The Last Stone Lion Part Five.
jcporter1
November 2010
Time was wearing on my flatmate. Holmes was stretched to the breaking point with worry about his brother, and then
Miss Adler as she had suddenly departed on a whim, no word to anyone but Mrs. Hudson.
"Off to see friends in the country. " was her excuse.
I confess that I often took Holmes wrist during this period, under pretense of gaining his attention, in order to secretly check his pulse. He was so close to the edge of breakdown, and there was little I could do to ease his mind. Yet I tried.
I asked for his assistance in physical therapy on my knee, and he turned to it like a drowning man to a life preserver. Charts appeared and medical books lay open all about the rooms, backs cracking as he turned them over to keep his place, picking them up to double check the placement of muscle and tendon on a color plate. And so began my slow return to mobility.
Saint Barts had sent a mobile chair around, and it sat like a grim spector in the corner, a reminder of what may be the rest of my life, until Holmes sent it back with a curt note that we "would not be in need of such a device".
Days were spent in shirt sleeves and hot towels, as he would alternately heat the muscles, then work them through an agonizing range of motion. Both of us would colapse at the end of the day, my body spent from pain, his body spent from worry about the pain he caused me, but also determination to return me to my feet.
Miss Adler's bed was vacant again in Holmes old room, but Holmes preferred to sleep in the room with me, lest I wake and need something. So he slept often on the settee, and more and more often in my sick bed with me. Crowded as it was, his body near mine provided comfort when my dreams would drift back to battle field surgeries or my previous wound to my shoulder on the desert of Afghanastan, both on my mind as the accident had reawakened my past memories.
More often than not, what announced the day was not the sun through the window, but the hoarse cry of men at war, in pain, dying, and so very often, though I never told him, Holmes in the tan uniform of the Queen's soldiers, fighting, heroic, and often to my utter dismay, falling to gunshot before my tear filled eyes, until Holmes would wake me with a gentle hand on my head, or shoulder, or, if he was in bed with me, even an embrace that seemed to sop up all my terrified emotions like a sponge.
"Come on then Watson, back on your feet." He had procured a crutch for me, two actually, and after a month in bed it was a delight to be upright again, even if one leg was still of little more use than a pegleg. We would practice walking from one end of the flat to the other, and even up and down stairs, with Holmes there to catch me should I slip.
So it was that Mycrofts follow up letter arrived at lunch time, with both of us tucking into ham sandwiches like day labourers, sweaty from our morning endeavors at handling the steps with a single crutch.
"Would you do the honors?" Holmes handed me the letter. "I prefer to listen."
"Certainly" I read the return address to him and the postmarks. "It is from Paris!"
"That is good news, His adventures in Spain must have run their course. Pray, tell us what our brother in arms has been up to."
I tore the envelope open and began to read.
Residents
221b Baker Street
London, England
April 8
Dear Sherlock,
How is the health of our friends? I trust all is well , I have posted the first letter to you as soon as we landed in Bilboa, the heart of Basque country. This one I post on my trip back to England.
Woke to shouts of deck hands only two days ago, though it seems like weeks. My freighter was docking in Bilboa. I grabbed my bag and surfaced from below decks into a bright morning sun. We had not quite docked yet, so I was afforded a gulls eye view of the city as we steamed up river.
It is quite a remarkable town, Bilboa, much like London of a 100 years ago. It has access to deep water. There are mines in the nearby mountains. Factories and railroads stretch in all directions.. It’s location lends to a vibrant import and export trade, and there is a willing work force of Basques.
Indeed the crew of my steamer is comprised almost exclusively of Basques. Nationalism is rife here. There is a strong hatred of all things Spanish. A powder keg situation, if ever there was one.
My task seems impossible. To locate Moriarty in an area this densely populated. I can but try. The docks are some distance from the center of town, so once I depart the ship I secure a ride on a freight wagon full of lumber.
