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Not for the last time, Holmes was to be proven spectacularly wrong. Two days later, the afternoon newspapers reported the finding of two bodies washed up on the north Kentish shore near the mouth of the Medway. They were identified as the men sought by police in connection with the suspicious death of the First Officer of the Dutch steamship Friesland. There was, however, no sign of the stolen tug.

As we sat quietly that night, each lost in his own thoughts, Holmes suddenly started. “He’s here, Watson. Can you sense his presence?”

“I sense nothing beyond this fug of tobacco smoke, Holmes.”

But his attention was already elsewhere, eyes focused on a patch of empty air and ears cocked like a whippet on the hunt. A one-sided colloquy ensued.

“Yes, I wondered if you played a part in that. How exactly was it managed?” A long pause and then a high-pitched laugh. “Oh what a fitting end!” Holmes glanced my way. “Dr. Watson does not hear you speak. Why is that?” He listened for some moments and then looked at me again, and smiled.

“This will be our last night-time chat, I surmise?” Pause. “It is my business to know what other people don’t know, and I now realize that can also include spirits. Thank you for lifting this burden from both our souls. Perhaps we shall meet again nonetheless.”

For some minutes Holmes continued to gaze into that empty space and to strain his ears. Finally he sighed.

“You must promise me, my dear Watson, never to chronicle this adventure. It would be hypocrisy in the extreme for me to claim any credit for the solution of these crimes, and I fear the table-rappers would seize upon what happened as support for their nonsense.”

“Of course, I will honor your wishes, Holmes. But I feel that I am owed an account of what you learned from the visitation that apparently just took place.”

“Good old Watson, you truly are the epitome of the firmly rooted Englishman. Your colleague may be hearing voices and talking to himself, but you will nevertheless take pains to insist upon fair play.”

He continued: “I learned that the drowning of Calhoun and Darrell were no accident but the final retribution from the spirit world. Openshaw was, of course, aboard the fleeing tug in spirit form. When it had passed safely beyond the mouth of the Thames and it became apparent the two murderers were once again likely to vanish into the shadowy maritime world, he took action.”

“But you said these spirits cannot assume corporeal form, so Openshaw could have no way of checking their flight physically.”

“That is correct, Doctor. Nor was there aboard that tug an independent agent such as myself with an intellect capable of communicating with the spirit world and a desire to interfere. Instead, Openshaw said he ‘clouded their minds’, causing the scoundrels to run the tug into a navigation buoy with such force that it took on water and then quickly sank. Neither man could swim, as is common among sailors, and they drowned.”

“How did Openshaw ‘cloud their minds?’” I asked.

“He did not provide details about that. It is my belief that the spirits can modulate the force of their mental emanations to suit different circumstances. In this case I suspect Openshaw projected into the minds of those two murderers an image that obscured the true risk of striking the navigation buoy with some even more imminent hazard, perhaps a phantom ship steaming upriver through the fog. Taking evasive action to avoid the imaginary danger, Calhoun and his henchman rammed the real one.

“You also asked why I couldn’t hear the spirit’s voice. What did he answer to that?”

For a long time Holmes said nothing, and I began to think that he was deliberately ignoring my question. In a low voice, he finally spoke:

“I once feared death, Watson. Not the disintegration of this body, which will all too soon begin to betray me, but the snuffing out of this intellect which I have spent so much effort to fashion into an unequalled thinking machine. My experience with Openshaw has vanquished such fears. When we die, our spirits