Fic: Bel Canto - 8a/16 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Bel Canto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 11.4k out of 123.5ishk
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character death
Op. 20, No. 1
Op. 20, No. 2
Op. 20, No. 3
Op. 20, No. 4
Op. 20, No. 5
Op. 20, No. 6
Op. 20, No. 7
Op. 20, No. 8
Op. 20, No. 9
Op. 20, No. 10
Op. 20, No. 11
Op. 20, No. 12
Op. 20, No. 13
Op. 20, No. 14
Op. 20, No. 15
Op. 20, No. 16
The guests dance on inside the lobby. Bright masks and whirling colours spin to lively music. The heat and humidity of the lobby coaxes dancers to pant and strings to come untuned. So late in the evening, wine has loosened tongues, bringing laughter to bubble forth from concealed mouths.
John pulls his helmet down as far as it will reach, covering his nose and no lower. The helmet’s retained chill cannot blot out the heat that still clings to John’s brow, the warmth pressed there by another man’s lips. He straightens his tunic and adjusts his gauntlets. With a tall spine and even steps, he ventures in. He keeps an eye on the men not dancing. Surely these must be the policemen.
A flash of white in the crowd draws his eye, but the mask is white on one side and black on the other. John’s stomach clenches into a tighter and tighter ball. The vision leaves him with a persistent idea. Surely the tunnels below the opera house are unoccupied. There must be space, empty and cold, waiting for a man to creep into its depths and curl about himself.
The thought tempts. The escape beckons. John’s feet do not follow, not when he can expect to find only silence. He needs the violin as a penitent needs the confession box. He needs to blot out his memory and repair his broken friend. The impossibility of both mocks him.
Lacking any other source of familiarity or comfort, he seeks out Mrs Hudson. A pair of dancers stumbles past him, giggling as they support each other. The man slides his hand along the woman’s rear and she tugs him toward the staircase, toward the boxes. John ignores them. He attempts to recall his earlier amusement at the boxes’ mistreatment, but the thought sours.
“Lose your sword, Dr Watson?” Miss Adler inquires, appearing at John’s side out of the colourful multitude. The white of her dress cuts against the whirling hues, ivory against sea glass.
“What?” Blank. Flustered. Both at once.
Her eyes flick across his surface like a stone across a pond. Ripples spread in her wake, his veneer disturbed. Her waxen mask conceals all but those eyes. They widen in accusation. “Did you really?”
“I didn’t lose it.”
“Then you returned it,” she replies. Her voice imbues the topic with no importance whatsoever. Her eyes, sparkling with intrigue, do the opposite.
“It didn’t fit me.” Too long, he ought to add. Some detail about restriction of moment and the tip striking the floor. The lies stick in his throat and there die.
“I see.” Possibly, she smiles behind her mask. She may not. He doesn’t think it a benign expression for one moment. “How terribly remiss of Mr Holmes.”
“An honest mistake.”
“How gracious of you to forgive him.”
“You knew,” John half-asks, half-states.
“I know many things, Dr Watson. You must be more specific.”
“About... about the fit.”
“We estimated the length together,” she replies coolly. Her mask offers no judgement. Her eyes do the opposite. “I dislike being wrong. Hardly as much as Mr Holmes does, of course.”
“I’m aware,” John says. “Please excuse me.”
She regards him for a silent moment, the force of her presence sufficient to erase the sounds of the musicians above. “It nearly fit,” she observes.
John wets his lips. “A lovely sword, but much too heavy for my stature.”
“A pity.” She turns her face toward the dancers, permitting John to breathe once again. “There ends the entirety of our dinner conversation. Such a fun game while it lasted.”
“Please stop.”
The arch of her neck, her raised chin, conveys not the slightest amount of sympathy. She stands as if inconvenienced by a footman and doesn’t pursue when John walks away.
He takes shelter by one of the walls only to realise he stands by the replacement painting for the stolen Vernet. He closes his eyes to the oil waterfall, focusing instead upon the music filling the lobby. Too lively to soothe, it may serve to distract. Recollections of his own behaviour bubble up through his mind at a boil: his eagerness to please, his desperation to impress. He’d fallen prey to the man’s magnetism enough that Holmes must have thought him enraptured by his charms.
For a moment, John considers seeking Mrs Hudson again amid the throng. They might leave early. He can claim the thought of danger at midnight, drawing so close, compelled him to remove Mrs Hudson from the opera house. The instant he sees her, this thought flies from his head. Britannia stands with the sun and moon, Mrs Hudson engaged by the Earl and Countess.
The Earl will know, John realises. The instant he sees John, the Earl will know and John will become a danger to him. A small danger, something inconsequential, a threat easily and quickly snuffed out. John may lose his position for this, if not more. Is that why Holmes had taken an interest in John’s outside practise? God, how long has this night been in the planning?
The urges arises to seek Holmes out, to fall to his knees as bid, to take the man to bed if not to heart. But that thought is self-preservation, not sentiment, and John does not follow it.
Instead, he waits for midnight. Without a pocket watch on him, John locates a fellow who must be a police officer. The man behind the silver weasel mask checks the time often enough. Moreover, John recognises his bearing.
“Mr Lestrade?” John asks on a hunch.
Though no verbal reply is forthcoming, the movement of the mask indicates recognition.
“Dr Watson,” John self-introduces. “We’ve spoken before.”
“Dr Watson, yes,” Inspector Lestrade replies. “Good evening.”
“Good evening.” John mimes a motion of pulling a watch from a waistcoat and Inspector Lestrade wordlessly complies.
They do not speak further and do not need to. Their joint vigil begins at nearly half eleven. Twenty minutes slowly pass.
Ten minutes from midnight, Holmes sweeps into the lobby. His strides are light and even. Beneath the beak of his mask, his mouth forms an easy line. He looks only ahead, eyes never scanning the crowd or wavering in purpose. Without a single feather ruffled, he plucks Miss Adler from a small circle of women and compels her to dance with him. He takes care with his cane and yet more care with his partner. Bodies tense within their gracefulness, motions sharp between their fluidity, the pair joins together in rhythm. He leads in true passion and she plays at a swoon. He is shadow against her starlight. This is the final dance, the last before midnight and unmasking, the last before the great countdown to a new year.