“If you help me unload it, I wont charge you for the ride.“ The wagonmaster said to me, first in Basque, which I didn’t understand at all, and finally in the despised Spanish, of which my hold is tenuous at best. I told him I didn’t have time, so he charged me an amount that I didn’t understand, I handed him some francs and since France was just across the border, he accepted them.
At the first dry goods store we passed, I bid him adieu and dashed inside. My long heavy English overcoat caused me to stand out, so I traded it for a short rough wool work coat. Fitting in much better I felt confident I could walk the streets without drawing attention to myself. An additional half hour of walking led me to a district with public houses and cheap lodgings. I found board in a row of low cottages that surrounded a common courtyard.
I stowed my bags and then stood in the middle of the room, perplexed.
Now where the devil to start. Sherlock, you would have known. I had no clue, frankly I couldn’t have even told you the cardinal points of the compass at that point. I went outside and left the court yard for the street. I stood on the street corner and looked up and down the flagstone road. It was the middle of the day, and the road was busy with wagons, but it was not a place for foot traffic. A few of the public houses were setting out chalk boards and sweeping the dust off the dirt front porches, if I wanted to meet a criminal group, I might have to wait until night brought a close to the day's work.
A rough woman, possibly in her twenties, but most likely older, with thick black hair pulled back fetchingly behind her ears, stepped out of a doorway and asked me in Spanish if I was in need of company. I answered in my abominable Spanish that I could indeed use a friend. Delighted she took my arm. “English?” she asked. I smiled and shook my head ’no’. I asked her in French if we could get a drink. She marched down the sidewalk with me in tow, and lead the way past a half dozen identical pubs to a public house that looked as if livestock lived in it.
Her English is non-existent and my Spanish not much better, but she knew French well enough, and as that is my second language, we found we could communicate well enough.
I told her I was from Bordeaux, which was not so far from this part of Spain as to be unfeasible. She looked at me as if she knew I was lying and shrugged. She ordered some heavy wine in monstrous mugs and we drank. Then we drank some more. I let her catch a glimpse of my wallet, and threw money about as if I had no regard for it. She took my arm in hers possessively. I asked her if she knew many people in this town.
“Yes. Everyone.” She laughed.
“I suspect you could get me an audience with the king.”
We both laughed.
“What do you want?” she asks.
I make the shape of a pistol with my thumb and fore finger.
“Oh, she says, “To buy?
“ No, to sell.” I say.
She gets up to fetch more wine for us, and I see her whisper to the bar tender. To hide my nervousness, I shove my hands into my new coat pockets.I find a bag of tobacco in my jacket. Left there by previous owner no doubt. And papers too. I roll a cigarette and ignite it by the candle on the table. It is the vilest tobacco I’ve ever tasted, but it gives me time to think. My new friend returns with our heavy mugs of wine.
“What is your name?” I ask as she puts my drink down.
“Victoria, like the queen.’ she answers.
“Lovely name. “ I say. “Do you know a place to eat?” I ask.
She brightens,
"Oh yes. Good place not far from “ She takes my arm in a tight grip and we navigate out the door, into the watery morning sunlight. One hundred steps down the road we pass a narrow alley. All goes dark as a cloth is thrown over my head. Before I can struggle, a heavy object blasts my skull. I drop to my knees. As I pitch forward onto my face I think that Sherlock would never have allowed someone to get the drop on him like this."
I pause to look across the room at Holmes. His eyes are open, bright, his fingers steepled across his chest.
"Do go on Watson. I'm quite all right."
I continue...
"I come to in what I determine to be a stable. I smell hay and horses. I can hear voices speaking the same Basque as my recent shipmates. I cannot make out what they are saying. I tilt my head to hear better and the movement makes my head spin. My eyes tear up from the sharp pain and I cough. There is the sudden sound of boots scraping on hard dirt and steps come to me. The cloth is pulled off with a flourish.
I feel like a rabbit in a magicians hat.
Four working class men stand in half circle before me. One stands closer, arms crossed, studying me. I recognize him from photographs at the Foreign Affairs Office.
