Chapter 2 ― Irene Adler's Challenge (Part 2)

The following day the Daily Chronicle ran the headline:

Peters ended his column with the following line:

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes has had a sterling career. However, as this paper has reported, over the past year Mr. Holmes’s behaviour has become so erratic that his reputation among the public has reached a nadir. Will Holmes fend off this challenge by Miss Adler and reclaim his title as Kyoto’s top detective? We eagerly anticipate the revival of his career.”

Miss Adler’s rise was positively meteoric. As an actress she had graced the stage of the Minami-za, before announcing her shock retirement in the fall of the previous year; after a quiet year had re-emerged as a private consulting detective on Teramachi Street. Yet she would not speak of her private life, or what had led her to make such a drastic career change. To the reporters who hounded her she would say only, “I am under no obligation to tell you.”

In response to her growing fame, Shinchō Yard sniffed that she was a rank amateur who was not worthy of their time. However, in short order she got the best of celebrated inspectors such as Athelney Jones, Bradstreet, and Hopkins, sending the force into a panic. And unlike Holmes, Miss Adler was not content to sit back and let the police take credit. Whatever she achieved she ruthlessly seized for her own, to the delight of the onlookers. Only Lestrade, an afterthought in his dusty secluded office, escaped her fangs.

The wind was clearly at her back, and Miss Adler spread her wings to make the most of it, with that mysterious vigor that can only be manifested when Lady Fortune smiles upon a meeting of heaven-sent talent and dogged tenacity. This was the vigor that had propelled Holmes to his unprecedented successes, and had now gone from him utterly.

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For the next two weeks I did not visit Holmes. My consultation of Madame Richborough had drawn his wrath, and he declared that I was barred from his quarters.

“You and I are through,” said he. “Detection is an exact science, and I won’t have someone who hobnobs with mediums as an assistant. I have Watson the goldfish. If nothing else, a goldfish knows its place.”

The Daily Chronicle’s Battle of the Detectives had caused a sensation all through Kyoto. Which would prevail: Sherlock Holmes or Irene Adler? In the waiting room my patients would talk of nothing else; I even overheard some of them placing wagers on the outcome. The most enthusiastic of that group, an ex-marine by the name of Johnson, would visit my practice every three days or so complaining of an ache somewhere or other on his body, though it was clear that his purpose was really to extract inside information from me about Holmes.

“I haven’t seen him lately,” I would tell him with a shrug.

“Don’t you be a tightfist!” he grinned. “You’re his partner, I know. What odds would you place on him to prevail?”

Only my vow to do no harm stopped me forcing a carboy of arsenous acid down Mr. Johnson’s throat.

My wife bustled about cheerfully as the month opened, seemingly having forgotten all about Holmes. She had always been active at her charity, and now she had apparently begun to attend some sort of creative workshop. She frequently visited the library and would write at her desk late into the night.

The only time we had time to chat leisurely as husband and wife was at the meal table, but more often than not I would be gloomily contemplating that day’s Daily Chronicle. I knew I shouldn’t read it, yet I couldn’t bear not to.

The column which chronicled the detectives’ progress had two bold numbers, one each for the number of cases that Holmes and Adler had each solved. Miss Adler’s number grew by leaps and bounds. In contrast, Holmes’s number remained stubbornly at zero. Each time I opened the newspaper and saw that immovable zero, I would inwardly sigh, I told you so!

It all seemed a farce. It was as if Holmes’s incompetence was being advertised directly in sitting-rooms all over Kyoto.

“You’re thinking of that man again,” Mary said, as I sat there glowering at the newspaper. There was something like pity in her voice. “Well, I suppose you’re right to be frustrated. He hasn’t got a chance of winning.”

“You’re exactly right, Mary,” I sighed. “He should never have taken Miss Adler’s challenge. I should have stopped him, even if I had to give him a punch in the face to do it. But what frustrates me most of all is that, even as he is humiliated in the most complete manner, he refuses to ask for help. It’s as if he doesn’t care about how I feel at all!”

“You know that’s how he has always been.”

“He is worse. I blame Professor Moriarty.”

“You mean the old man we rescued last month?”

“That crackpot physicist won’t leave Holmes alone for a minute. He’s bent on taking my place as Holmes’s partner. Well, I won’t stand for it. I know Holmes better than anyone―why, I am the greatest authority on the subject in the world!”

“You’re right, of course. But do you really think your visiting would help him?” said she with a solemn look. “His slump has put you through no little anguish, John. He cares nothing for you, save that he can use you for his own convenience. Remember how he drove you to collapse in the summer. Surely it would be better to let Professor Moriarty become Holmes’s partner rather than let that happen again.”

“But I am Holmes’s partner.”

“Holmes’s time is over. Irene Adler is a genius.”

