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I stood and approached the fellow, extending my hand, cautiously, although this took enormous effort, for I found I was fearful of the fellow and his blazing brown eyes.

“Mr. Holmes is, I’m afraid, not here,” I said, “However if you would state your business I might be able to assist you, Mister…?”

The visitor stamped a foot impatiently, almost in temper. “I cannot delay! I cannot delay!” he said. “I must return to my own city soon. I have no time!”

“I am Holmes’ closest associate,” I ventured, “if you would just explain what you want, it may help.”

The man jumped forward, so fast that I had absolutely no time to anticipate him, and found my forearms gripped with a coiled strength that could have been painful had he exerted much more pressure. Gregson moved to his feet to assist me somehow, but it was not necessary, I was not, apparently in any danger.

“The Doctor! I was told you no longer dwelt here, that you had…” The stranger paused and a look passed over him. He stared at me, searching my face for I knew not what. “I mean that you no longer lived here, with the man, the detective, Holmes,” he finally said. “Please, when will Holmes return here? I have a message that he must receive, I took an oath to bring it to him.”

I tried to explain to the visitor that Holmes’ movements were not easily predictable when he was on a case but the man seemed to lose all interest. Gregson was becoming impatient with the fellow, too.

“I think that’s about all Dr. Watson really needs tell you, sir, unless you are prepared to give a name, or something a bit more substantial. And as a member of her Majesty’s Scotland Yard detectives division I would suggest you heed him.”

Our guest looked at Gregson, and then shook his head, but there was no hostility, only sadness.

“My name is Faroukhan. I will try to find Mr. Holmes elsewhere. If you see him, please tell him I will return no later than four o’clock this afternoon if I have not found him by then. I stay with friends, but only until seven o’clock tonight, then I must return home.”

“Do you wish to leave me the address of where you stay, sir?” I asked.

The stranger shook his head, and without another word he turned and left.

Gregson, bless his soul, could sense the strain this odd intrusion had on me, so newly returned to the world of Holmes and his parade of strange clients.

“Don’t worry, Doctor, you’ll get used to things again, I dare say. Here, why don’t you come to the Commercial Road with me, we’ll leave a message with Mrs. Hudson and perhaps Mr. Holmes will end up joining us there if we’re lucky.”

I agreed that this sounded an excellent plan. We left and took a cab.

Once in Commercial Road we stopped outside a small house-front where two constables were guarding the door in a largely futile effort to dissuade a group of curious on-lookers from loitering. Gregson nodded at the men and escorted me inside.

It was a terrible sight. There was a large desk and chair in the middle of the room whilst the walls were covered by a multitude of shelves featuring reference books of many shapes and sizes and glass cabinets containing a small museum’s worth of oddities and artifacts. Ancient weapons, old bronze vessels, aged and cracked tools lay in various cabinets within the shelving. All of this paraphernalia only served to heighten the ugliness of the scene of the dead man at the desk.

He was a dark-haired man of between thirty and forty, clean-shaven, and he sat back in the chair, a look of pain frozen on his white face. A crossbow was clutched in his fingers, and indeed an arrow was embedded in his chest — just the angle and appearance of the corpse made me feel certain that the weapon had pierced his heart and killed him almost instantly. But what cast an eerie aspect upon the whole scene was the item that lay on the desk, largely under the dead man’s hands and the crossbow. It was a photographic plate, the type that appears in textbooks illustrating a particular item, and a ragged edge made it quite clear that it had been torn from the pages of a