festival.”

The party was more than a simple celebration: it was the coronation of Irene Adler. Not only was it attended by newspapermen and the benefactors of Adler’s work. The top brass of the Shinchō Yard, politicians, nobles, and everyone who was of any little fame at all in Kyoto was squeezed into that hall.

“They must all be quite eager to make the acquaintance of Miss Adler,” I observed. “Knowing a detective is sure to come in handy.”

“I’ve never seen such a vain proceeding.”

“I am not surprised.”

“They mobbed Irene the whole time, and I could hardly tell one person from the next!”

Unlike Irene Adler, a former star of the stage, Mary was unaccustomed to the glamour of the spotlight. For her it had been a novel experience but not altogether an enjoyable one.

Suddenly she turned over to face me.

“I’ve just remembered, Lord St. Simon was there.”

“Lord St. Simon?” I asked, rolling over myself to look at her. “Madame Richborough’s patron?”

Madame Richborough’s trial was set to begin soon after the new year. As prolific and influential as she was, her arrest had sent a shockwave through Kyoto. “They’re trying to keep spiritualism down!” claimed some, and using that momentum Lord St. Simon energetically led the movement to free the madame, raising funds and arranging for the best lawyers to defend her which money could buy.

“Why would he have been invited?”

“He wasn’t, of course. He forced his way into the hall.”

Mary and Irene had been at the center of the crowd when Lord St. Simon made his entrance. Calmly pushing aside the throng, he regarded Irene with a familiar air.

“Splendidly done. Truly, Miss Adler, I am impressed!”

Lord St. Simon was a pale man with a high nose, and his evening dress was impeccable. He wore a snow-white waistcoat and a gleaming pair of patent-leather shoes. From a distance his careful appearance made him seem boyish, but in truth he had already passed forty. Strands of white were peppered through his hair, and on closer observation his complexion showed the signs of his age.

Irene introduced her companion to him, but he only made a small noise and nodded barely, not deigning even to glance at Mary. It appeared that of the two he regarded only Irene as an equal, garrulously praising her work; his breath was not worth wasting upon a mere assistant.

“I am here today to express my profound gratitude,” said he, “for I hear that you had some hand in the detainment of Madame Richborough. You have aided me extremely, then, for I too had been swindled by the madame.”

It was quite difficult to take him at his word, however, for it was apparent that he had gained much by supporting Madame Richborough. His funding of her defence must be as much to protect himself as her.

“You are very magnanimous, Lord St. Simon,” said Irene. “Few would be willing to defend someone by whom they have been cheated.”

“I am not without sympathy for Madame Richborough, after all.”

“I understand your meaning.”

“Deception must not go unpunished, and yet I do not think that her actions were taken entirely out of malice. Her actions have aided many. The least we owe her is a fair trial, I think. Would you not agree?”

“Entirely. The law must always be impartial.”

“How glad I am to have met you, Miss Adler!” said Lord St. Simon with a broad grin, nodding with an affected enthusiasm. “Coming across a great detective is like finding a precious jewel in the street. I hope that your career will be long and prosperous!”

And he strode off the way he had come, sweeping the crowd out of his way.

Mary was astounded. To her Lord St. Simon had seemed almost like a talking automaton, for not a single glib word of his had the ring of plausibility. And when he had turned to go, the smile had vanished from his face instantly.

Looking to her side, she saw Irene Adler’s piercing eyes watching him depart, and heard her spit, “Coward!”

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For the last few weeks of the year, the Watson household was the very picture of tranquility.

I shut myself in my office and wrote of the adventures of Holmes of London, while Mary tore herself away from her desk to attend her charity committee meetings again and visit the household of Mrs. Cecil Forrester where she had once been employed as governess. At night we would talk about that day’s writing in front of the fireplace in the sitting-room. Our relationship felt like a boat that had escaped the horrifying rapids by the skin of its teeth and was now floating placidly upon the calm lake beyond. There could hardly be a more peaceful way to greet the new year.