Mary’s hand was warm as she reached out and took mine. I gazed with sorrow down at the newspaper upon the table. Cases solved by Sherlock Holmes: 0.

Why, Holmes, why won’t you take things seriously?

“I think this is for the best, John,” Mary said, squeezing my hand. “For now, at last, I feel that I can have you back.”

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I was later to learn that over the first half of November, Sherlock Holmes took on well over thirty cases, an astonishing number for so short a time. Among those cases were more than a few which previously Holmes certainly would have refused. It appeared that Holmes had discarded what standards he had and was taking whatever he could get. It was plain that he owed this drastic change of heart to the appearance of a rival in Irene Adler.

The issue remained, however, that Holmes did not actually undertake to solve any of those cases.

As I could not visit 221B Teramachi Street myself, I would meet with Mrs. Hudson in a café on the corner of Teramachi Nijō to hear the latest news about Holmes. She informed me that, despite the prodigious volume of cases which he had taken on, he had not set out to investigate a single one.

“Then what has he been doing?” I exclaimed.

“He has been cooped up in his room with Professor Moriarty,” said Mrs. Hudson. “They are researching their slumps, or so they say.”

If in the future some soul should undertake to write the biography of my friend Sherlock Holmes, they would certainly be astonished at the sheer fecklessness of this period of his life. Though he took on every case that came his way, instead of attempting to resolve them he would spend endless hours in pointless debate with Professor Moriarty on the causes of their respective slumps. It was utter madness; no wonder that the number on the front page of the Daily Chronicle remained at zero.

“Whatever is he thinking?” Mrs. Hudson would sigh alongside me as we sipped our bitter brew.

It felt as though everything I had built with Holmes had crumbled. Over the course of his year-long slump Holmes’s hard-earned reputation as the foremost detective in Kyoto had suffered enormously. But now that this duel was playing out in the papers and in the public eye, what had once been only premonition had turned into hard, undeniable fact. It was the most perilous situation Holmes had ever faced, and I could ill afford to remain on the sideline. It was imperative that I persuade him of his danger and confront it head-on.

Having reached the limits of my patience, I marched to the door of 221B Teramachi Street. But I was not to see Holmes that day, for as I was about to ascend the stair, a black shadow fell across my path. It was Professor Moriarty, standing in grotesque silhouette before a lamp in a second-floor window.

“Go away,” said he, his grave voice descending upon me. “You will not see Holmes today.”

“You have no right to stop me!”

“Is that what you presume?”

“I am Holmes’s partner!”

“Partner? I was under the impression that you were only his secretary,” cackled the professor, staring haughtily down upon me; “All that you have written depends utterly on his genius. It was pure fortune which brought you to his doorstep, and you are acutely aware of it, as you are aware of the fact that there are any number of people that could replace you. Therein lies the reason for your persistence: without Holmes to do the detecting, you must return to the inconsequential life of a general practitioner. It is not pure friendship which drives you, but cold self-interest. Behold then, how Holmes and I are united by our pursuit of truth!”

“Fine talk, from someone who only seeks to drag another down into your pit of self-loathing!”

“How dare you!”

“I must congratulate you on finding someone with whom you can bask so comfortably in misery,” said I with a glare. “But it is you who are ruining Holmes!”

“What a lucky man Holmes is, to have a friend so discerning as you!” Moriarty sneered. “I speak with authority because I have felt Holmes’s suffering as though it were my own. He faces the very mystery of his own existence all alone. A simpleton like you would never understand what a cruel undertaking that is. You ought to quietly watch over him, and yet you insist on interrupting his meditations to bray, ‘Stop slacking off!’ and ‘Get to work!’ and other such pompous platitudes! I tell you, all your vain, vacuous speeches do not make a pennyworth of difference!”

“This is not the time to be hiding away, it is the time to work!” I shouted. “Look at the papers. Look at how he is being savaged!”

“Your obsession with mundane wins and losses is exactly what I would expect from one who would be taken in by a spirit conjurer’s tricks. You fail to see what is truly at stake. The problem we ought confront―the singular, intractable issue―is that of our own slumps. Solve that, and the petty problems of the world will fall like chaff before Holmes. What have we to fear from a girl like Adler?”

There stood Moriarty, his stooped, black figure looming like a god of pestilence. It was a thing of irony that I had been the one to propose we tail him that fateful night, and I must confess that at that moment I quietly regretted not having allowed him to throw himself to his doom.

“Holmes!” I cried. “You cannot hide there all your life!”

But from the second floor there came no reply.

　　　　　　　◯

The cab crossed the Kamo and rattled past the fields towards the university town at the foot of Mt. Yoshida, where Cartwright made his residence.

I had to get rid of Moriarty at all costs. And when this thought sprang to my mind, it led next to Cartwright, Moriarty’s former protégé.

