The Finality Problem Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  By G. S. Denning and available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Leave us a Review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Man with the Twisted… Everything

  The Adventure of the Lying Detective

  The Boggart Valley Mystery

  The Engineer’s Dumb

  The Adventure of the F***ing Men

  The Adventure of the Margarine Stone

  The Adventure of the True Garrideb

  The Adventure of that Stockbroker Jerk

  The Finality Problem

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By G. S. Denning and available from Titan Books

  WARLOCK HOLMES

  A Study in Brimstone

  The Hell-hound of the Baskervilles

  My Grave Ritual

  The Sign of Nine

  The Finality Problem

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  Warlock Holmes: The Finality Problem

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785659386

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785659393

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: May 2020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2020 G. S. Denning

  Illustrations © 2020 Sean Patella-Buckley

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  This book is dedicated to all the fans who have come so far with Warlock and Me. Now, you must endure my great hiatus. Don’t worry; I’ll try not to make it too great.

  THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED… EVERYTHING

  WELCOME BACK, READER. TO THOSE WHO HAVE FOLLOWED my adventures so far, you must feel you know me well by now. I hope you may think of me as a friend. That is how I think of you.

  Or no…

  Let me say: perhaps I do.

  If you are one of the human survivors of the apocalypse (which, as I write this, is probably no more than a week away), then yes, I think of you as a friend. More than that. You are the spark of a light I thought might be extinguished, and I would do anything to help you, if I could.

  But, it is also possible you are a demon. You’ve picked this book up out of the wreckage and you’re wondering what all the squiggly little markings on the papers are, as you idly pull the pages out one by one and eat them, in order to while away the time before your return to your job at the Murder Mines of Blaglon-Dral (formerly known as Oregon). If such is the case, allow me to express my fervent desire that you gag on the paper.

  Right now. This page. Choke on it, you bastard!

  And yet, let us assume the best (probably a foolish assumption post-demon-apocalypse, now that I think on it). We shall presume you are human and wish to hear my story.

  So… where to begin?

  Ah! Bayswater Road! That is where my life began anew in a flurry of reinvention which I had no hope of stopping. I was in love with my new wife, Mary, you see. I didn’t want to be; she was perfectly awful. She bore much the same opinion of me, I am sure. But what could we do about it? Warlock Holmes had bound our souls together, and so we found ourselves stuck. There was no rest for either of us—no contentment or repose—unless we were in the other’s company. No matter how tired I became, I could not sleep without her in my arms. Being with Mary was like scratching an itch. You don’t like the itch. You wish it would go away. But it does not. It stings and burns and vexes you. So, you scratch at it. And instantly, there is this sense of satisfaction and well-being. Comfort. It feels so good to scratch the damned thing. But then, the moment you stop, the itch returns.

  Even the pleasures of the flesh—which had been strange to me until that point and which, if I am honest, I had always wanted to try—were tinged with preternatural need. It was as if Mary and I had only one soul now, and it was painful to that soul to live in two bodies. For us, the act of love was tinged with desperation. The ancient Greeks speak of couples as separate parts of one creature, smote in twain, whose severed halves are trying to physically push themselves back together into one flesh. It’s a somewhat romantic notion, until you actually feel it—until you experience the horror of trying to force yourself to meld with your severed half before the trauma of separation causes you to wither and die.

  When I think of it now, I burn with embarrassment. And also anger at my friend, Warlock Holmes.

  Given the rather… impromptu… nature of our courtship, Mary and I mutually felt there would be no benefit in delaying our nuptials. We were wed just three days after our first kiss—that horrifying, unexpected kiss that changed everything. The church was practically empty. Mary’s employers were there—Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Forrester—tearfully happy to be rid of Mary’s company. Warlock was there, too. He lurked in the back corner, trying to keep from weeping. He seemed proud of himself, in a way—happy he’d avoided my death and set me on a path that looked something like the life I’d always wanted. Yet it was clear he had no idea what to do with himself in my absence and dreaded the coming solitude. Grogsson and Lestrade showed up, out of a sense of obligation, I am sure. My sister did not. She was busy with her family and too far away to come in only three days. She’d heard so little of me over the past few years that I honestly suspect she’d thought me dead—that my Afghan wounds had eventually proved fatal and that nobody had thought to tell her. Ah, well…

  So, Mary and I found ourselves in that familiar predicament of most newlyweds: cast out of our old positions and in need of finding a new home for ourselves. Happily, this presented no difficulty. Mary had, after all, been the recipient of some portion of the Agra treasure courtesy of Thaddeus Sholto. Over the years, he’d given her six pearls of such extraordinary quality and size as to make them worthy of inclusion amongst the Crown Jewels.

  I convinced her to part with one.