The Earl and the Countess take this final dance as well, their motions sedate though not devoid of a private affection. Inspector Lestrade scans the crowd as the final minute approaches. With a nod, John leaves his side to seek out Mrs Hudson. Her height enhanced by the red plumage of her helmet, she ought to be easily seen, but John’s gaze catches first upon the Red Death with his large hat and even greater plumage.
Unlike the other skull masks in the room, his is anatomically correct, rendered lovingly to scale. He sports even a working mandible, the bone perhaps glued to his own jaw. In John’s moment of distracted fascination, the Red Death begins to move, a purposeful stride toward the grand staircase. The embroidery upon his cape reads “Touch me not! I am Red Death stalking abroad!” and many make way before him with a laugh.
Theatrics at midnight. Deadly theatrics, and nothing in this room fits that description half so well as that man.
John looks for Inspector Lestrade only to discover he’s lost the policeman amid the whirl of the dancers. Lacking that support, John weaves through the crowd only to lose valuable time keeping out of Holmes’ sight. The Red Death climbs the staircase to the landing where the stairs split to the right and left. Above him, the conductor brings the last dance to a close. Standing at Mr Johnson’s side, Mr Havill waves down to the guests, a pocket watch in his other hand.
Before John can do more than set foot upon the bottom stair, Mr Havill cries out, “Ladies and gentlemen! We are but a minute away from the New Year! I would like to say a few short words-”
A blast of flame erupts from the balcony floor without warning.
The guests scream, some in horror, some in uncomprehending delight. Scorched behind a wall of fire, Mr Havill and Mr Johnson cry out for water in thin, breathless voices.
“Silence!” bellows the Red Death.
Much of the hall freezes. John does not. He charges up the stairs through the crouched guests cowering upon them. With a flash of a skeletal hand, the Red Death flings a hard, small ball at him, and the front of John’s tunic promptly flares with heat. The guests scream anew, but John’s revolver is already in his hand, his mind detached from all else but his aim. He levels the revolver at the skeletal mask and stares into eyes dark and narrow with fury.
A fresh blaze blasts up from their feet. John falls back, covering his face. The flame abates in but an instant, and with that, the Red Death has vanished. Behind John, below him, he hears Inspector Lestrade cry out, “Find the skeleton!”
John stares blankly for only an instant before yanking the tunic over his head, the red belt burnt through. The heat sears his neck. Someone flings water at him, a sudden shock of dampness. His helmet clatters to the floor before he flings the tunic atop it. He slaps at his chest before being hit by a second dose of water.
“All right, Doctor?” a familiar voice asks behind a servant’s gilded mask and livery. The servant in question holds an empty vase, hothouse flowers strewn at his feet. A second vase lies shattered upon the blooms.
“Fine, Hopkins,” John gasps, dripping and breathless. As if to prove him wrong, his knees give out. John makes a desperate stumble toward the railing before collapsing onto the marble landing. Hopkins rushes to his side, his eyes filled with concern, his hands filled with a vase. Behind Hopkins, policemen swarm and guests swoon.
Something bubbles up John’s throat and sneaks out in a giddy, snickering laugh. His face contorts and his shoulders shake. His chest is still overly warm and his rear is increasingly damp from the puddle in which he now sits.
“Dr Watson?” Hopkins sets down the vase.
“Happy New Year, Hopkins,” John gasps, grabbing at his hand. Wet and blackened, John’s gauntlets leave a dark smear across Hopkins’ white gloves.
“Happy New Year,” Hopkins replies. He sounds pained. John laughs all the harder.
John comes back to himself with an abrupt snap of worry. “What about the others?” he asks.
“Mr Havill and Mr Johnson are being seen to,” Hopkins promises.
“There’s another doctor in the house?”
Perfectly serious in his assessment, Hopkins replies, “I’m not sure, sir, but there are more vases.”
John manages to say “God, I hope there’s another doctor” before dissolving into shaking and hiccupping giggles. The laughter negates John’s further attempts at speaking. It lasts even after Mrs Hudson appears with John’s coat in her arms.
She urges John up from the damp marble before wrapping his coat about him. “You’ll catch your death like that.” Perhaps it’s not meant as a joke, but John finds it difficult to hear as anything else. Mrs Hudson pats John on the back, a soothing touch. “We ought to put you to bed, dear.”
Hopkins vanishes for an instant to reappear with a small flask. “Brandy, sir. Please don’t ask where I found it.”
John accepts it gladly. “Thank you.” He feels a touch steadier on his feet for it, though not for long. He picks up the remains of his costume to find them much more charred than anticipated. Knowing theatrical devices, he’d expected the flame to be more flash than heat. The silver pin from Mrs Hudson has turned black and singes his hand at a tentative touch. He slips his revolver into his coat pocket and makes a mental note to clean and dry it before bed.
“Mrs Hudson, if you wouldn’t mind,” John says, “I’d like to see you home.”
She takes his arm and holds it more supportively than John would prefer. “That sounds like a lovely idea.”
It would be, were Holmes not positioned unmasked between the stairway and the main door. As if realising the barrier he presents, Holmes stands firm, motionless at his brother’s side.
John hesitates, then proceeds. They do not seek each other’s gazes. They pass without acknowledgement. John and Mrs Hudson are nearly to the door before Inspector Lestrade calls, “Dr Watson! I need to take your statement.”
“Tomorrow, Inspector,” Mrs Hudson chides. “The poor man’s been set on fire.”
“Of course.” Lacking a hat, Inspector Lestrade tips the mask now worn upon the top of his head. “Ten o’clock, Scotland Yard, if you’d be so kind.”
“I’ll be there,” John promises. “Good evening.” He realises he’s left his helmet upon the stairs. Entirely beyond caring, John averts his gaze from the side of Holmes’ impassive face and takes his leave. This time, the helmet remains unthrown.
Mrs Hudson looks out the carriage window with a sigh. “Quite a night.”
John hums softly. In the cold, the light burns upon his neck make themselves keenly felt. They sting in a manner reminiscent of his conscience.
