Gaslight Grimoire_ Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Barbara Hambly [25]
I found a cab and sent it hurrying through the night to the house where Faroukhan had dwelt. Giving the cabbie a small financial incentive I bade him wait whilst I circled the property. Finding a window at the back of the house I smashed it, unlatched the frame, raised it and climbed inside.
Having turned up the gaslight I stood in the room looking at the picture on the wall. After a few moments, or perhaps an eternity, I found the front door, went out to the cab and after giving the driver some instructions, sent him back into the city.
It was cold, so I relit the fire and waited…
Holmes arrived an hour later — I heard the cab approach and met him at the front door, letting him in, I stood watching as the cab driver drove off. Holmes looked sympathetically at me.
“Watson, I never get your limits. But one thing is doubtless, old friend, I am acutely aware of how compassionate a fellow you are. You worry about the family of this man, Faroukhan, do you not?”
I nodded. I showed him the large framed photograph which I had taken down from the wall during my vigil.
Faroukhan was many years younger, as he laughed and joked with the soldiers, but he was not the only one. I pointed to an officer in the picture, one I had not observed before, no matter how impossible, there was no mistaking the man in the back of the shot if you looked closely enough. It was myself in uniform, one of the optimistic souls in a dirty war in a strange land, where friends were few.
Holmes nodded. “He had been friendly to you and the rest of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, had he not? You considered him a man whose reports from enemy lines had saved you all from a horrible death — the man who had got word the enemy was coming and enabled you all to break camp and escape before an attack came, is that not so?”
“Yes,” I said. “He was a man who believed that he had shared an honor with us, one that would last beyond the day we ever saw each other again, and it was largely due to me. When I had arrived in his village I had treated his niece and saved her from an agonizing fever, succeeding more by luck than any of the limited medical supplies I had to hand. He swore an oath promising a bond to me from that day onwards.”
“Yes,” said Holmes. “So how did this obligation come to be twisted into such evil intent? What misfortune befell this poor, superstitious fellow that turned him against you so?”
“I suppose that is the explanation — of course.” I said. I sighed, exhaustedly, and bent over a little, steadying myself on the nearby armchair. “I think I have punished myself enough, Holmes, would you help me hang the photo back up again?”
Holmes clapped me on the back softly and then turned to heft the picture. “Rest easy, old friend, it shall take me but a moment.”
With both his hands full and the picture partially obscuring his view of me, Holmes could not see me pull, from inside my coat, the last of the bronze arrows, where I had hidden it by tearing a hole in the lining. Using both hands, and all the strength I could muster, I plunged the arrow into my friend’s chest.
Instantly he dropped the picture and screamed. One of his hands flailed out at me, catching me on the face. My nose was smashed and I actually heard the cartilage break a moment before blood began to gout from it. I instinctively jumped as far back from Holmes as possible in my state, and watched him slowly sink to his knees, blood spurting from his chest, his arms jerking like some strange puppet.
He slumped to the floor, then onto his side and was screeching as he struggled, weakly, to pluck the arrow from his chest. The ichor that flowed from the wound and down his shirt-front, was no longer red, but was changing even as I watched,