"Ah, just the man I am looking for," I say in French. "Mr. Arana" I try a modified bow from my seated trussed position.
"Speak English, englishman." he replied.
"Sabino Arana," I tried again in English. "Just the fellow I was looking for. We have business, you
and I.
He turned his back on me and called out to someone.
Victoria creeps in, timid but curious. She is to translate I take it.
"Victoria, tell him I have guns for sale." I return to French. Victoria turns to Arana and speaks in Basque. I add
"Tell him I know his movement wants autonomy from Spain. Tell him I can help."
Arana listens, his eyes darting from me to Victoria, then with a grunt and a wave of his hand he silences her and speaks. Victoria
listens as intently as any translator from the Foreign Office, her right hand rests on my shoulder. She begins speaking before Arana is finished.
"He say 'Enough. We have no need of your tricks Mr. Holmes."
Mr. Holmes? I try not to appear nonplussed at the use of my name.
"Tricks?" I say. "I have no tricks. I offer a service. A product. At a fair price. I can make him successful in his endeavors. The world is aware that Mr. Arana is leading a fight for liberation from hated imperialist forces . I can facilitate,… make it easier. I have new rifles from Austria. The best in the world. All he can use.
Arana scoffs.
"He says, 'We have the best guns from Basques, not Austrians or Germans. We have all we want. We want more, we make more.'"
Make more.! Sherlock, my first mistake. Moriarty was not selling them weapons, he was using them to manufacture weapons. My mind quickly added these new values into the equation.
Moriarty was not trying to arm the Basque Nationalists, he was instead using this port, these proud people, the iron ore from the abundant mines in the Pyrenees and the factories and shipping to manufacture and move his own weapons to any place in the world. Far more brilliant than I had imagined.
I must have gaped like a fish out of water, for Arana laughed at my astonishment. Mentally I mapped out the proximity of Bilboa to the Continent, Africa, Ireland. Any place on the Atlantic or Mediterranean seaboard. So many places where trouble was brewing for our Empire. And if he was selling the weapons, then he was financing his own endeavors at the same time.
Arana had begun speaking again and I had to focus on what Victoria was saying.
"He says 'Why would an English detective sell guns to revolutionaries?'". She looked at me quizzically.
"I am no detective." I protested. Arana held up my wallet. I had removed my Home Office Identification and my passport was in my bag in the hotel. Watching my face closely, Arana opened the wallet, and from a slit inside, removed a scrap of paper, my card for the London Public Library.
Blast!
"You are Mr. Holmes? Don't deny it, it says so right here. " I feigned aggrivation. "Of course I am Mr. Holmes. What of it?"
I pulled angrily against the ropes binding my hands behind my back. "Holmes is a very common name in England. I must insist that you untie me. I am here to help you, and don't deserve to be treated so." He shook his head as he listened to Victorias words.
"No. The world is not so small as that." Victoria translated, she leaned down to my ear, "He does not believe you." she whispered.
“Yes. Thank you Victoria.” I mumbled back.
"We were told to expect a Sherlock Holmes and here is a Holmes."
"Ahh, but I am not Sherlock Holmes. I am Mycroft, see on the paper."
"Yes, but people have many christian names, only one family name. No." he shook his head in mock dismay, "You are him. Just like our friend has foretold."
Friend?
"What friend?" I asked and Victoria repeated my question.
"Ahh," Arana said,
"Ahhh" Victoria repeated. "You know what friend, the Irishman."
It was Moriarty for certain. In spite of my predicament, I felt a satisfaction that my 'pretty theory' had been right.
"He is not a friend, he is my competitor. He..." Suddenly Arana had tired of the interview he cut me off by standing up and coming close.
"Be quiet Englishman Holmes. Moriarty will be here tomorrow. He can tell us if you should live or die."
Holmes suddenly leaped to his feet. "My dear Boy, I apologize for rushing your convalescence, but my brother is in serious danger and we must leave at once."