A creature of untold understanding, Mrs Hudson pats his knee. How much does she know?
The question resides upon his tongue for the remainder of the ride. When they arrive at Mrs Hudson’s address, John swallows it down. Whether Mrs Hudson knows, it’s a secret she would hardly betray. He bids her a quiet good night and a Happy New Year.
John retires to bed immediately upon returning home, bidding the returned Martha a good evening. The wonder that she is, his maid has already warmed the bricks and applied them appropriately to his bed. On New Year’s Eve, no less. Reading his unsociable and somewhat burnt mood, she even refrains from asking what in the world happened to him. He distracts himself for a moment, thinking that perhaps he should give her every Christmas off.
That line of thought only lasts until he closes the door and sits upon his bed. He thinks of untying his shoes only to think of Holmes kneeling on the floor. When he closes his eyes against the image, he sees it all the more sharply. When he opens them, he sees the envelope upon his dresser resting between the two photographs there displayed. Mary on one side, Harry on the other, John featured in both. On the left, he wears his wedding suit. On the right, a far younger man wears John’s uniform and a terrible moustache.
John rises. Refusing to be haunted, he gently lays the photographs down, one atop of other, and conceals the envelope between them. This helps somewhat. While standing, he unlaces his shoes with success. He toes them off and does not think for an instant of leather gloves. He doesn’t dream of them either.
“And you had the revolver on you throughout the entirety of the evening?” Inspector Lestrade asks.
John nods. “Mr Holmes seemed to expect some trouble.”
“For good reason.”
Inspector Lestrade’s questions continue, largely centring about John’s direct confrontation with the Red Death. When he asks about John’s earlier activity that evening, John simply replies that he and Mr Holmes had been searching for any dangers toward the new chandelier. He begins to share the theory about entry from above, but Lestrade interrupts: he’s already heard it from Mr Holmes. John’s contribution appears to have gone unmentioned. John feigns neither surprise nor offended pride.
After leaving Scotland Yard, John treats himself to a light lunch. The solitary meal is hardly unlike the hundreds of others John has taken for the past years of his life. Nevertheless, he finds it immensely unsatisfying.
He rattles about his day in this uncertain state. His collar agitates the burns upon his neck. He longs for the fourth, for the opera house to be reopened in full. Surely Mr Havill and the Earl won’t cower to such aggression. With that in mind, John sets his revolver and kit into his medical bag. Hardly a tool he’d ever thought he’d need at the opera house. Belatedly, John realises they might have heard their ghost’s demands from the mouth of his newest puppet if John had simply let him speak. Too late to go back and ask the fellow now.
When he falls asleep that night, he falls with a sense of fumbling. Of feeling for walls in the darkness. His mind walks through flickering, shifting halls where every passerby wears Vernet’s face. The only door gives way into the house, the fallen chandelier across the seats and Holmes upon the stage. Flames from the chandelier catch upon the seats. Smoke spreads, rises.
“Get out!” cries a woman’s voice. John whirls about to see Miss Hooper in Box Five with Vernet at her side. “Dr Watson, get out!” she shouts, her voice still wrong. It’s his maid’s voice, it’s Martha’s voice, and John startles awake to find his bedroom filled with smoke.
He’s on in his feet in a disoriented instant, crouched low and already coughing. Somewhere in that motion, he shoves his bare feet into his shoes with all the unconscious control of a soldier waking at a nocturnal raid. Martha continues to shout for him.
“I’m awake!” he cries. “Martha, run!”
He hears nothing more from her and can only hope it a sign of obedience. He seizes his photographs, flings them into his medical bag, and rushes, doubled-over, to the door. The wood emits palpable heat, and the handle threatens to burn before he can so much as touch it. Light from below: a flicker from beneath the door.
“The window,” he mutters to himself, coughing. “The window, come on.” If their acrobat can, then so can he. He throws open the sash and smoke rushes out. Leaning out, John estimates the drop to street level with watering eyes. Thank God he doesn’t sleep more than a single flight up.
He coughs out his curses, then drops his medical bag out first. It hits his front steps and rolls down, a clear hint that a straight jump onto that surface may mean broken ankles, if not legs. For one mad moment, he contemplates tying the bed sheets into rope. No time, and he hardly trusts it.
His limbs begin to tremble before he can climb out the window. He forces himself forward all the same only to clutch at the wood as a coughing fit seizes him. Legs out first. He needs his legs out first. If he can hang down from the sill, it won’t be such a drop.
There. Legs out.
Lying on the sill, the wood digging into his stomach, this entire operation strikes him as a terribly poor idea. Not as poor as waiting for his door to give way, but a terribly poor idea all the same. His pyjama shirt rides up as he slowly slips.
Feet searching for purchase and finding none, John lowers himself until the sill digs into his armpits. Arms shaking, he eases down an increment before his arms give way entirely. He hangs in the air but a moment before his feet hit the steps. With no hope of balance, he falls down the front stairs, nearly striking his head upon the wrought iron railing.
Air. Knocked out of him. Air, and coughing. He curls onto his side, coughing and gasping in turns. He dry heaves noisily over the pavement. As if through thick fog, a bell rings the alarm.
Martha, he thinks distantly. Where is she?
Feet appear in front of him, then knees, then the worried face of his neighbour as the man drags him away from the remains of his front door.
“My bag,” John rasps. Mary’s photograph. Harry’s.
“My daughter has it, Dr Watson,” Mr Turner replies.
Together, they stagger to the street. Of the small herd gathered in the street, only the neighbours from across the street are dressed. When one of these spectators offers John a blanket, it seems only fair to sling it round Martha’s trembling shoulders. “Thank you,” John manages between the coughs. “For waking me.”
“Thanks for Christmas with my mum, sir,” she answers, tugging the blanket tightly about herself. She pulls her brown braid out from beneath the fabric, then shivers. John’s afraid she’ll have a great deal more time with her mother shortly, but he doesn’t say it.
The fire brigade arrives soon enough to save the neighbouring houses but little more. “Arson,” says one fireman. As the sun rises, he goes on to explain how the fire was set, but all John can think of are the burns upon his own neck and the revolver within his bag.