The Red-headed League―the curious tale of an organization which allowed entry to only the most fiery-headed of men. The Blue Carbuncle―an adventure involving a goose and the most valuable gemstone found within its stomach. The Man with the Twisted Lip―in which the secret of an opium den and an extraordinary beggar is revealed. Holmes’s brilliant deductions played a paramount role in these tales, of course, but I would be remiss not to point out my own invaluable role in polishing rough stones into flawless gems.

At first Mary was unsure what to make of this strange Holmes in a strange land, but as she flipped through the pages her opinion began to shift. Fantastic though the setting may have been, she could not but recognize that each of these stories was a masterpiece of the detective genre. Having earned my wife’s seal of approval, I rapidly gained confidence in my collection of London-based stories.

“London, really!” Mary could not stifle a smile as she flipped through the pages. “At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but the more I read the more I could almost believe that this London really does exist. What a curious thing it is.”

Our first shrine visit of the new year was to Shimogamo Shrine. It was a bright, clear morning, and on our way there we passed many kadomatsu basking beneath the glorious sunshine. It was refreshingly cool in the Tadasu Forest, and after praying at the main hall we walked back down the long shrine road, saying our hellos to acquaintances as we passed. The normally quiet gravel path was thronged with other worshippers here for their own first visits of the year.

“This will be a good year,” said Mary to me encouragingly.

“I hope so.”

“I’m sure of it. Think of what you’ve already written.”

“But still I fear that Holmes of London is not ready to face the world.”

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Madame Richborough’s trial began on January 15th.

At ten o’clock in the morning, I took a cab to Marutamachi Street and got out in front of the Royal Courts of Justice, which lay to the south of the royal palace. Across the dusty avenue, ancient trees towered proudly over the palace walls, and red-coated sentries with black hats stood watch flanking the imposing iron gates of Sakaimachi-Gomon nearby.

I had come to the Law Courts many times to observe trials in which Sherlock Holmes had had a hand, yet the steepled, white-stone edifice never failed to inspire awe. The interior was a tangled maze of corridors leading to innumerable offices and courtrooms.

I saw a few clusters of people in front of the gate, shivering in the cold and whispering in hushed tones. After I handed the fare to the driver and began to walk towards the gate, they all stopped talking at once. There was something unnerving in the way they stared at me, and I quickly crossed through the cab stand and into the vestibule, where as fortune would have it I ran into Inspector Lestrade. Following his arrest of Madame Richborough he had had no shortage of work; it was clear that his star was tied to Irene Adler’s.

“Those are followers of the madame that you saw in front of the building,” he explained as we traversed the corridors towards the courtroom. “She had the utmost reputation as a spirit medium, so you can imagine what an uproar this has stirred up among the spiritualists.”

We entered the courtroom to find the gallery packed nearly to full. Irene Adler and Mary were already seated, and among the crowd I spotted Reginald Musgrave and Cartwright as well. I took a seat next to Sir Musgrave and scanned the crowd again, which was full of well-known faces. Among them I saw prominent spirit mediums, distinguished researchers from the Society for Spiritual Phenomenon Research, and critics of spiritualism from the scientific community, all testament to the intense interest in the trial.

Ahead and to the right I spotted Lord St. Simon. I had never seen him myself before, but his affected dress gave off aristocratic pomp in spades, so that he was impossible to miss. He was perusing a newspaper through his gold-rimmed spectacles with a look of boredom.

I turned to Reginald Musgrave.

“Are you acquainted at all with Lord St. Simon?”

“Indeed. He and I have known one another for a long time,” he replied, looking at Lord St. Simon. “A courtroom is the last place I would have expected to meet him.”

Madame Richborough appeared at the dock, flanked by two bailiffs. She wore a coarse grey garment, and her lank hair was tied up carelessly. I had not seen her since that dramatic night at Hurlstone, and it seemed that life in custody had drained her spirit, for she appeared considerably shrunken from before. She looked many years aged, even though it had been a scant two months since Mrs. Hudson and I visited Pondicherry Lodge and were duped by the madame’s trick with the crystal ball.

