Chapter 4 ― The Resolve of Mary Morstan (Part 3)

Holmes’s announcement shattered the air of jubilation, and for a moment we were all stunned.

“I have already sent the announcement to the broadsheets, and I expect it will run in tomorrow’s edition.”

“Why didn’t you speak to us first?”

“Because you would have tried to stop me.”

“Of course we would!”

“You see? And so I kept my counsel.”

There was nary a trace of regret in Holmes’s cheery tone. He sounded like a schoolboy announcing he was off on his way to a picnic on Mt. Daimonji.

“I’ve contemplated this ever since I fell into this slump. Yet I could never make up my mind. I too possess sentimental qualities like any other human being, you know. When I secluded myself in the bamboo forest at Hurlstone, I must admit that I was filled with regret. But now I have none. Since returning from Rakusei, and with the assistance of Miss Adler in clearing up my remaining cases, I have made my peace with the idea of retirement.”

“Do you mean to say, Mr. Holmes, that this is my fault?”

“I mean nothing of the sort. I am entirely in your debt, Miss Adler.”

Irene Adler stood up and rounded on him.

“Mr. Holmes, I did not take on those cases in order to drum you into retirement. I did it to snap you out of your slump. What you have done is close to a betrayal. The Victim’s Association has been disbanded at last―your return is before your very eyes! Why would you give up now? What of your duty to society as a detective?”

“I had given up that title a long time ago,” said Holmes. “That burden rests on you now, Miss Adler.”

Irene’s burning glare rested on Holmes a while longer, but then she abruptly turned it upon me.

“Have you nothing to say, Dr. Watson? Or will you let your friend let things end in this fashion?”

But I did not know what to say.

Was stopping Holmes the right thing to do? His mysterious slump had lasted over a year now, and it had not been only he who had suffered; both Mary and I had experienced a great deal of pain. And for what? To gather material for my stories? To revive our golden age? To provide a service to society? Was not freeing Holmes from his duty as a detective the best decision we could make? Certainly there is more to life than detection.

“Dr. Watson!” Irene Adler insisted. “Why do you remain silent?”

“That’s enough, Irene. Let him be,” said Mary, standing up and interposing herself between Irene and me. “You don’t know how they have suffered.”

For a moment Irene Adler seemed to be cowed by this unexpected source of resistance, but she soon recovered from her surprise.

“I understand that you want to stand by the doctor, Mary…”

“I have stood by him. And I have seen how he has suffered, and I have had enough of it.”

“And is that why you want Holmes to retire?” asked Irene Adler. A slight frown had worked its way onto her face, and she scrutinized Mary closely.

“So that’s what you were after,” she muttered after a moment. “You wanted Holmes to quit, and that is why you encouraged me.”

Mary stared back at her and said nothing, which was as good as a confession. Yet she made no attempt to defend herself.

“I have no ill will against Mary,” said Holmes. “It was I who made my problem Watson’s, who put him in an impossible situation. All this time she has had to bear her indignation; it is only natural that it would boil over one day.”

“And are you satisfied, Holmes?” asked Irene Adler after a short pause.

“I have hardly ever felt more relieved,” said he.

“Then I will not detain you any further. Do as you wish,” said Irene Adler curtly, and she walked briskly to the door. There she paused and turned to glare at Mary.

“But you, Mary, I cannot forgive.”

And she threw open the door and swept from the room.

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The next morning’s edition of the Daily Chronicle carried the following article:

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes Announces Retirement

“Sherlock Holmes has officially announced his retirement at a press conference in his offices at 221B Teramachi Street. In a career spanning over a decade the well-known detective solved a remarkable number of cases of considerable complexity, but since the autumn of two years ago the activities of Mr. Holmes have seen a precipitous decline.

“In his remarks to the assembled body of journalists, Mr. Holmes admitted that his attempts to pursue his investigations had occasionally made those situations only more inextricable, saying, ‘It is in the public interest that I have made the difficult decision to step down.’ While expressing concern for the deterioration of public safety that we have seen on our streets, the detective also expressed confidence that the efforts of Miss Irene Adler, a woman of astonishing capacity and aptitude, would more than make up for his absence.