Mrs Hudson’s maid opens the door. To her credit, Eliza only stares at them somewhat. It can’t be every morning a man turns up on her doorstep in a borrowed, ill-fitting overcoat and dirty pyjamas, reeking of smoke, and accompanied by a sooty young woman wrapped in a blanket. The reddened eyes and nostrils might also appear somewhat alarming.
“Dr Watson,” John rasps. “I was here for Christmas. Is Mrs Hudson in?”
“She is, Dr Watson,” Eliza replies. “Would you and your... would you both care to wait in the sitting room?”
“That would be lovely,” John says. Beside him, Martha coughs, a rough, unintentional sound. “Tea would also be lovely,” John adds in the dwindling remains of his voice. “Lemon and honey, if you have it.”
Eliza shows them to the sitting room before bringing the tea. With John sporting something of a limp from his fall, the progress is slow. Mrs Hudson joins them soon after, or rather, she pops in long enough to cry, “Oh, you poor dears!” She quickly vanishes before reappearing with a purple dress. She deposits this into Martha’s arms. “We can’t have you freezing in that blanket!”
“I’ve my nightgown, ma’am,” Martha says, but Mrs Hudson will not be deterred until there are hot baths and even John has been forced into yet more borrowed clothing. Though Mrs Hudson’s husband wasn’t much taller than John, he was certainly wider, but it’s a better than wandering about dressed for bed.
So begins his stay at Mrs Hudson’s home. They quickly agree he’ll return to her son’s old bedroom. The attic bedroom will go to Martha until she has a dress and coat of her own to wear on the train to her father’s house. The first two days pass with both of them off of their feet as much as possible, throats sore and heads aching. On the third day, the fourth day of the month, the opera house reopens. John only remains in bed due to a stern talking to and sheer exhaustion.
He sleeps and wakes fitfully. He blames the shortness of breath and the tenderness of his throat. That night, when Mrs Hudson returns home at an hour only appropriate for an opera house employee, John is conscious for her return. Martha may be asleep, and good thing too: her train home is in the morning.
“Mrs Hudson,” John whispers, descending the stairs with a careful hand on the railing. His borrowed housecoat is too large and therefore perfectly warm.
“Dr Watson!” She smiles distractedly. “You ought to be in bed, dear.”
He shakes his head. “Was anyone else burnt down?”
She hesitates. The fear in his heart must escape to his face, for she swiftly adds, “No. No one else.”
“Then...?”
“There... There was a new note.” She visibly frets over his reaction before relenting. “It said: ‘Any who dares interrupt my work shall have it visited upon him.’”
“Is that so?” John says. “What a guest. Remind me not to invite skeletons into my home in the future.”
She doesn’t smile at that as much as he wishes she would. So terribly difficult to make light when absolute seriousness gazes back at him.
John permits his own smile to fall. “I’ll go to the police tomorrow. Perhaps a hotel.”
“A hotel? Dr Watson-”
“You’ve been more than kind, but Martha’s leaving in the morning and my tailor dropped off two suits for me yesterday. If at all possible, I should leave.”
“Dr Watson, if you believe the police aren’t already watching this house, the smoke must have blinded you.” She shakes her stern head. “You aren’t going anywhere unless it’s back to bed!”
“I’m returning to work tomorrow.”
“Only if you return to bed tonight. Don’t think I can’t hear your breathing. And your poor leg! You’re moving so stiffly.”
“I’ll pace myself,” he promises. “It would be good for morale to show everyone I’m alive and well.” He coughs fit to rip up his throat and has the grace to look abashed. “Mostly well.”
“You really ought to wait a few more days, dear. Mr Havill understands.”
“I swear, I’ll pace myself. I’ll fuss after no one. I’ll sit in the house and watch rehearsal all day.” As this offering entirely fails to please her, he amends, “All afternoon.” This fails as well. “Late afternoon.”
“Well...”
“I’ll do nothing to compromise my health.” He states an old thought as if it has suddenly come upon him: “I might go downstairs. I find the atmosphere calming. Very secure. I’ve missed it.”
“Downstairs?” Mrs Hudson asks, an odd quality to her voice. Afraid her maid will overhear?
John descends the remaining stairs and whispers, “Vernet’s cellar.”
Though there is barely any space for it to perform such a feat, her face falls farther. “Oh, John.”
In a very similar manner, John’s stomach plummets. “What’s happened? Have the police found it? Do they think he’s the ghost?”
She shakes her head. “We’re afraid it’s only a matter of time. It’s all being removed.”
John holds on all the more tightly to the railing. Words thoroughly escape him. All removed? The tables, that desk? The papers, Vernet must have taken with him rather than risking to rats and damp, but surely everything else remains? All but the Saratoga trunk and the empty tins. And the violin. Of course the violin would follow him home. Has Vernet’s mask been left cold upon a table, its whiteness lost among so many snuffed candles?
“By whom?” he asks.
Mrs Hudson looks at him oddly.
“Who is removing the, the everything?”
She raises a hand to forestall him. “You shouldn’t go down there tomorrow.”
“Will the police be watching?”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, that’s right.”
Too quickly said. “What’s the other reason?”
She looks down at her folded hands. She lifts her eyes to his face. “If you parted on good terms, it would be best to keep it that way. He’s extremely agitated. He wants no company whatsoever.”
The loss of his space, John understands. “Oh.”
“I know you’d prefer to see him again,” Mrs Hudson begins, and the reality of the situation smacks John across the face.
He will never see Vernet again. After tomorrow, he-No. No. The opera will be performed. John will hear of it and track Vernet down. If not that opera, then another. He would know Vernet’s style anywhere. Any opera written and composed by a single man, for that matter, unless Vernet takes two pen names. How many years could such a search take?
The answer is readily apparent. Too long. Much too long to withstand.
“It would only end in shouting, the way he is now,” Mrs Hudson says.
Perhaps so. But better certainty now than doubt for an untold time to come. No matter how harsh that certainty.
“You’re right, Mrs Hudson,” John says, decided. He turns and climbs the stairs. “I ought to be resting.”
“Dr Watson!”
