20 November 1922, Paris
It is four o’clock Monday morning and Holmes, stealthily, so as not to awaken his wife, lets himself into the hotel room of the Hôtel de la Paix, located in the Fifth Arrondissement, south of the Seine in Paris’ artistic Left Bank. He waits a moment, slumped against the door he’s just closed behind him, to allow his eyes to adjust to the low light coming from the crack of the bathroom door beside him. The room is long and narrow such that the length of the bed stretches three quarters across the width of the room, effectively dividing the space in half. The front half contains the bathroom, closet, bed and small nightstand. The remainder of the furnishings; dresser, armchair, and wooden valet to the left, a table and two chairs to the right, are at the far end of the room along with a window and doorway to a small balcony.
Wearily he removes his shoes before crossing the room to peek outside the curtained window onto the cul-de-sac below. He glances back to the bed, just able to make out the large mound in the middle of it. Exhausted, he can’t help but sigh with the realization that he’s to be relegated to the chair in the corner so as not to disrupt Russell in her elaborate cocoon of strategically placed pillows. He shrugs his wet and dirty coat from his shoulders, laying it over the valet, and proceeds to empty his pockets and remove the gun tucked in his belt at the small of his back. He hears a stir from Russell and then a grunt of pain, but before he can reach her to still her movements, she calls out into the room “Martin?” followed by a note of friendly admonishment “I told you I’m waiting. Would you just lie down?”
Holmes stops mid-step as he tries to process this unexpected statement. Moments later a narrow shaft of light appears from a door opposite the bed, and LeRocque’s voice calls in with mock sternness, “Mary? You better be where I left you.”
Light spills into the room as LeRocque enters through a door, normally kept locked, that connects this hotel room to a similar one on the other side. LeRocque comes to an abrupt halt at the sight of Holmes with his gun still held loosely in his hand.
Russell is the first to speak. “Holmes? Why are you here?”
Holmes is reminded of the last time Russell had asked him that question, after he had surprised her in her bolt hole. Slowly he turns his head from LeRocque to Russell, eyebrow raised. Gesturing vaguely with the gun toward LeRocque he responds, “Were you expecting someone else?”
Catching the reference, she replies, “No. No secret liaisons.”
“It would appear I should accuse you of cheating this time.”
Russell’s laughter sounds more like a howl as it is cut short by a sharp intake of breath at the pain in her ribs. Russell pleads, “Oh Holmes. Stop.”
The Lieutenant is still rooted to the spot, palms raised toward Holmes in a gesture intended to calm an armed and dangerous adversary. “Holmes, this is not as it appears.” Directing his gaze to the gun he continues, “You can put that down and I’ll explain everything.”
Gasping again as she tries to stifle her laughter, Russell finally manages, “Holmes. Don’t. The Lieutenant has suffered enough. Don’t worry, Martin. It’s an inside joke. He’s not about to shoot you.”
Laughter dancing in his eyes, Sherlock sets his gun on the dressing table as he turns to the tense and increasingly confused Lieutenant. “Lieutenant, Russell is quite right. Forgive me. It’s been a long day.” Taking in LeRocque’s fully dressed and dishevelled appearance, he continues, “For all of us, I see. I thank you for watching over Russell as dutifully as I asked. She has been disinclined to follow doctor’s orders, I take it?”
LeRocque looks back and forth between Holmes and Russell as the meaning of Russell’s words finally catch up to him. “What? Joking? Again?” Shaking his head as if to clear it, he slouches into the door jamb as the tension of the moment leaves him. “Hm. Disinclined. A mild understatement. You know, she has no inclination whatsoever toward self-preservation.”
Holmes chuckles. “A fact that has come to my attention. I did warn you.” Holmes turns on a small lamp on the dresser and continues to putter about the room while LeRocque recounts Russell’s behaviour.
“I caught up with her at the hospital. As soon as they finished taping her up, she was determined to go right back to Pigalle. She almost got away from me twice. Wouldn’t even take a bit of morphia to ease the pain.”
Holmes turns suddenly serious, directing a stern look to Russell. “You’re not up to it, Russell. You can pursue the other matter that brought us here.”
Annoyed with the two men and how they seem to be aligning against her, “I’ll not be coddled. By either of you. I’m uncomfortable, nothing more” replies Russell snappishly. “I know my limits and will decide for myself.”