The judge was seated in the bench at the top of the court, and to the right the jurors filed into their box. The clerk of the court stood and read aloud the charges: fraud, blackmail, unlawful acquisition of property. Madame Richborough was charged with being the perpetrator of a vast conspiracy, and considering the scale and complexity of the case the proceedings were likely to take some time.

“How does the defendant plead?” asked the judge.

“Not guilty,” answered Madame Richborough listlessly. “I deny the charges. I am only a simple spirit medium.”

I was taken aback by her plea. It seemed to me that for her the battle was already lost. Irene Adler and Lestrade had already gathered a plethora of evidence and witnesses; the prosecution would surely have little trouble in demonstrating that Madame Richborough had been at the center of those crimes. Surely the court would not allow any consideration of the spiritual realm to weigh in its decision. An admission of guilt would certainly predispose both judge and jury towards clemency.

But as the prosecution laid out the evidence, another possibility made itself apparent: Lord St. Simon was behind it all. Madame Richborough was merely an empty shell who did his bidding, and by portraying herself as a simple spirit medium she was encouraging the theory that this trial was an act of oppression against spiritualists everywhere. That would certainly inflame the movement in Kyoto, and even if Madame Richborough were to be sent to jail, her influence as a spirit medium would remain, and even grow.

At the end of the day’s proceedings, after Madame Richborough had been escorted from the courtroom, a disturbance broke out among the onlookers. “Injustice!” shouted the angry protesters. “It’s a farce!” The bailiffs instructed the mob to clear the courtroom to no avail, and soon the anti-spiritualists added their voices to the melee. I saw Irene Adler and Mary shouting something towards me, but their words were lost in the frothing din.

“What a mess,” sighed Inspector Lestrade.

This is what Lord St. Simon wanted, I realized, looking around the room. But the instigator of the melee himself had already vanished.

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The offices of the Strand Magazine occupied the fourth floor of a chic building in Shijō Karasuma. They had once been located in a soot-stained plaster building near Kawaramachi Marutamachi, but the incredible success of the Holmes adventures had enabled them to move to the heart of Kyoto’s glamourous business district.

The Shijō Karasuma intersection was a sea of mist and smoke as I made my way to the offices that day, jammed with pedestrians and carriages alike. The lingering New Year’s spirit of good will toward men had faded, replaced with the more usual bloodyminded spirit of commerce.

No sooner had I pushed open the glass front door than a young woman at a desk near the back of the room called out to me.

“Doctor Watson!”

Miss Violet Smith was my editor. Her desk was at a wide window overlooking the intersection, buried within a mountain of books and galley proofs. The room was heated by a wrought iron stove, and in the almost sultry air, the usually rosy-cheeked Miss Smith was as red as an apple. She clutched three manuscripts tightly to her chest: “The Red-headed League”, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”, and “The Man with the Twisted Lip”. I had previously sent them to her to judge whether they might be candidates to be serialized. The chief editor stood beside her, passing his hairy hand over his brow.

*Perhaps not, *I thought, looking at his expression.

“We might talk in that room over there,” suggested the chief editor, taking me to a small adjacent room.

I sat in the armchair on one side of a long table, while the two editors sat on the other.

“We’ve read your submissions,” said the chief carefully, “and are in agreement that they are excellent and original contributions to the detective genre. However…”

The facts of our subsequent conversation, and the chief’s position, are these. Holmes’s slump had compelled the indefinite cessation of his adventures in the Strand Magazine, but the series remained extremely popular. There was great demand for its return, but it was real adventures which readers clamoured for, not some fictionalized recreation in a made-up town called London. The publication of these new adventures would only cause admirers of Holmes to turn away, and the franchise would be finished. It was the opinion of the chief that to run such a risk would be unacceptable.