“Goodnight, Mrs Hudson!”
coda
previous |
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 11.4k out of 123.5ishk
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character death
Op. 20, No. 1
Op. 20, No. 2
Op. 20, No. 3
Op. 20, No. 4
Op. 20, No. 5
Op. 20, No. 6
Op. 20, No. 7
Op. 20, No. 8
Op. 20, No. 9
Op. 20, No. 10
Op. 20, No. 11
Op. 20, No. 12
Op. 20, No. 13
Op. 20, No. 14
Op. 20, No. 15
Op. 20, No. 16
The guests dance on inside the lobby. Bright masks and whirling colours spin to lively music. The heat and humidity of the lobby coaxes dancers to pant and strings to come untuned. So late in the evening, wine has loosened tongues, bringing laughter to bubble forth from concealed mouths.
John pulls his helmet down as far as it will reach, covering his nose and no lower. The helmet’s retained chill cannot blot out the heat that still clings to John’s brow, the warmth pressed there by another man’s lips. He straightens his tunic and adjusts his gauntlets. With a tall spine and even steps, he ventures in. He keeps an eye on the men not dancing. Surely these must be the policemen.
A flash of white in the crowd draws his eye, but the mask is white on one side and black on the other. John’s stomach clenches into a tighter and tighter ball. The vision leaves him with a persistent idea. Surely the tunnels below the opera house are unoccupied. There must be space, empty and cold, waiting for a man to creep into its depths and curl about himself.
The thought tempts. The escape beckons. John’s feet do not follow, not when he can expect to find only silence. He needs the violin as a penitent needs the confession box. He needs to blot out his memory and repair his broken friend. The impossibility of both mocks him.
Lacking any other source of familiarity or comfort, he seeks out Mrs Hudson. A pair of dancers stumbles past him, giggling as they support each other. The man slides his hand along the woman’s rear and she tugs him toward the staircase, toward the boxes. John ignores them. He attempts to recall his earlier amusement at the boxes’ mistreatment, but the thought sours.
“Lose your sword, Dr Watson?” Miss Adler inquires, appearing at John’s side out of the colourful multitude. The white of her dress cuts against the whirling hues, ivory against sea glass.
“What?” Blank. Flustered. Both at once.
Her eyes flick across his surface like a stone across a pond. Ripples spread in her wake, his veneer disturbed. Her waxen mask conceals all but those eyes. They widen in accusation. “Did you really?”
“I didn’t lose it.”
“Then you returned it,” she replies. Her voice imbues the topic with no importance whatsoever. Her eyes, sparkling with intrigue, do the opposite.
“It didn’t fit me.” Too long, he ought to add. Some detail about restriction of moment and the tip striking the floor. The lies stick in his throat and there die.
“I see.” Possibly, she smiles behind her mask. She may not. He doesn’t think it a benign expression for one moment. “How terribly remiss of Mr Holmes.”
“An honest mistake.”
“How gracious of you to forgive him.”
“You knew,” John half-asks, half-states.
“I know many things, Dr Watson. You must be more specific.”
“About... about the fit.”
“We estimated the length together,” she replies coolly. Her mask offers no judgement. Her eyes do the opposite. “I dislike being wrong. Hardly as much as Mr Holmes does, of course.”
“I’m aware,” John says. “Please excuse me.”
She regards him for a silent moment, the force of her presence sufficient to erase the sounds of the musicians above. “It nearly fit,” she observes.
John wets his lips. “A lovely sword, but much too heavy for my stature.”
“A pity.” She turns her face toward the dancers, permitting John to breathe once again. “There ends the entirety of our dinner conversation. Such a fun game while it lasted.”
“Please stop.”
The arch of her neck, her raised chin, conveys not the slightest amount of sympathy. She stands as if inconvenienced by a footman and doesn’t pursue when John walks away.
He takes shelter by one of the walls only to realise he stands by the replacement painting for the stolen Vernet. He closes his eyes to the oil waterfall, focusing instead upon the music filling the lobby. Too lively to soothe, it may serve to distract. Recollections of his own behaviour bubble up through his mind at a boil: his eagerness to please, his desperation to impress. He’d fallen prey to the man’s magnetism enough that Holmes must have thought him enraptured by his charms.
For a moment, John considers seeking Mrs Hudson again amid the throng. They might leave early. He can claim the thought of danger at midnight, drawing so close, compelled him to remove Mrs Hudson from the opera house. The instant he sees her, this thought flies from his head. Britannia stands with the sun and moon, Mrs Hudson engaged by the Earl and Countess.
The Earl will know, John realises. The instant he sees John, the Earl will know and John will become a danger to him. A small danger, something inconsequential, a threat easily and quickly snuffed out. John may lose his position for this, if not more. Is that why Holmes had taken an interest in John’s outside practise? God, how long has this night been in the planning?
The urges arises to seek Holmes out, to fall to his knees as bid, to take the man to bed if not to heart. But that thought is self-preservation, not sentiment, and John does not follow it.
Instead, he waits for midnight. Without a pocket watch on him, John locates a fellow who must be a police officer. The man behind the silver weasel mask checks the time often enough. Moreover, John recognises his bearing.
“Mr Lestrade?” John asks on a hunch.
Though no verbal reply is forthcoming, the movement of the mask indicates recognition.
“Dr Watson,” John self-introduces. “We’ve spoken before.”
“Dr Watson, yes,” Inspector Lestrade replies. “Good evening.”
“Good evening.” John mimes a motion of pulling a watch from a waistcoat and Inspector Lestrade wordlessly complies.
They do not speak further and do not need to. Their joint vigil begins at nearly half eleven. Twenty minutes slowly pass.
Ten minutes from midnight, Holmes sweeps into the lobby. His strides are light and even. Beneath the beak of his mask, his mouth forms an easy line. He looks only ahead, eyes never scanning the crowd or wavering in purpose. Without a single feather ruffled, he plucks Miss Adler from a small circle of women and compels her to dance with him. He takes care with his cane and yet more care with his partner. Bodies tense within their gracefulness, motions sharp between their fluidity, the pair joins together in rhythm. He leads in true passion and she plays at a swoon. He is shadow against her starlight. This is the final dance, the last before midnight and unmasking, the last before the great countdown to a new year.
