Associates of Sherlock Holmes - George Mann Page 0,9

we’re taking you to our home in Baker Street where you’ll have a bath and a warm meal, all right?”

Arlie made no sound, but leaned on the doctor and nodded his tangled head.

“Good,” Lestrade approved. “Gentlemen, are we all in complete agreement?”

After a pause, Mr Holmes said, “Poe referred to the Thames as the River of Silence. Ever since reading that, I’ve thought of it so.”

“Very well,” said my fellow Yarder. “Let no more words be spoken on the subject, then. Ever. Inspector Hopkins, I regret to say that your first case remains unsolved.”

So my first case was a failure twice over, and I am glad of it.

It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do, and the best thing to do.

Yet my heart has been tugged in so many directions today that it feels quite unravelled, loosened sinews and arteries now doing their utmost to weave themselves back together again inside my chest.

Letter sent from Inspector Stanley Michael Hopkins to Mrs Leticia Elizabeth Hopkins, Saturday May 5th, 1894

Dearest Mum,

My first case, once so bright in its promise of removing a villain from our streets, turns out to be the basest of hoaxes. A rogue medical student was guilty of chopping a body into seven parts and setting them adrift. Women of your constitution don’t shirk at such macabre news, yet I loathe telling you, for it means after all that there is nothing of importance to relate. I am nonetheless weary for this having turned out to be a prank, however, and so will write you properly tomorrow or the next day. The bubble and squeak turns out to travel very well indeed in wax paper, and will serve as my breakfast.

Exhausted but hale,

Your Stanley

Entry in the diary of Stanley Michael Hopkins, Tuesday October 9th, 1894

Six months after the business of the false Chinese box, three cases total logged working with the incomparable Sherlock Holmes (and the estimable Dr Watson), and today I received the shock of my life when he arrived at the Yard with fresh evidence for Inspector Bradstreet. Mr Holmes never vacillates once a course is set, sails ahead like a schooner with an aquiline prow. But he paused before my alcove as if he’d expected to find me there.

“A word when I’m through, if you please, Inspector Hopkins,” he decreed, whisking off without awaiting a reply.

I’d no notion of whether to feel excitement or anxiety and settled on a queasy combination by default. Meanwhile, I had need of a case file and thought a brief dash to the archives might settle me. It would have worked, too, had Sherlock Holmes not been seated in my chair when I returned, his fingers steepled and his stork’s legs crossed in front of him. Greeting him as cheerily as I could, I dropped the papers and leaned against my cubby’s dividing wall.

“Can I help, Mr Holmes?”

Inspecting me with hooded grey eyes, the detective considered. “That depends entirely upon your response to a query of mine. Three possible outcomes present themselves. Either you’ll give me a satisfactory answer, an unsatisfactory answer, or you’ll refuse to answer altogether, as I’ve no right to wonder what I’ve been wondering of late.”

“You may ask me anything, Mr Holmes.”

“In that case, I wonder that you didn’t try for another profession,” he observed idly.

“By George, I don’t… why… what do you mean by that, sir?” The effort not to appear slighted was excruciating.

“Dear me, no, put the thought from your head. You’ve a natural talent for police work.” Mr Holmes made a lazy figure eight of dismissal with his forefinger. “It’s the income, you see. Detection doesn’t pay the official Force well, not when they’re honest, which you are, and rewards are rare – maybe more so than you’d hoped. You could easily have been a City clerk with your acumen and risen accordingly, but instead you live week to week, probably because you are forced to support someone who is not in your immediate family but is nevertheless dear to you, following a tragedy which affected that person gravely.”

Someone who’s never spoken with Mr Holmes might think they’d anticipate his omniscience, maybe even expect he’s about to throw open the curtains of their lives and survey the mess in broad daylight. Well, I record it here for posterity: no one save Dr Watson himself fares any better than I did.

“Heavens, lad, sit down!” Mr Holmes tugged me towards my own chair, pivoting so his lean body rested against