“After setting his affairs in order, Mr. Holmes intends to depart on a personal excursion to the South Pacific.”

The news of Holmes’s retirement sent a shockwave through Kyoto.

It was laughable to see many who had formerly jeered Holmes’s struggles abruptly change their tunes. “It is true that he has fallen on hard times, yet it is unfortunate to see his career end so prematurely…” And so on. Despite their sudden nostalgia for his talent, not one of them had reached out with words of encouragement during his slump.

The papers were filled with retrospectives on his illustrious achievements of yesteryear. Reporters flocked to my office looking for a quote, but I was not in much of a mood to give them one. I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and a hole had been opened up in my heart all at the same time; there was disappointment at Holmes for retiring, and in myself for having failed to stop him.

With the departure of Sherlock Holmes every eye was fixed upon Irene Adler. In deed and in name she was the inheritor of his formidable reputation as Kyoto’s greatest detective. And yet it was she who regretted his retirement the most.

All the more reason, then, for her anger towards Mary.

But you, Mary, I cannot forgive.

Neither Mary and I expected her anger to subside soon, and our fears were confirmed a week after the announcement in the papers.

I was in my consulting-room putting my records in order, when a black blur flew down Shimogamo Boulevard past my window with tremendous speed, followed shortly by the horrendous screech of bicycle brakes being abused. I apprehended immediately that it was Miss Smith from the Strand Magazine. Hurrying down, I found her in a state of great exertion on my doorstep. It appeared she had raced here on her bicycle all the way from the offices in Shijō Karasuma.

“There’s a pressing matter I must speak about with you and Mary immediately,” she panted.

While Mary put the kettle on I led Miss Smith to the sitting-room which looked out on the garden.

“You’ll be interested to hear that Miss Irene Adler has just paid a visit to our offices,” said the editor with a grave frown. “She has dismissed one Mary Morstan as her biographer. And accordingly she has requested that we cease publishing the column known as the ‘Casebook of Irene Adler.’”

“I see,” murmured Mary. “I feared this might happen.”

“The editing floor is in an uproar. Next month’s edition is devoted to Irene Adler, and we were on the cusp of sending the galleys off to the presses. But we cannot simply ignore Miss Adler’s wishes.”

“She must be getting even with Mary,” I observed.

“I can’t blame Irene for being angry; after all, I have been using her.”

Mary explained to Miss Smith how she had pressed Irene Adler into her campaign against Holmes.

“It was I who drove Holmes into retirement,” she finished.

“No, Mary. It was his slump that was to blame. It was only ever a matter of time before he hung up his hat for good, and even he acknowledged it.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes may have forgiven me, but I doubt Irene will.”

A heavy silence settled upon the chilly room. Miss Smith sighed and gazed out into our garden. A gust of wind stirred up a flurry of snow, and for a moment a pale blue shadow settled over us as if the sun was blotted out.

I could see that Miss Smith was thinking very hard. Until just a little while ago there had been no limit to her ambitions. The roaring success of “The Casebook of Irene Adler” had more than compensated for the hiatus of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Each story that had appeared thus far had been a masterpiece, and a further nine pieces awaited publication in the pages of the Strand. Irene Adler’s star only continued to rise, and it was widely anticipated that the collection of her stories which was due to come out in the fall would break publishing records. The editors of the Strand, including Miss Smith, must have felt like wild-catters striking black gold, with all of the ambition that comes with such a windfall: a second omnibus, a third, perhaps even a novel. How quickly those ambitions had crumbled.

Eventually Miss Smith spoke with an air of resolve.

“I will postpone the publications of the casebook until I have managed to persuade Miss Adler. But it is not all bad news. I believe this is our opportunity to reveal your new stories to the world, Dr. Watson.”

“You mean Holmes of London?” I asked in astonishment. “I had gathered that the chief was not convinced.”