The Earl and the Countess take this final dance as well, their motions sedate though not devoid of a private affection. Inspector Lestrade scans the crowd as the final minute approaches. With a nod, John leaves his side to seek out Mrs Hudson. Her height enhanced by the red plumage of her helmet, she ought to be easily seen, but John’s gaze catches first upon the Red Death with his large hat and even greater plumage.
Unlike the other skull masks in the room, his is anatomically correct, rendered lovingly to scale. He sports even a working mandible, the bone perhaps glued to his own jaw. In John’s moment of distracted fascination, the Red Death begins to move, a purposeful stride toward the grand staircase. The embroidery upon his cape reads “Touch me not! I am Red Death stalking abroad!” and many make way before him with a laugh.
Theatrics at midnight. Deadly theatrics, and nothing in this room fits that description half so well as that man.
John looks for Inspector Lestrade only to discover he’s lost the policeman amid the whirl of the dancers. Lacking that support, John weaves through the crowd only to lose valuable time keeping out of Holmes’ sight. The Red Death climbs the staircase to the landing where the stairs split to the right and left. Above him, the conductor brings the last dance to a close. Standing at Mr Johnson’s side, Mr Havill waves down to the guests, a pocket watch in his other hand.
Before John can do more than set foot upon the bottom stair, Mr Havill cries out, “Ladies and gentlemen! We are but a minute away from the New Year! I would like to say a few short words-”
A blast of flame erupts from the balcony floor without warning.
The guests scream, some in horror, some in uncomprehending delight. Scorched behind a wall of fire, Mr Havill and Mr Johnson cry out for water in thin, breathless voices.
“Silence!” bellows the Red Death.
Much of the hall freezes. John does not. He charges up the stairs through the crouched guests cowering upon them. With a flash of a skeletal hand, the Red Death flings a hard, small ball at him, and the front of John’s tunic promptly flares with heat. The guests scream anew, but John’s revolver is already in his hand, his mind detached from all else but his aim. He levels the revolver at the skeletal mask and stares into eyes dark and narrow with fury.
A fresh blaze blasts up from their feet. John falls back, covering his face. The flame abates in but an instant, and with that, the Red Death has vanished. Behind John, below him, he hears Inspector Lestrade cry out, “Find the skeleton!”
John stares blankly for only an instant before yanking the tunic over his head, the red belt burnt through. The heat sears his neck. Someone flings water at him, a sudden shock of dampness. His helmet clatters to the floor before he flings the tunic atop it. He slaps at his chest before being hit by a second dose of water.
“All right, Doctor?” a familiar voice asks behind a servant’s gilded mask and livery. The servant in question holds an empty vase, hothouse flowers strewn at his feet. A second vase lies shattered upon the blooms.
“Fine, Hopkins,” John gasps, dripping and breathless. As if to prove him wrong, his knees give out. John makes a desperate stumble toward the railing before collapsing onto the marble landing. Hopkins rushes to his side, his eyes filled with concern, his hands filled with a vase. Behind Hopkins, policemen swarm and guests swoon.
Something bubbles up John’s throat and sneaks out in a giddy, snickering laugh. His face contorts and his shoulders shake. His chest is still overly warm and his rear is increasingly damp from the puddle in which he now sits.
“Dr Watson?” Hopkins sets down the vase.
“Happy New Year, Hopkins,” John gasps, grabbing at his hand. Wet and blackened, John’s gauntlets leave a dark smear across Hopkins’ white gloves.
“Happy New Year,” Hopkins replies. He sounds pained. John laughs all the harder.
John comes back to himself with an abrupt snap of worry. “What about the others?” he asks.
“Mr Havill and Mr Johnson are being seen to,” Hopkins promises.
“There’s another doctor in the house?”
Perfectly serious in his assessment, Hopkins replies, “I’m not sure, sir, but there are more vases.”
John manages to say “God, I hope there’s another doctor” before dissolving into shaking and hiccupping giggles. The laughter negates John’s further attempts at speaking. It lasts even after Mrs Hudson appears with John’s coat in her arms.
She urges John up from the damp marble before wrapping his coat about him. “You’ll catch your death like that.” Perhaps it’s not meant as a joke, but John finds it difficult to hear as anything else. Mrs Hudson pats John on the back, a soothing touch. “We ought to put you to bed, dear.”
Hopkins vanishes for an instant to reappear with a small flask. “Brandy, sir. Please don’t ask where I found it.”
John accepts it gladly. “Thank you.” He feels a touch steadier on his feet for it, though not for long. He picks up the remains of his costume to find them much more charred than anticipated. Knowing theatrical devices, he’d expected the flame to be more flash than heat. The silver pin from Mrs Hudson has turned black and singes his hand at a tentative touch. He slips his revolver into his coat pocket and makes a mental note to clean and dry it before bed.
“Mrs Hudson, if you wouldn’t mind,” John says, “I’d like to see you home.”
She takes his arm and holds it more supportively than John would prefer. “That sounds like a lovely idea.”
It would be, were Holmes not positioned unmasked between the stairway and the main door. As if realising the barrier he presents, Holmes stands firm, motionless at his brother’s side.
John hesitates, then proceeds. They do not seek each other’s gazes. They pass without acknowledgement. John and Mrs Hudson are nearly to the door before Inspector Lestrade calls, “Dr Watson! I need to take your statement.”
“Tomorrow, Inspector,” Mrs Hudson chides. “The poor man’s been set on fire.”
“Of course.” Lacking a hat, Inspector Lestrade tips the mask now worn upon the top of his head. “Ten o’clock, Scotland Yard, if you’d be so kind.”
“I’ll be there,” John promises. “Good evening.” He realises he’s left his helmet upon the stairs. Entirely beyond caring, John averts his gaze from the side of Holmes’ impassive face and takes his leave. This time, the helmet remains unthrown.
Mrs Hudson looks out the carriage window with a sigh. “Quite a night.”
John hums softly. In the cold, the light burns upon his neck make themselves keenly felt. They sting in a manner reminiscent of his conscience.