November 2010
Time was wearing on my flatmate. Holmes was stretched to the breaking point with worry about his brother, and then
Miss Adler as she had suddenly departed on a whim, no word to anyone but Mrs. Hudson.
"Off to see friends in the country. " was her excuse.
I confess that I often took Holmes wrist during this period, under pretense of gaining his attention, in order to secretly check his pulse. He was so close to the edge of breakdown, and there was little I could do to ease his mind. Yet I tried.
I asked for his assistance in physical therapy on my knee, and he turned to it like a drowning man to a life preserver. Charts appeared and medical books lay open all about the rooms, backs cracking as he turned them over to keep his place, picking them up to double check the placement of muscle and tendon on a color plate. And so began my slow return to mobility.
Saint Barts had sent a mobile chair around, and it sat like a grim spector in the corner, a reminder of what may be the rest of my life, until Holmes sent it back with a curt note that we "would not be in need of such a device".
Days were spent in shirt sleeves and hot towels, as he would alternately heat the muscles, then work them through an agonizing range of motion. Both of us would colapse at the end of the day, my body spent from pain, his body spent from worry about the pain he caused me, but also determination to return me to my feet.
Miss Adler's bed was vacant again in Holmes old room, but Holmes preferred to sleep in the room with me, lest I wake and need something. So he slept often on the settee, and more and more often in my sick bed with me. Crowded as it was, his body near mine provided comfort when my dreams would drift back to battle field surgeries or my previous wound to my shoulder on the desert of Afghanastan, both on my mind as the accident had reawakened my past memories.
More often than not, what announced the day was not the sun through the window, but the hoarse cry of men at war, in pain, dying, and so very often, though I never told him, Holmes in the tan uniform of the Queen's soldiers, fighting, heroic, and often to my utter dismay, falling to gunshot before my tear filled eyes, until Holmes would wake me with a gentle hand on my head, or shoulder, or, if he was in bed with me, even an embrace that seemed to sop up all my terrified emotions like a sponge.
"Come on then Watson, back on your feet." He had procured a crutch for me, two actually, and after a month in bed it was a delight to be upright again, even if one leg was still of little more use than a pegleg. We would practice walking from one end of the flat to the other, and even up and down stairs, with Holmes there to catch me should I slip.
So it was that Mycrofts follow up letter arrived at lunch time, with both of us tucking into ham sandwiches like day labourers, sweaty from our morning endeavors at handling the steps with a single crutch.
"Would you do the honors?" Holmes handed me the letter. "I prefer to listen."
"Certainly" I read the return address to him and the postmarks. "It is from Paris!"
"That is good news, His adventures in Spain must have run their course. Pray, tell us what our brother in arms has been up to."
I tore the envelope open and began to read.
Residents
221b Baker Street
London, England
April 8
Dear Sherlock,
How is the health of our friends? I trust all is well , I have posted the first letter to you as soon as we landed in Bilboa, the heart of Basque country. This one I post on my trip back to England.
Woke to shouts of deck hands only two days ago, though it seems like weeks. My freighter was docking in Bilboa. I grabbed my bag and surfaced from below decks into a bright morning sun. We had not quite docked yet, so I was afforded a gulls eye view of the city as we steamed up river.
It is quite a remarkable town, Bilboa, much like London of a 100 years ago. It has access to deep water. There are mines in the nearby mountains. Factories and railroads stretch in all directions.. It’s location lends to a vibrant import and export trade, and there is a willing work force of Basques.
Indeed the crew of my steamer is comprised almost exclusively of Basques. Nationalism is rife here. There is a strong hatred of all things Spanish. A powder keg situation, if ever there was one.
My task seems impossible. To locate Moriarty in an area this densely populated. I can but try. The docks are some distance from the center of town, so once I depart the ship I secure a ride on a freight wagon full of lumber.