“Things are different now. With the Irene Adler special on hold there is a wide gap in our schedule, and precious little time to fill it. It just so happens that Mr. Holmes’s retirement has made him the talk of the town. You can leave the chief to me. Sherlock Holmes has retired in Kyoto; why not bring him back in London?

“It will be the triumphant return of Sherlock Holmes!”

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“The triumphant return of Sherlock Holmes…” murmured Sherlock Holmes admiringly to himself.

The chief editor of the Strand Magazine had given in to Miss Smith’s pertinacity: the next month’s edition would carry Holmes of London. The whole office was now engaged frantically in overhauling the layout from Irene Adler’s special to Sherlock Holmes’s .

Holmes was simply delighted when I dropped by at 221B Teramachi Street to tell him the news. He was particularly tickled with the new setting of London.

“A splendid idea,” said he. “Moriarty’s parting gift has turned out to be an unexpected bounty.”

Three stories were set to be published in the issue: “The Red-headed League”, “The Blue Carbuncle”, and “The Man with the Twisted Lip”. The unusual decision to publish all three at once was in part made out of necessity to fill up the whole special, but it was also something of a stratagem that Miss Smith had devised to pacify the devoted readers of crime fiction who might grumble about the new setting. Anyone who did not recognize this as part of the true Holmes canon would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume, she reasoned.

“The revival of your writing career is at hand, Watson.”

“Perhaps so. But it’s Mary I am worried about. She and Miss Adler have not spoken since the night of your retirement. Miss Adler has dismissed her as a biographer, and she blames herself for the whole affair, you know. I only hope that they can be reconciled.”

“You and I had our share of quarrels.”

“That’s quite true.”

“What is an argument but evidence of friendship? There’s nothing to be worried about,” Holmes shrugged. “Miss Adler will come around sooner or later.”

Now that the uproar from his retirement had died down, Holmes was busy scouring his quarters clean. Heaps of books and miscellanea dotted his room like an archipelago floating in the Pacific: thick scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings, magnifying glasses, tape measures, a burgling kit, chemical vessels. Scattered about were a plethora of mementos from his past cases: a medal from Her Majesty, a shriveled monkey’s paw, weird and exotic carved sculptures, a perpetual motion machine created by a reclusive inventor.

“It all seems like a dream, now,” remarked Holmes as he glanced around the room. “Was I really such a well-known detective?”

“Of course you were. Think of all the cases you solved.”

“Holmes sat down in his armchair and lit his pipe.

“I haven’t the slightest idea now how I was able to do all of those things. I remember how topsy-turvy things were, and the supreme confidence I possessed in those days. But now it seems to me that everything happened by coincidence. For brief moments in time, the entire world happened to revolve around me. I cannot shake the feeling that all my ability and effort had nothing to do with the final outcome.”

He did not look sad, neither did he seem to be trying to rationalize the past. He seemed to be genuinely mystified that he had once lived through such a golden age.

I sympathized with his feeling. At the height of his powers Holmes had been almost superhuman; sometimes I had the perverse impression that the only reality that could possibly exist was the reality that he envisioned. If, as he now mused, that power transcended ability and effort, then all of our efforts to rehabilitate him had been in vain.

“Tell me, Holmes: do you really intend to leave for the South Pacific?”

“I did say that at the press conference, didn’t I? I had only meant it as a jest, but now the idea is becoming more attractive to me. I am sick of the city, and crime, and of the fog that hangs over the Kamo River. A deserted little island would be just the thing. No cases to solve, for one.”

He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“Why don’t you come along?”

“You know I couldn’t,” I blurted out in astonishment.

“I was joking,” he chuckled. “You have your practice, and Mary to think of. And now you have the sacred duty of writing the Holmes of London adventures. I’m happy for you, Watson. I am. I will go to the South Pacific alone, where I will have all the time in the world to ponder how to spend the rest of my life.”