A creature of untold understanding, Mrs Hudson pats his knee. How much does she know?
The question resides upon his tongue for the remainder of the ride. When they arrive at Mrs Hudson’s address, John swallows it down. Whether Mrs Hudson knows, it’s a secret she would hardly betray. He bids her a quiet good night and a Happy New Year.
John retires to bed immediately upon returning home, bidding the returned Martha a good evening. The wonder that she is, his maid has already warmed the bricks and applied them appropriately to his bed. On New Year’s Eve, no less. Reading his unsociable and somewhat burnt mood, she even refrains from asking what in the world happened to him. He distracts himself for a moment, thinking that perhaps he should give her every Christmas off.
That line of thought only lasts until he closes the door and sits upon his bed. He thinks of untying his shoes only to think of Holmes kneeling on the floor. When he closes his eyes against the image, he sees it all the more sharply. When he opens them, he sees the envelope upon his dresser resting between the two photographs there displayed. Mary on one side, Harry on the other, John featured in both. On the left, he wears his wedding suit. On the right, a far younger man wears John’s uniform and a terrible moustache.
John rises. Refusing to be haunted, he gently lays the photographs down, one atop of other, and conceals the envelope between them. This helps somewhat. While standing, he unlaces his shoes with success. He toes them off and does not think for an instant of leather gloves. He doesn’t dream of them either.
“And you had the revolver on you throughout the entirety of the evening?” Inspector Lestrade asks.
John nods. “Mr Holmes seemed to expect some trouble.”
“For good reason.”
Inspector Lestrade’s questions continue, largely centring about John’s direct confrontation with the Red Death. When he asks about John’s earlier activity that evening, John simply replies that he and Mr Holmes had been searching for any dangers toward the new chandelier. He begins to share the theory about entry from above, but Lestrade interrupts: he’s already heard it from Mr Holmes. John’s contribution appears to have gone unmentioned. John feigns neither surprise nor offended pride.
After leaving Scotland Yard, John treats himself to a light lunch. The solitary meal is hardly unlike the hundreds of others John has taken for the past years of his life. Nevertheless, he finds it immensely unsatisfying.
He rattles about his day in this uncertain state. His collar agitates the burns upon his neck. He longs for the fourth, for the opera house to be reopened in full. Surely Mr Havill and the Earl won’t cower to such aggression. With that in mind, John sets his revolver and kit into his medical bag. Hardly a tool he’d ever thought he’d need at the opera house. Belatedly, John realises they might have heard their ghost’s demands from the mouth of his newest puppet if John had simply let him speak. Too late to go back and ask the fellow now.
When he falls asleep that night, he falls with a sense of fumbling. Of feeling for walls in the darkness. His mind walks through flickering, shifting halls where every passerby wears Vernet’s face. The only door gives way into the house, the fallen chandelier across the seats and Holmes upon the stage. Flames from the chandelier catch upon the seats. Smoke spreads, rises.
“Get out!” cries a woman’s voice. John whirls about to see Miss Hooper in Box Five with Vernet at her side. “Dr Watson, get out!” she shouts, her voice still wrong. It’s his maid’s voice, it’s Martha’s voice, and John startles awake to find his bedroom filled with smoke.
He’s on in his feet in a disoriented instant, crouched low and already coughing. Somewhere in that motion, he shoves his bare feet into his shoes with all the unconscious control of a soldier waking at a nocturnal raid. Martha continues to shout for him.
“I’m awake!” he cries. “Martha, run!”
He hears nothing more from her and can only hope it a sign of obedience. He seizes his photographs, flings them into his medical bag, and rushes, doubled-over, to the door. The wood emits palpable heat, and the handle threatens to burn before he can so much as touch it. Light from below: a flicker from beneath the door.
“The window,” he mutters to himself, coughing. “The window, come on.” If their acrobat can, then so can he. He throws open the sash and smoke rushes out. Leaning out, John estimates the drop to street level with watering eyes. Thank God he doesn’t sleep more than a single flight up.
He coughs out his curses, then drops his medical bag out first. It hits his front steps and rolls down, a clear hint that a straight jump onto that surface may mean broken ankles, if not legs. For one mad moment, he contemplates tying the bed sheets into rope. No time, and he hardly trusts it.
His limbs begin to tremble before he can climb out the window. He forces himself forward all the same only to clutch at the wood as a coughing fit seizes him. Legs out first. He needs his legs out first. If he can hang down from the sill, it won’t be such a drop.
There. Legs out.
Lying on the sill, the wood digging into his stomach, this entire operation strikes him as a terribly poor idea. Not as poor as waiting for his door to give way, but a terribly poor idea all the same. His pyjama shirt rides up as he slowly slips.
Feet searching for purchase and finding none, John lowers himself until the sill digs into his armpits. Arms shaking, he eases down an increment before his arms give way entirely. He hangs in the air but a moment before his feet hit the steps. With no hope of balance, he falls down the front stairs, nearly striking his head upon the wrought iron railing.
Air. Knocked out of him. Air, and coughing. He curls onto his side, coughing and gasping in turns. He dry heaves noisily over the pavement. As if through thick fog, a bell rings the alarm.
Martha, he thinks distantly. Where is she?
Feet appear in front of him, then knees, then the worried face of his neighbour as the man drags him away from the remains of his front door.
“My bag,” John rasps. Mary’s photograph. Harry’s.
“My daughter has it, Dr Watson,” Mr Turner replies.
Together, they stagger to the street. Of the small herd gathered in the street, only the neighbours from across the street are dressed. When one of these spectators offers John a blanket, it seems only fair to sling it round Martha’s trembling shoulders. “Thank you,” John manages between the coughs. “For waking me.”
“Thanks for Christmas with my mum, sir,” she answers, tugging the blanket tightly about herself. She pulls her brown braid out from beneath the fabric, then shivers. John’s afraid she’ll have a great deal more time with her mother shortly, but he doesn’t say it.
The fire brigade arrives soon enough to save the neighbouring houses but little more. “Arson,” says one fireman. As the sun rises, he goes on to explain how the fire was set, but all John can think of are the burns upon his own neck and the revolver within his bag.