Succumbing to the old habits of master and pupil, Holmes reacts to Russell’s stubborn petulance with dismissing authority. It’s a well-worn track, so easy to slip into and difficult to break out of once it’s begun. “It’s not your injuries alone I’m referring to, Russell. Your behaviour last night was foolish in the extreme. It’s a wonder you’re not more seriously injured. It would seem you’ve forgotten everything I taught you” rebuked Holmes.
“Or your instruction was inadequate” retorts Russell.
“You mean by not introducing you to London’s most vile holes? Perhaps. But you failed to apply even the most rudimentary of tactics. Your knife tossed away uselessly into a window frame. Your gun left in the hands of a child. Sitting to the right of the child, hindering the use of your dominant hand. Even worse, you had your back turned to the most dangerous man in the room. I could go on.”
LeRocque can’t help himself from coming to Russell’s defence. “Whoa, Holmes! You’re being completely unfair.”
“Is it also ‘unfair’, Lieutenant, that you shot dead the one person who could have led us to the mastermind of these crimes?” asks Holmes scathingly, not even deigning to look at him. Anticipating a roar of protest from LeRocque, Holmes’ arm snaps up, directing a flat palm in the Lieutenant’s direction to silence him while keeping his gaze locked on his wife.
It may not have been LeRocque’s intention, but his interruption is just what Holmes and Russell need to drop their futile quarrel. Taking a deep breath, Holmes speaks with resignation and empathy. “Fair or not, Russell, you know I’m right.”
Russell understands he is not talking about strategic errors of the night before but about her leaving the murder investigation up to him. She appreciates his tone, and the acknowledgement of the dilemma she faces, but is not yet convinced of his conclusion.
Before Russell can respond, Holmes redirects his attention to the Lieutenant, dropping his hand in mild surprise at LeRocque’s pensive gaze. From long experience, Holmes had expected LeRocque to react defensively to his accusation. Most men would bluster at his challenge and rationalize their behaviour as both obvious and necessary even though it was neither. They would not consider the logic of his conclusion nor the ramifications, and Holmes would then proceed to enlighten and humiliate them with withering precision. Holmes is therefore surprised and pleased to see that LeRocque chooses reason over ego, skipping the wounded bellow altogether to consider the importance of the bar owner.
“You’re sure then, the owner killed them?” asks LeRocque.
“Yes,” replies Holmes simply.
“And the sister too?” asks Russell, without a trace of hope in her voice.
Holmes turns to collapse into the chair. “She’s dead, Russ. I didn’t find her body, but the evidence at the Wilson’s was obvious if you knew what to look for. I suspect her body was carted off unnoticed in the trash just as her sister’s body would have been if you hadn’t found her. And yes, the owner was definitely the one who killed all three; the sisters and the mother. His boot a clear match to the print taken at the Wilson’s. The fibre taken from your hand matches his garment.”
Holmes continues, “I questioned the pair you found at Le Choc, Giselle and her daughter Marie. They remember quite clearly the last time they had seen a woman with her two girls. They’d seen them before, once or twice, but they were foreigners and kept to themselves. The evening before the mother’s body was found, they saw her pleading with the owner, in a mix of broken French and some other language Giselle didn’t recognize. Turkish, I suspect. Before long, the owner took the woman to a back room, leaving the girls at a table where they sat silently waiting, not even speaking to one another. About ten minutes later the owner returned alone and pushed the girls into the kitchen. Giselle and Marie had been jealous at the time. They knew the routine, sex for food, and were envious that the owner had chosen these foreigners over them.” Holmes pauses for a moment at the horrible irony of it, before continuing. “It didn’t take long to find the hammer he’d clubbed the mother with, still stained with blood and hair, as well as where he’d kept the girls locked up.”
“I also tracked down the bartender. He was skulking not far away in the hopes of helping himself to the till once the police cleared out. He said the owner, a Greek by the name of Vokos, had been around for a while, 6 or 7 years, maybe more. He hated everybody, especially foreigners even though he was one himself, and most of all the Turks. All too happy to use them though or take their money.”