For a brief moment I felt the kiss of the tropical sun brighten the room. Faraway islands, and open blue skies, and coconut trees, and white sands, and lapping waves: a world less suited for Sherlock Holmes I could hardly imagine. Yet in that moment I could picture him wearing a straw hat in a warm breeze, striding along the endless white sands.

Mrs. Hudson appeared at the door.

“You’ve a visitor, Mr. Holmes.”

Holmes frowned and waved dismissively.

“I am a detective no longer. Whether they are a reporter or would-be client, tell them to go away.”

But Mrs. Hudson did not move from the doorway.

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Not to Miss Rachel.”

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We had not seen Miss Rachel since her dramatic reappearance last year. Our first encounter had hardly been an ideal opportunity to converse with her. For one, all of Hurlstone had been in an uproar, and besides we had to deal with the great shock of Professor Moriarty’s vanishing. And for Holmes it had been far from a satisfactory resolution to the case that had nagged him for twelve years. He had practically fled the estate soon afterward.

Mrs. Hudson soon reappeared at the door, followed by Rachel Musgrave.

“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule, Mr. Holmes.”

“I am not busy in the slightest. My hands lay idle, now that I have retired from the profession. Pray take a seat,” replied Holmes languidly, and he indicated the settee in front of the fireplace.

The twelve years she had spent within the Chamber of the East of the East had left no visible impression upon the appearance of Miss Rachel. She wore a plain white dress, and looked an unremarkable girl of fourteen like any other, like Mary and Irene Adler had been in their boarding school days. And yet there was around her a kind of supernatural aura, as if her physical being was surrounded by a hard, transparent shell.

“Allow me to express my gratitude, Mr. Holmes.”

“I hear you have moved to the city.”

“That is correct. Upon your advice I have taken up residence in a villa in Karasuma Oike.”

“A wise decision. After all that has happened I believe it is better that you keep your distance from Hurlstone. You will soon find city life the most natural thing in the world.”

There was a tender note in Holmes’s voice, and it was apparent that Miss Rachel meant a great deal to him. She was not just the younger sister of his schoolmate, she was the girl that as a brash young man he had failed to save.

Holmes chatted with the young lady about how Reginald was faring, and waxed poetic about some old school doings, and regaled her with an amusing account of how he had constructed his hut in the Musgraves’ bamboo grove last year. I supposed he meant to put her at her ease, and by the time Mrs. Hudson brought in the tea her nervous expression had softened.

“So Mary is your wife?”

“Yes. We first met when she came to seek Holmes’s assistance.”

“I’m so glad that Mary and Irene are doing well,” said Rachel with a smile, though it quickly dissolved into a frown. “What a dreadful ordeal I put them through. When I found William’s diary in the library, and read the addendum in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, I felt a call from the Chamber of the East of the East. I only ever invited them to the tea party because I thought they would help me carry out my plans.”

Rachel stared at the fireplace in silence. She seemed to want to say something, but whatever it was she was unsure how to broach the subject. Rather than press her, Holmes simply stared at the flames with her.

After a moment, Rachel said in a small voice,” I still don’t understand what happened to me.”

Those twelve years she had slumbered in the Chamber of the East of the East had passed like a single night for her. Whatever she had experienced during that long night had faded from her memory in the light of day.

“I remember walking up that mysterious staircase. And something must have happened when I reached the top. But I hardly remember anything at all. That chamber has been here since the time of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, lurking within Hurlstone like a curse. William was bewitched by it, as was I, and now it has taken Professor Moriarty. What do you think, Mr. Holmes? Why does such a thing exist in our world? And what is its true nature?”

“You mustn’t trouble yourself with those questions,” said Holmes sternly. “Now that you have been returned, you need only concern yourself with the question of how you will live the rest of your life.”

“But it frightens me, Mr. Holmes,” said Rachel, leaning forward. “Sometimes my mind becomes confused. Sometimes I wonder whether I really have come back.”