Mrs Hudson’s maid opens the door. To her credit, Eliza only stares at them somewhat. It can’t be every morning a man turns up on her doorstep in a borrowed, ill-fitting overcoat and dirty pyjamas, reeking of smoke, and accompanied by a sooty young woman wrapped in a blanket. The reddened eyes and nostrils might also appear somewhat alarming.
“Dr Watson,” John rasps. “I was here for Christmas. Is Mrs Hudson in?”
“She is, Dr Watson,” Eliza replies. “Would you and your... would you both care to wait in the sitting room?”
“That would be lovely,” John says. Beside him, Martha coughs, a rough, unintentional sound. “Tea would also be lovely,” John adds in the dwindling remains of his voice. “Lemon and honey, if you have it.”
Eliza shows them to the sitting room before bringing the tea. With John sporting something of a limp from his fall, the progress is slow. Mrs Hudson joins them soon after, or rather, she pops in long enough to cry, “Oh, you poor dears!” She quickly vanishes before reappearing with a purple dress. She deposits this into Martha’s arms. “We can’t have you freezing in that blanket!”
“I’ve my nightgown, ma’am,” Martha says, but Mrs Hudson will not be deterred until there are hot baths and even John has been forced into yet more borrowed clothing. Though Mrs Hudson’s husband wasn’t much taller than John, he was certainly wider, but it’s a better than wandering about dressed for bed.
So begins his stay at Mrs Hudson’s home. They quickly agree he’ll return to her son’s old bedroom. The attic bedroom will go to Martha until she has a dress and coat of her own to wear on the train to her father’s house. The first two days pass with both of them off of their feet as much as possible, throats sore and heads aching. On the third day, the fourth day of the month, the opera house reopens. John only remains in bed due to a stern talking to and sheer exhaustion.
He sleeps and wakes fitfully. He blames the shortness of breath and the tenderness of his throat. That night, when Mrs Hudson returns home at an hour only appropriate for an opera house employee, John is conscious for her return. Martha may be asleep, and good thing too: her train home is in the morning.
“Mrs Hudson,” John whispers, descending the stairs with a careful hand on the railing. His borrowed housecoat is too large and therefore perfectly warm.
“Dr Watson!” She smiles distractedly. “You ought to be in bed, dear.”
He shakes his head. “Was anyone else burnt down?”
She hesitates. The fear in his heart must escape to his face, for she swiftly adds, “No. No one else.”
“Then...?”
“There... There was a new note.” She visibly frets over his reaction before relenting. “It said: ‘Any who dares interrupt my work shall have it visited upon him.’”
“Is that so?” John says. “What a guest. Remind me not to invite skeletons into my home in the future.”
She doesn’t smile at that as much as he wishes she would. So terribly difficult to make light when absolute seriousness gazes back at him.
John permits his own smile to fall. “I’ll go to the police tomorrow. Perhaps a hotel.”
“A hotel? Dr Watson-”
“You’ve been more than kind, but Martha’s leaving in the morning and my tailor dropped off two suits for me yesterday. If at all possible, I should leave.”
“Dr Watson, if you believe the police aren’t already watching this house, the smoke must have blinded you.” She shakes her stern head. “You aren’t going anywhere unless it’s back to bed!”
“I’m returning to work tomorrow.”
“Only if you return to bed tonight. Don’t think I can’t hear your breathing. And your poor leg! You’re moving so stiffly.”
“I’ll pace myself,” he promises. “It would be good for morale to show everyone I’m alive and well.” He coughs fit to rip up his throat and has the grace to look abashed. “Mostly well.”
“You really ought to wait a few more days, dear. Mr Havill understands.”
“I swear, I’ll pace myself. I’ll fuss after no one. I’ll sit in the house and watch rehearsal all day.” As this offering entirely fails to please her, he amends, “All afternoon.” This fails as well. “Late afternoon.”
“Well...”
“I’ll do nothing to compromise my health.” He states an old thought as if it has suddenly come upon him: “I might go downstairs. I find the atmosphere calming. Very secure. I’ve missed it.”
“Downstairs?” Mrs Hudson asks, an odd quality to her voice. Afraid her maid will overhear?
John descends the remaining stairs and whispers, “Vernet’s cellar.”
Though there is barely any space for it to perform such a feat, her face falls farther. “Oh, John.”
In a very similar manner, John’s stomach plummets. “What’s happened? Have the police found it? Do they think he’s the ghost?”
She shakes her head. “We’re afraid it’s only a matter of time. It’s all being removed.”
John holds on all the more tightly to the railing. Words thoroughly escape him. All removed? The tables, that desk? The papers, Vernet must have taken with him rather than risking to rats and damp, but surely everything else remains? All but the Saratoga trunk and the empty tins. And the violin. Of course the violin would follow him home. Has Vernet’s mask been left cold upon a table, its whiteness lost among so many snuffed candles?
“By whom?” he asks.
Mrs Hudson looks at him oddly.
“Who is removing the, the everything?”
She raises a hand to forestall him. “You shouldn’t go down there tomorrow.”
“Will the police be watching?”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, that’s right.”
Too quickly said. “What’s the other reason?”
She looks down at her folded hands. She lifts her eyes to his face. “If you parted on good terms, it would be best to keep it that way. He’s extremely agitated. He wants no company whatsoever.”
The loss of his space, John understands. “Oh.”
“I know you’d prefer to see him again,” Mrs Hudson begins, and the reality of the situation smacks John across the face.
He will never see Vernet again. After tomorrow, he-No. No. The opera will be performed. John will hear of it and track Vernet down. If not that opera, then another. He would know Vernet’s style anywhere. Any opera written and composed by a single man, for that matter, unless Vernet takes two pen names. How many years could such a search take?
The answer is readily apparent. Too long. Much too long to withstand.
“It would only end in shouting, the way he is now,” Mrs Hudson says.
Perhaps so. But better certainty now than doubt for an untold time to come. No matter how harsh that certainty.
“You’re right, Mrs Hudson,” John says, decided. He turns and climbs the stairs. “I ought to be resting.”
“Dr Watson!”
“Goodnight, Mrs Hudson!”
coda
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