I alighted from the carriage at Hyakumanben crossing and walked east along Imadegawa Street. As a student Holmes had frequented these streets, his lofty and overbearing use of his powers of inference keeping his school-fellows at bay. A magnificent sprawling building came into view; its thick walls, dark windows, and high spires thrusting into the cloudy sky reminded me of a feudal keep. Beyond the dormitory gates and well-kept lawns I could see into the corridors, which were presently deserted.

Cartwright’s laboratory was on the north side of Imadegawa Street. It was a newly constructed building of tawny brick, and inside it I encountered the young man, whose eyes opened wide when he saw me.

“Dr. Watson!” he exclaimed.

“I hope I haven’t disturbed you,” said I. “I was hoping to ask you a thing or two about Professor Moriarty.”

“Gladly, sir. As a matter of fact I was only about to take a rest myself.” And he hurriedly showed me into his lab.

The room was like an enormous cavern. One wall was made up entirely of bookshelves filled end to end with thick tomes, and there was a blackboard covered with indecipherable formulae and diagrams. In the center of the lab was a table piled high with graph paper and reference books; it also hosted an orrery and a small model of the moon rocket.

It felt as though I had stumbled into a sorcerer’s workshop. As I gazed around in amazement, Cartwright stoked a coal furnace and set a cup of tea for me on a table that looked out onto the inner courtyard.

“I understand that you and Mr. Holmes saved the professor’s life,” he said. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

“No need for thanks,” I mumbled. “It was pure luck, that’s all.”

“I thought I had mistaken him for someone else when I visited 221B Teramachi last week. He was like a completely new man! He seems to have hit it off with Mr. Holmes, and I’m glad that he seems to have a new lease on life. I must confess, I would never have guessed that he was going through a slump. The professor would never admit to having any troubles of his own, you see.”

“It pains me to ask this favour, after all you have just said…”

“Name it.”

“Will you help me convince the professor to return to his post at the university?”

I explained to him my view that, as true as it was that Holmes and Moriarty were in a slump, it seemed to me they were making far too much of it to the point that they had lost their grip on reality. In spite of having accepted Irene Adler’s challenge, Holmes had not even attempted to solve a single case. And in the end, this disposition was only making the slump worse.

“I see what you mean,” said Cartwright thoughtfully. “But you could also think of it another way. Perhaps Holmes and Professor Moriarty’s slumps are in fact one and the same, and they really are trying to solve it in their own way.”

“Explain what you mean.”

Cartwright polished his gold-rimmed glasses as he spoke.

“The truly great mathematicians discover the inner workings of nature by intuition; only later do they prove or disprove their intuitions with figures. They possess a sort of compass which points them toward the mathematical fabric of the universe. But what to do when that compass goes awry? The most wonderful ideas in the world are of no use if they are repudiated by fact. Could that be what ails Mr. Holmes?”

It was quite an accurate description of Holmes’s predicament. Consider the case of the Red-headed League; splendid as Holmes’s reasoning may have been, it had been entirely and unsparingly been disproven by reality.

“But what could be the cause behind it?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I cannot say,” replied Cartwright, replacing his gleaming glasses; “Professor Moriarty has had no one in whom to confide his problem, so I am quite glad that he has met a kindred spirit in Mr. Holmes. Perhaps with their powers combined they may find a way to repair that broken compass. Even if that does not happen, they have found a friendship in which they may find solace, and far be it from me to tear that friendship apart. I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance.”

He hung his head.

“Never mind, I understand how you feel. This has been quite helpful,” I declared, shaking his hand. As I exited the room I noticed on a shelf by the door a number of newsletters from the Society for Spiritual Phenomenon Research. I took one and flipped through its pages, seeing a number of prominent scientists listed as contributors. It appeared the society was not a convocation of spiritualists but a group dedicated to the genuine scientific research of spiritual phenomena.

“I joined the society this fall,” said Cartwright timidly. “Professor Moriarty says spiritualism is a lot of hot nonsense.”

“Are you a spiritualist?”

“I can’t say rightly one way or the other. That’s why I’m doing research into it.”

As I perused the newsletters my eye fell upon a photograph of a face which I had seen before. Though it was grainy and in black and white, there was no mistaking that dignified bearing. The article which the photograph accompanied was an interview between one of the society scientists and none other than―

“Madame Richborough!” I muttered.

“You know her?” said Cartwright, looking surprised.

“She and I have met before. A most fascinating woman, I thought.”

“As it happened, the good woman and I are engaged in a bit of collaborative research,” said Cartwright, before hastily adding, “But don’t tell the professor, please. I wouldn’t hear the end of it.”

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That night I went down to a club by Kōjin Bridge to play billiards with some colleagues from the medical society.