I left the building and lost myself in the crowds of Shijō Karasuma.

The crowds were dreadful, and simply crossing the street was a life-and-death endeavour. I waited for a crowded stagecoach to pass by before threading between the stream of carriages, after which I walked east down Karasuma Street. Looking south I saw, rising through the mist which lay over the city, the tall brick silhouette of Kyoto Tower.

I turned and wandered into the alleys.

How disappointed Mary will be.

I decided that I had better keep this from Mary for the time being. I could not pretend that I was not disappointed that Sherlock Holmes of London had been rejected. But at the same time I had also anticipated that this might happen. Thus far, all the things that had been published under the name John H. Watson had been, no matter how embellished, records of fact. I could not blame the editors for being bewildered by the sudden appearance of this new world called London.

I had been writing at a ferocious rate since the close of the previous year. Each new tale I finished added another layer of realism to London, and eventually I began to feel as though my recollection of the city was real. Whenever I would take a stroll to work out how to arrange a story, I would vaguely see the features of London superimposed over the familiar streets of Kyoto. Each time I turned a corner, I half-expected to find that I had blundered over the borders of reality into London, and that if I were to hail a cab to 221B Baker Street, I would find Sherlock Holmes at the height of his powers, never having known the lows of a slump.

My stroll took me into Nishiki Market. Beneath the arcade roof, shoppers and tourists jostled at the narrow shops closely packed along the street, and merely passing through was a difficult task. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I nearly ran into a man who appeared suddenly out of a narrow alley.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, just avoiding a collision and proceeding on my way.

I had taken no more than a few steps when I heard the man say behind me, “Why, surely that is Watson?”

He hurried up to me. He wore a fine black coat, his top-hat shiny and his thick whiskers waxed. I did not care for the familiar way he grinned at me, and seeing my confusion he tapped me on the shoulder.

“Come on Watson, tell me you haven’t forgotten your old chum?”

“Stamford!”

“I’m wounded, really!”

“Forgive me, old friend. But I must say you’ve changed considerably.”

“Many things have happened since last we met. Life is a strange thing; if I recall, it was precisely here at Nishiki Market that I ran into you, newly returned from Afghanistan.”

The memory was fresh in my mind, as if the intervening ten years had only been ten days.

“You were a lonely man in those days,” said Stamford, giving me another light tap on the shoulder. “I remember that a simple tap just like this sent you into a paroxysm of joy. I took you down to the dissecting-rooms afterward to meet Sherlock Holmes, and from that day on it was all smooth sailing after that for you. Surely I deserve some credit for that! Yet I haven’t made a solitary appearance in your writings since ‘A Study in Scarlet!’”

There was something condescending about his manner, yet I could not counter his claim. For many of the events in my life―moving in with Holmes, the success of the Holmes stories to great acclaim, becoming a husband to Mary, opening my practice―I owed to Stamford, and yet I had not once remembered Stamford to thank him.

“You look like you’re doing quite well for yourself, Stamford.”

“Oh, I keep myself busy. It took a little time, but fortune at last deigned to smile upon me,” he grinned. “I haven’t seen any new stories from you in quite some time. What has Sherlock Holmes been up to? Once it seemed like you two had the world at your beck and call, but now Irene Adlai or whatever her name is seems to have snatched up the mantle.”

As I dithered for a response, Stamford glanced at his pocket watch. “Dear me,” he cried, “I must really be getting on to my house call! We’ll chat again some time, I’m sure.”

And so saying, he turned and strode off into the crowd.

I stood there in amazement for some time, feeling as though I had hardly gotten a word in at all. I recalled then a rumour I had heard from Thurston at the club near the Kōjin Bridge, about Stamford extolling a merging between spiritualism and modern medicine, and calling himself a “spiritualist physician”.

He’s a fervent believer in Madame Richborough, you know, Thurston had said.

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From Nishiki Market I headed towards 221B Teramachi Street.