Even having left Hurlstone behind and moved to the villa in Karasuma Oike, Rachel was still pursued by the phantom of that forsaken room in the old wing. Sometimes she would dream of the tea party, of sneaking away with Mary and Irene and creeping down the silent, unlit hallways to unlock the door to that cursed room.

Each time she would wake up in a cold sweat, with the silent call of the Chamber of the East of the East echoing in her mind. It was as though no matter where she went there was a bottomless pit lying in wait beneath her feet, waiting for her to take one false step. Perhaps those twelve years in the chamber had left their mark on her, or it was a product of the guilt she felt for Professor Moriarty, who had rescued her through his own sacrifice. In either case, I suspected that with time these nightmares would trouble her no longer.

I shuddered when I saw Rachel staring into a region of empty space, for it was quite apparent that she was looking into the Chamber of the East of the East.

“It feels as though there is another version of me which was left behind in that room.”

A shadow passed over her face, and she began to wobble. Immediately Holmes sprang up from his armchair and caught her before she crumpled to the floor. Together we laid her down on the settee and set a cushion beneath her head. Holmes stood by her side as I attended to her, a pained expression on his face.

“Is she all right?”

“It’s nothing of great concern. I suspect her nerves are greatly strained.”

In a little while her eyelids fluttered open, but her gaze was distant. Holmes knelt down beside the settee and took her hand.

“It’s all right, Miss Rachel,” he said.

A faint smile came to her lips, and in a small voice she began to speak.

“When I saw the light in your windows as I came to visit, I felt a glad warmth in my chest. I suppose that must be what a traveler feels spotting the merry lights of an inn after the sun has gone down on the moor. And I am sure that is the same feeling which your clients must have felt.

“I have wanted to thank you,” she continued, her eyes half-shut as if she was in a trance. “Twelve years ago you were involved in the investigation of my disappearance. Reginald told me so. But in fact I had already known. As I slept in the Chamber of the East of the East, I could sense you searching for me.”

Holmes stared at her, not breathing. He appeared to be both disconcerted and greatly moved by her words. For the briefest of moments his face grew taut, and there was a keen glitter in his eye; but it soon passed.

“But I was not alone. I was joined by many in searching for you,” he assured her.

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The Holmes special was published early in February.

In the days leading up to its release, Miss Smith frantically edited the three stories as though she was threatened by the whip of an overseer, while I was beset with anxiety. With so little time left I could think of nothing else. Yet there was nothing for me to do but wait, and as I did my apprehension only grew, for it had been a year and a half since the adventures of Sherlock Holmes had last appeared in the pages of the Strand Magazine.

All the readers of crime fiction in Kyoto were waiting for the revival of Sherlock Holmes. But what they clamoured for were real-life exploits, not yarns about a fictional detective in a made-up city. The closer publication date drew, the more convinced I became that the readers would reject this new iteration of Holmes. In my downcast mood I could hardly bring food or drink to pass my lips. I had dreams of mobs of infuriated readers marching on my practice with torches and pitchforks in hand.

“Perhaps I had better lie low until it has all blown over,” I groaned.

“Why should you need to go into hiding?” questioned Mary.

“I can hear the outcry already. Some of Holmes’s most ardent admirers blamed me for his slump, you know. They are already disappointed enough with the news of his retirement; I can only imagine what they will say about Holmes of London.”

“It’s only your nerves. You know how long it’s been since your last outing,” said Mary, patting my back. “Don’t fret. Everything will be all right.”

As the day approached, rumours began to swirl that the special that was due to appear in the latest edition of the Strand Magazine was hastily being revised. When it was revealed that the issue would now revolve around Sherlock Holmes, all of Kyoto was stunned and elated. “At last we will know the truth behind his retirement!” some speculated, while others insisted that he would in fact retract his retirement. I prepared myself for the worst.

At last the day was upon us.

I would have hidden myself at a remote inn in Kurama, if not for the patients who still needed my attention at the clinic. Instead I quietly went about my business. In the evening Mary, who had gone out to reconnoiter the mood in the city’s bookshops, told me, “It seems to be quite popular.” I said nothing.