Slouching back into the chair and dropping his head onto the chair back, Holmes waits for Russell and LeRocque to absorb his news. Russell asks the obvious next question. “The owner, Vokos, he was just the monster at the end of someone’s leash, wasn’t he? The second man, at the Wilson’s, with the dress shoe?”
“He was also at the Girard’s, I think. I didn’t tell you before. I found a footprint in the yard by the back gate after you’d left. It matches the dress shoe in style and it’s too large to have been one of Mr. Girard’s. We’d need the shoe to be absolutely sure, but it fits for now. I hypothesize it was his gun that shot the Wilsons and Girards. I couldn’t find a gun anywhere at Le Choc and the bartender had never seen Vokos with one.”
“So we’re practically where we started; the man behind the Wilson’s, and now the Girard’s, murders is still out there.” She starts to struggle out of her nest, still clothed in her traveling outfit of the day before except for a borrowed shirt to replace her torn one. “Where to now? You have a plan, Holmes. You wouldn’t have come here unless you knew you had the time.”
“Russell.” After a pause, Holmes says quietly but firmly. “I refuse to answer that question.”
Seeing the intensity of Russell’s glare, and having been at the wrong end of it more than once over the last 12 hours, LeRocque tries to excuse himself from the room, not wanting to be privy to the coming argument.
Remaining quiet but firm, Holmes says, “Lieutenant, stay where you are. Your assistance is required.”
Immensely uncomfortable, LeRocque attempts to insert some levity. “Should I get my handcuffs?”
With a twitch of the lips, Holmes drawls, “No use, she can get out of them. They sent her home with morphine. How much?”
“Holmes” growls Russell, low and menacingly. “I am not amused.”
“No. Nor am I. How can you not see the logic? You are of no current use to this investigation, Russell. You are unfamiliar with the city, have no connections here to be exploited, and you’ve lost the use of your left side. The only obvious course of action is for you to take up the other matter asked of us. It’s at least as important, possibly more so. You need to leave the murder investigation up to me at least for the next few days while you heal. The Lieutenant can stand in your place. What he lacks in skill he makes up for in local knowledge, connections within the Sūreté, a car, gun and, as evidenced by his presence here tonight, tenacity under duress.”
Russell resumes her struggle, getting to her feet with clenched teeth. “He doesn’t know what this is all about.”
“I will tell him. Over breakfast in two hours. Assuming this plan is amenable to you, Lieutenant?”
Not wanting to take sides in the negotiation between husband and wife, LeRocque gives a non-committal response. “Captain LeMarc’s orders are to keep you away from him and out from underfoot.”
“Are they, now? How disappointing to know that those in charge at the Sūreté are as imbecilic as those in London’s Scotland Yard. However, in this instance, Russell, it appears the Lieutenant is conveniently at my disposal. That liberates you to track down Mr. Hemingway.”
“Hem? Ernest Hemingway, you mean? What’s he got to do with anything?” asks LeRocque.
Both Holmes and Russell turn their heads to LeRocque and ask simultaneously, “You know him?”
Startled at becoming their intense focus of attention, LeRocque answers as best he can, his eyes darting from one to the other, “Hem was a driver too. Ambulance. In Italy. During the war. There’s quite a few of us here in Paris. Don’t know him particularly well – a friend, of a friend sort of thing. He spends a lot of time in cafés, writing, or talking about writing. An artistic crowd.”
Russell and Holmes continue to stare at him as LeRocque’s voice trails off.
“A friend, of a friend?” prompts Russell.
“What? Oh. It was Dos. John Dos Passos. He’s from Chicago, like Hemingway, although I don’t think they knew each other there. He’s a painter and a writer, part of the same artistic crowd as Hem. At least when he’s here. He travels a lot, everywhere and all the time. I think he’s in New York at the moment. Anyway, I met Dos when he was with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps – around Verdun. When the service was taken over by the United States Army, Dos didn’t want to enlist. He’s a pacifist, you know, a true ‘gentleman volunteer’. He signed on with the Red Cross in Italy and met Hemingway there.”
“That does present intriguing possibilities,” says Holmes, rubbing his chin as he considers whether to exploit LeRocque’s friendship to recruit Hemingway for Mycroft. Then, with a decisive tap of his fist on the chair’s armrest he continues, “I think the arrangement should stay as it is. For the time being our man of the Sūreté will be more valuable to me than to you, Russell.”