“If you help me unload it, I wont charge you for the ride.“ The wagonmaster said to me, first in Basque, which I didn’t understand at all, and finally in the despised Spanish, of which my hold is tenuous at best. I told him I didn’t have time, so he charged me an amount that I didn’t understand, I handed him some francs and since France was just across the border, he accepted them.
At the first dry goods store we passed, I bid him adieu and dashed inside. My long heavy English overcoat caused me to stand out, so I traded it for a short rough wool work coat. Fitting in much better I felt confident I could walk the streets without drawing attention to myself. An additional half hour of walking led me to a district with public houses and cheap lodgings. I found board in a row of low cottages that surrounded a common courtyard.
I stowed my bags and then stood in the middle of the room, perplexed.
Now where the devil to start. Sherlock, you would have known. I had no clue, frankly I couldn’t have even told you the cardinal points of the compass at that point. I went outside and left the court yard for the street. I stood on the street corner and looked up and down the flagstone road. It was the middle of the day, and the road was busy with wagons, but it was not a place for foot traffic. A few of the public houses were setting out chalk boards and sweeping the dust off the dirt front porches, if I wanted to meet a criminal group, I might have to wait until night brought a close to the day's work.
A rough woman, possibly in her twenties, but most likely older, with thick black hair pulled back fetchingly behind her ears, stepped out of a doorway and asked me in Spanish if I was in need of company. I answered in my abominable Spanish that I could indeed use a friend. Delighted she took my arm. “English?” she asked. I smiled and shook my head ’no’. I asked her in French if we could get a drink. She marched down the sidewalk with me in tow, and lead the way past a half dozen identical pubs to a public house that looked as if livestock lived in it.
Her English is non-existent and my Spanish not much better, but she knew French well enough, and as that is my second language, we found we could communicate well enough.
I told her I was from Bordeaux, which was not so far from this part of Spain as to be unfeasible. She looked at me as if she knew I was lying and shrugged. She ordered some heavy wine in monstrous mugs and we drank. Then we drank some more. I let her catch a glimpse of my wallet, and threw money about as if I had no regard for it. She took my arm in hers possessively. I asked her if she knew many people in this town.
“Yes. Everyone.” She laughed.
“I suspect you could get me an audience with the king.”
We both laughed.
“What do you want?” she asks.
I make the shape of a pistol with my thumb and fore finger.
“Oh, she says, “To buy?
“ No, to sell.” I say.
She gets up to fetch more wine for us, and I see her whisper to the bar tender. To hide my nervousness, I shove my hands into my new coat pockets.I find a bag of tobacco in my jacket. Left there by previous owner no doubt. And papers too. I roll a cigarette and ignite it by the candle on the table. It is the vilest tobacco I’ve ever tasted, but it gives me time to think. My new friend returns with our heavy mugs of wine.
“What is your name?” I ask as she puts my drink down.
“Victoria, like the queen.’ she answers.
“Lovely name. “ I say. “Do you know a place to eat?” I ask.
She brightens,
"Oh yes. Good place not far from “ She takes my arm in a tight grip and we navigate out the door, into the watery morning sunlight. One hundred steps down the road we pass a narrow alley. All goes dark as a cloth is thrown over my head. Before I can struggle, a heavy object blasts my skull. I drop to my knees. As I pitch forward onto my face I think that Sherlock would never have allowed someone to get the drop on him like this."
I pause to look across the room at Holmes. His eyes are open, bright, his fingers steepled across his chest.
"Do go on Watson. I'm quite all right."
I continue...
"I come to in what I determine to be a stable. I smell hay and horses. I can hear voices speaking the same Basque as my recent shipmates. I cannot make out what they are saying. I tilt my head to hear better and the movement makes my head spin. My eyes tear up from the sharp pain and I cough. There is the sudden sound of boots scraping on hard dirt and steps come to me. The cloth is pulled off with a flourish.
I feel like a rabbit in a magicians hat.
Four working class men stand in half circle before me. One stands closer, arms crossed, studying me. I recognize him from photographs at the Foreign Affairs Office.