In the month since the events at Hurlstone, Irene Adler had unraveled all of the cases which Holmes had left to her, and in commemoration of her feat tonight we were holding a small gathering. As Mrs. Hudson took my coat in the hallway I heard a jovial noise coming from upstairs. Holmes’s laughter was particularly boisterous.

“Holmes is in a good mood tonight, I see.”

“He has every reason to be. That Victim’s Association will trouble him no further. No longer must he worry about being strung up by his own clients. But Mr. Holmes has been working hard, running about at Miss Adler’s beck and call.”

The moment I opened the door to the second-floor suite, I was met with a glad cry of “Watson!”

Holmes was sitting with his legs folded beneath him in his armchair. Across from him on the settee were Irene Adler and Mary, and Inspector Lestrade was standing before the hearth. An array of refreshments which had already been greatly reduced was set out on the side table.

Holmes waved me over as he said, “I was just talking about Miss Adler and her turbulent manner of treating her assistants.”

“I’ll hear none of that, Mr. Holmes. Remember that you took on all those cases of your own accord. We needed to appease the Victim’s Association, and swift action was the only way to do it. If I was brusque it was only in service to the solution.”

“Yes, but disguising me as a carp?” Holmes remonstrated. “They nearly hurled me into Lake Biwa, you know.”

“Didn’t I arrive in time to prevent it?”

“What an interesting case that was!” said Mary with a little chuckle, shared by Irene Adler.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be invited as well, Lestrade,” I said.

“Holmes paid a call specially to Shinchō Yard to propose that we end our differences. I suppose with Holmes and Miss Adler having joined forces, there was no reason that our estrangement should continue. And so at long last I have returned to the fold.”

By and by Mrs. Hudson joined the convivial gathering.

It had been a long time since 221 Teramachi had felt so cheerful. A fog of melancholy had surrounded the place since Holmes fell into his slump. But now, as I watched Irene Adler spar with Holmes, it was as if the fog had lifted completely. Looking through the clouded glass to the street below, I saw bundled-up pedestrians passing to and fro on the pavement past the light of the street-lamps and shop windows, their breaths pluming out white in the cold. Occasionally some of those figures would pause and glance up at the very window through which I was observing them, as if gazing at distant fireworks.

Ours was a paltry celebration in comparison to the festivities that had taken place at Langham. It was distinctly free of celebrities or noblemen or reporters; the warm room was filled with only those who would have been at Holmes’s side even if he was not a famed detective. Yet the one person who had been most faithful to Holmes was absent―Professor Moriarty.

Mrs. Hudson brought in a large cake studded with red candles, setting it down on the table with a grunt. Holmes stood up and took out a matchbook, lighting each candle with great aplomb.

“A token of appreciation, Miss Adler. There are as many candles as cases that you lifted from my shoulders, with my gratitude.”

After a moment’s astonishment Irene Adler’s face turned red. At Holmes’s urging she blew out the candles to our applause.

“Well, well. I feel much better now!” said Holmes, standing up once more and rubbing his hands together. “I’d like to take the opportunity to give my thanks to the rest of you as well. Mrs. Hudson, thank you for putting up with my mulish, difficult tenancy for all these years, and restraining yourself on what must have been a number of occasions from throwing me out. Inspector Lestrade: I am sorry for severing our ties for my own selfish reasons. It was only due to your assistance that I was able to solve as many cases as I did. Thank you. Mary. I drew your husband into my slump, with which he has seen no end of trouble. Please accept my deepest apologies. And Watson. Without you, the detective Sherlock Holmes would never have been born. Without Watson, there is no Holmes.”

My chest grew tight, and I found myself lost for words. In all my years working with him Holmes had never expressed his gratitude so plainly. The others seemed to share my emotion at his heartfelt words: Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, and Mary were all moved to tears.

“And now to close my remarks,” said Holmes with a beatific smile. “Thank you, one and all. As of tonight, I am officially retired.”