There was no escaping talk of the detectives’ duel, and I heard more than a few wagers being placed. I hardly expected anyone to bet on Holmes, but one of my colleagues was adamant that there was something unnatural about Holmes’s not having solved a single case. He was convinced that this was some sort of stratagem, and that Holmes would come roaring back to take the match.

“There is still over a month before the game is over. What do you think, Thurston?”

Thurston had been a fellow student at medical school and was the most successful of us, having set up a large hospital in Kawaramachi Oike. He’d given me a great deal of advice as I set up my practice in Shimogamo. As he leaned over the billiard table he glanced up at me.

“If I was to bet I would surely choose Irene Adler.”

“And your reasoning?”

“One look at Watson’s dour face tells me everything I need, seeing how he’s hardly smiled once the whole evening. He might as well be carrying a billboard advertising his partner’s looming defeat,” grinned Thurston. There came a crack of the cue ball, and I could only smile ruefully in reply.

Later on, when the other doctors had left for the night, Thurston and I retired to the lounge which overlooked the Kamo. We were not alone; other groups of men were conversing beneath that high ceiling in the glow of the gas-lamps.

We drank whisky and gazed out the great windows. Fog lay thick over the river, and across its span the city appeared only as hazy lights suspended in the gloom. Looking at the eerie sight of the boats moored at the wharf, I was reminded of the great river which divides this world from the next.

After some time pondering the view, I asked Thurston, “Have you ever heard of Madame Richborough?”

“Madame Richborough?” Thurston looked at me quizzically. “You would be the last person I would expect to say that name. Awakened to the wonders of spiritualism, have you?”

“Nothing of the sort. I was merely curious.”

Thurston nodded, and thought for a moment before speaking again.

“A friend of mine introduced me, and since then I’ve been invited to a number of her seances. I even heard the voice of my departed ancestors. I don’t like to say so publicly, but her advice was of considerable help. Madame Richborough does possess a special gift, of that much I am certain.”

“Then you believe in spiritualism?”

“I didn’t say that. I said only that it can be of help. If you are thinking of consulting her I won’t stop you. But I wouldn’t throw myself too deep in if I were you. Haven’t you heard what happened to Stamford?”

“I suppose I haven’t seen him for some time, now that you mention it. What happened to him?”

Stamford was another friend from medical school, and was in fact the one who had introduced me to Sherlock Holmes when I was looking for a place to stay after returning from Afghanistan. For this alone I owed him a great deal, but somewhere in the hurly-burly of our lives we had lost contact.

“He’s become one of Madame Richborough’s most fervent adherents,” said Thurston; “He styles himself a ‘spiritual healer’, fusing spiritualism and modern science. No respectable doctor wants to be seen with him these days. But I’ve heard tell of people claiming to have been healed by his practices. That’s the trouble, you know. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fraud or forgery; people will see what they want to see. Ailments heal of their own accord, and the stocks rise as quickly as they fall. I hear that Lord St. Simon has made a fortune on the market thanks to Madame Richborough’s advice. Well, just be cautious, that’s all.”

Parting with Thurston I made my way back to my house in Shimogamo. The lights were still on in the sitting-room, and I peeked inside to see Mary scribbling something furiously at the breakfast-table, which was covered in notes and assorted scraps of paper. She was hunched low over the table, and she hummed as her pen raced over the paper. Her satisfaction was so evident that I felt an energy rising up within me as well.

“I’m home, Mary,” I said.

She jumped up and let out a little shriek, a testament to how focused she must have been.

“I see things have begun to pile up,” I said, pointing at the table.

“Yes,” she nodded. “There’s so much to do for the charity. Go on to bed without me.”

“Don’t overburden yourself, my dear. Good night.”

I headed up to the second floor and got into bed, intending to read a book until Mary came up. But my powers of concentration eluded me that night. Up until that point in my life I had considered spirits and ghosts nothing more than mere superstition, to be exposed and driven out by the inexorable march of science. But man understands a mere fraction of the universe which we inhabit, and now I wondered whether one could truly understand such phenomena relying on reason alone.

Scientists such as Cartwright engaged themselves with the study of spiritualism, and even Thurston could not deny that Madame Richborough’s advice had been on the mark. I could not remove the image of the girl in the crystal ball from my mind, and the fact that Mrs. Hudson had seen it as well meant that it had been no delusion.

She calls from the other side―so Madame Richborough had claimed. I supposed that meant the girl in the crystal ball was already dead.

Sherlock Holmes must have taken on a case involving that girl long before the two of us had met. The passion he had displayed when I inquired about his past cases perhaps then stemmed not only from his antipathy to spiritualism, but also from his reluctance to think about that great failure. And if Madame Richborough was to be believed, that long-buried case was somehow connected to Holmes’s present woes.

Mary never did come upstairs, and as I turned over these things in my mind I floated off to sleep.