"Ah, just the man I am looking for," I say in French. "Mr. Arana" I try a modified bow from my seated trussed position.
"Speak English, englishman." he replied.
"Sabino Arana," I tried again in English. "Just the fellow I was looking for. We have business, you
and I.
He turned his back on me and called out to someone.
Victoria creeps in, timid but curious. She is to translate I take it.
"Victoria, tell him I have guns for sale." I return to French. Victoria turns to Arana and speaks in Basque. I add
"Tell him I know his movement wants autonomy from Spain. Tell him I can help."
Arana listens, his eyes darting from me to Victoria, then with a grunt and a wave of his hand he silences her and speaks. Victoria
listens as intently as any translator from the Foreign Office, her right hand rests on my shoulder. She begins speaking before Arana is finished.
"He say 'Enough. We have no need of your tricks Mr. Holmes."
Mr. Holmes? I try not to appear nonplussed at the use of my name.
"Tricks?" I say. "I have no tricks. I offer a service. A product. At a fair price. I can make him successful in his endeavors. The world is aware that Mr. Arana is leading a fight for liberation from hated imperialist forces . I can facilitate,… make it easier. I have new rifles from Austria. The best in the world. All he can use.
Arana scoffs.
"He says, 'We have the best guns from Basques, not Austrians or Germans. We have all we want. We want more, we make more.'"
Make more.! Sherlock, my first mistake. Moriarty was not selling them weapons, he was using them to manufacture weapons. My mind quickly added these new values into the equation.
Moriarty was not trying to arm the Basque Nationalists, he was instead using this port, these proud people, the iron ore from the abundant mines in the Pyrenees and the factories and shipping to manufacture and move his own weapons to any place in the world. Far more brilliant than I had imagined.
I must have gaped like a fish out of water, for Arana laughed at my astonishment. Mentally I mapped out the proximity of Bilboa to the Continent, Africa, Ireland. Any place on the Atlantic or Mediterranean seaboard. So many places where trouble was brewing for our Empire. And if he was selling the weapons, then he was financing his own endeavors at the same time.
Arana had begun speaking again and I had to focus on what Victoria was saying.
"He says 'Why would an English detective sell guns to revolutionaries?'". She looked at me quizzically.
"I am no detective." I protested. Arana held up my wallet. I had removed my Home Office Identification and my passport was in my bag in the hotel. Watching my face closely, Arana opened the wallet, and from a slit inside, removed a scrap of paper, my card for the London Public Library.
Blast!
"You are Mr. Holmes? Don't deny it, it says so right here. " I feigned aggrivation. "Of course I am Mr. Holmes. What of it?"
I pulled angrily against the ropes binding my hands behind my back. "Holmes is a very common name in England. I must insist that you untie me. I am here to help you, and don't deserve to be treated so." He shook his head as he listened to Victorias words.
"No. The world is not so small as that." Victoria translated, she leaned down to my ear, "He does not believe you." she whispered.
“Yes. Thank you Victoria.” I mumbled back.
"We were told to expect a Sherlock Holmes and here is a Holmes."
"Ahh, but I am not Sherlock Holmes. I am Mycroft, see on the paper."
"Yes, but people have many christian names, only one family name. No." he shook his head in mock dismay, "You are him. Just like our friend has foretold."
Friend?
"What friend?" I asked and Victoria repeated my question.
"Ahh," Arana said,
"Ahhh" Victoria repeated. "You know what friend, the Irishman."
It was Moriarty for certain. In spite of my predicament, I felt a satisfaction that my 'pretty theory' had been right.
"He is not a friend, he is my competitor. He..." Suddenly Arana had tired of the interview he cut me off by standing up and coming close.
"Be quiet Englishman Holmes. Moriarty will be here tomorrow. He can tell us if you should live or die."
Holmes suddenly leaped to his feet. "My dear Boy, I apologize for rushing your convalescence, but my brother is in serious danger and we must leave at once."