Three days later, I received a telegram from Miss Smith.

Issues flying from shelves. Reprint underway. Violet Smith

I was not such an optimist to let down my guard at the news. It is only Holmes’s enduring reputation, I told myself. No one really wanted to read these ersatz stories; soon enough the negative voices would rise to drown out the positive. Over the past year the readers had steadily abandoned us; the longer the hiatus had gone on the more vociferous was their disappointment. Their disappointment in Sherlock Holmes was also disappointment in John H. Watson. Now, with the publication of Holmes of London, surely even our most ardent supporters must finally forsake us.

My self-doubt eventually transformed into resentment against the readers. Rant and rave all you like, but all good things must come to an end.

One week after the publication, I was hunched morosely before the fireplace after a long day’s work when I heard Miss Smith’s bicycle whizzing through the street. Without so much as ringing the bell she barged through the front door of my practice and marched directly towards my office.

“Dr. Watson!” she yelled, “Dr. Watson! Why have you not answered my telegram?”

Without pausing to allow me to reply she continued on excitedly.

“The issues have been flying off the shelves, and the presses can’t keep up with all the demand! Did you read the Daily Chronicle? There’s a furious debate about whether Holmes of London really constitutes detective fiction, and there’s no shortage of readers with bones to pick, but all press is good press. Have you begun writing the next story? You haven’t? Why not? Where’s your pen? Get to work! The serialization begins next issue, and we need to have enough material to put out a collection by the end of the year. We’ll call it: The Triumphant Return of Sherlock Holmes!”

She said all of this in one breath, and then immediately turned and dashed away like the wind.

For a long while I didn’t know what to think.

Did this mean that the stories were successful after all?

I made up my mind at last to visit a bookshop.

The winter sun had already set. The streets were steeped in a navy hue, and across Shimogamo Boulevard the Tadasu Forest was veiled in shadow. The lamplighters were out, and each time another gas lamp was lit, a nascent darkness was born around the edges of the light. It was a lovely sight, and I stood there for a time watching the lamps flicker into life down the street. Further south the buildings opened up at Aoi Bridge, and when I reached the bridge the last vestiges of daylight were fading from the sky.

The Masugata shopping arcade was just a little further past the bridge, and at the entrance I saw a banner with the words, “The Triumphant Return of Sherlock Holmes”. Yet the wooden shelves were bare. The shop owner, with whom I was well acquainted, informed me that all the issues which had arrived that day had been snapped up almost as soon as they were put out. As I stood there in amazement, I was approached by a man with a heavy moustache wearing a top hat.

“Pardon me; do I address by any chance Dr. John Watson?”

“I am.”

“What an honour it is!” cried the man with twinkling eyes. “I have just had the pleasure of reading your latest stories. Sherlock Holmes, in a new land! And you paint London with such veracity, it is as if the town really exists. I can picture it in my mind’s eye now. It’s astonishing how you dreamed it all up. It’s a masterpiece, sir!”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”

I shook hands with him before leaving the shop.

A masterpiece! The words made my heart glow, and wanting to savour that sudden burst of joy I walked down from the Aoi Bridge to the bank of the Kamo. The sky was a deep imperial blue, like the finest imported china, and the riverbank was submerged in a deep aquatic hue. I was alone there; on my left the bare bushes on the embankment stretched along into the distance, and on my right the lights on Shimogamo Boulevard glittered over the dark surface of the water. It had been a long time since the world had seemed so beautiful to me, and I whistled a tune as I strolled north along the river.

After a few minutes, a voice called out to me.

“John Watson!”

I turned around to find Mary standing there.

“Mary! But how long have you been following me?”

“Quite some time, actually.”

Apparently she had seen me coming out of the bookshop in Masugata, having been doing some shopping there herself. Laughing with delight she skipped up to me.

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“What is there to disturb?”

“Why, you were so flushed with pleasure!”

She took my arm, and together we continued our stroll down the Kamo River.