All business, Holmes gets up. “Lieutenant, I suggest you get some rest. We will discuss matters further over breakfast”. Holmes ushers LeRocque into his room returning a minute later with a handful of medical supplies including tape and the morphine Russell had refused earlier. He kicks the door between the rooms closed, locks it, and, leaning his back against the door, turns his full attention to his wife.
Husband and wife remain standing like this for almost a minute, before Russell breaks the silence. “Your logic is sound.”
Russell’s acquiescence to turn her attention to the Hemingway matter may have brought Holmes a modicum of relief but not because he won the argument. Russell, he knew, would have pursued the investigation with almost limitless zeal, drawing the strength from her compassion and the perseverance from her strict sense of responsibility. He also knew that stepping away from the investigation pains her as much as it would have him. Like him, once resolved to act, she would not be deterred. Not unless the weight of evidence or opportunity tips the balance toward a better course of action. All Holmes did was provide a rational alternative she deemed acceptable. He is acutely aware that her decision will stand only so long as it remains, in her estimation, the best option.
Their course of action resolved, Holmes turns his attention to the immediate needs of the moment, announcing, “Russell, we need a bath.” He steps over to her in two long strides, taking her head in his hands, for a deep kiss. Russell attempts a weak protest, claiming that she is no condition for what he has in mind. Holmes opts to completely ignore her and proceeds to pull the pins from her hair. Silently he runs his fingers along her scalp and the back of her neck to loosen it about her, and then leads her into the bathroom, turning the tub faucet to hot. As the room fills with steam, he proceeds to undress first himself and then, with studious attention and great care, his wife. Before assisting her into the tub, he carefully examines the taping on her ribs so that he is sure he can duplicate it. He settles Russell in the hot water, bending her knees to allow her to lay back, and proceeds to spend the next 20 delicious minutes washing first her hair and then every inch of her body with slow, tender, thorough, and ever so stimulating attention to detail. Between the warmth of the water and Holmes’ exquisite touch, Russell is rendered nearly incoherent, her muscles soft, skin tingling, and her brain empty but for the waves of sensation beneath his hands.
Noting the flush to her checks and soft moans escaping from her lips, Holmes is most pleased with himself and the obvious success of his efforts. He leans in for a kiss and a gentle nip at her lip, to bring her back into the present. Her eyes now open, he pops the plug, and carefully raises her to a standing position for a rinse. Turning the faucet back on and directing the flow of water to the sprayer, he hands it to her to keep herself warm while he proceeds to give himself a thorough although considerably more expeditious scrubbing. His ablutions complete, Russell hands the sprayer back and, stepping closer, reaches her right hand to him in an unmistakably provocative manner. Holmes looks to her, a smile on his face but brow raised in question. With a glint in her eye, Russell says, “One good turn deserves another. I may not be ambidextrous, but I have some skill with my right hand.”
“The depths of your talents know no bounds,” chuckles Holmes.
“What is it you always say, practice makes perfect?” quips Russell. However, by then, Holmes has moved quite beyond a verbal response and the question goes unanswered. In the end, Russell is feeling quite pleased with the success of her efforts too.
The hot water nearly exhausted, Holmes and Russell resign themselves to bringing this restorative interlude to an end. After drying off, and brushing Russell’s hair, Holmes, with Russell’s acquiescence, administers a not so small dose of morphine before re-taping Russell’s ribs, now a livid tapestry of red and purple, and helping her don clean undergarments. He settles her back into the middle of the bed, pillows and blankets propped around her.
“Rest Holmes. You need it as much as I.”
“There’s an extra bed in LeRocque’s room if I need it. I’ll be sure to leave food in the room for you before the Lieutenant and I depart.”
“You really are abandoning me for LeRocque. Tell me where you’re taking him, or I’ll have to accuse you of a secret liaison.”
“Not so secret, Russell.”
“You haven’t told me where you are going.”
“No. No, I have not. The folly of an overprotective husband. But I will check in with the hotel periodically.”
Starting to drift off to sleep, Russell mutters to herself, “Incorrigible husband more like. It’s a wonder I ever married you.”
“A wonder indeed, Russell,” whispers Holmes.