  The sale commanded headlines the world over, as did the joy of the new owners—the Russian royal family. Czar Romanoff immediately handed the pearl over to his family jeweler, Karl Gustavovich Fabergé, to see if he could make anything special with it. Though middlemen and go-betweens made off with a good portion of the funds, Mary and I found ourselves with more money than anybody could ever really need in a single lifetime.

  We bought a home in Bayswater Road, just across from Kensington Gardens. It was of quite preposterous size for only two people. As Mary began setting up house, I rejoined the career I had striven so hard to obtain. Though some time had passed since I’d practiced medicine in any official capacity, I was instantly successful. This, I must admit, had less to do with my skill and more to do with the fact that I didn’t really need any mor
e money again, ever. If my patients were well-to-do, I certainly charged them. But I did not dedicate myself to milking every last cent of the family fortune the way most doctors did. And if my patients were destitute, I tended to make up excuses. True, this life-saving bottle of medicine might cost one third of the yearly income of that woman who did not wish to see her child waste away and perish, but… well, you know… it was about to expire, after all. I really needed it out of my bag, didn’t I? And under such conditions, why, it would be somewhat unconscionable to charge for it. No, no. I was only glad to be rid of the stuff. My bills tended to be issued late and with no great sense of urgency. No attempt at collection was ever made. Often, I tended to forget to present a bill at all. My successful medical career was costing us hundreds.

  Mary didn’t care. Oh, she belittled me for it sometimes, but I think the main point of my practice—in both our minds—was that Mary be wed to a man with some form of reputation. Besides, if I didn’t have something to occupy my time, we should have nothing else to do but sit around all day, staring at each other with resentment and desire. I was glad to be out of the house. Though, I did have frequent compulsions to return to her. Sometimes—no matter how sick my patient, no matter how pressing their danger—I would be stricken with the overwhelming urge to just finish up and hurry back to the side of my tormentor. I could feel at ease nowhere else.

  As I began re-teaching myself the forgotten particulars of modern medicine, Mary got up to an altogether different form of mischief. On only our second day in our Bayswater house, she sidled up beside me with a wicked smile and said, “Oh, John! Good news: I’ve bought a butler.”

  “Hmm. Hired is what I hope you mean.”

  “Oh, details, details,” Mary scoffed. “But now, don’t you wish to meet him?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Two more clicks of cruelty insinuated themselves into her smile. (I say “clicks” only because I do not know the proper unit of measurement for cruelty. Weight is ounces, distance is inches, but what is cruelty? It’s the sort of question that arose more often than you might think, in the company of Mary Watson.)

  “Joachim, come here,” she said.

  “Yeth! Abtholutely!” said a rich, husky voice from the corridor. A moment later a trim Spanish Adonis in rather tight trousers leapt in after it. He had that luxurious Madrid lisp, which I am told King Ferdinand made popular some years before. Yet, the confidence of his bearing, the spark in his eye, and the tightness of his legwear gave one to understand that he was actually much more impressive than any boring old king.

  “Young Joachim is looking for a change in careers,” Mary informed me. “Formerly, he was a dancer.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Clearly.”

  “I will do my betht to pleathe you!” he announced. “Let me know if there ith anything you wish for, John!”

  “I suppose I wish for you not to call me John.” Turning to Mary, I asked, “Has he any training at all?”

  “Oh hush, John! He’s perfect!”

  “Well yes, physically, but…”

  “I said hush!”

  Three days later, we got our German. Oh! I mean our gardener. Gunter was his name and he was roughly as broad across the shoulders as a yak turned sideways. No matter how much money I set aside for the purpose, we never seemed to own enough shirt to cover him fully. He did a good job maintaining the lawn and grounds, but his chief duty seemed to be standing about in front of the sitting-room windows, lifting heavy bags of seed in a particularly rippling manner with his blond hair flowing in the breeze.

  Now, most fellows who spend their days away from the house might be forgiven for feeling some misgivings about their wives’ motives in hiring such manner of help. But I was not among them. Or, let me say, I knew it was not the obvious reason. I felt the pull of Holmes’s matrimonial curse—and knew Mary must feel it, too. The idea that she would cheat on me was preposterous. I almost wished she would, just to have an excuse to try and break away from her. But the truth is she was as bound to me as I to her.

  So, what was she up to? For a moment, I thought she was trying to create a beautiful home by filling it with examples of beautiful people. Until, that is, her third hire.

  “This is our maid,” said Mary.

  “Oh! Erm… hello. What is your name?” I asked.

  “Sally Hemsworth, sir, at yer service.”

  “And… you’re meant to be a maid?”

  “Oh, yes, sir! I can clean anything. Sweep a hearth, lift a stain. I can even cook a fair bit. Oh, and mending! I’m tops at mending! You’ll see!”

  “Now—and I hope you won’t resent the question—how old are you, Sally?”

  “Ten this summer, we think. Not quite sure, ’cause I never knew me mum.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head thoughtfully. “I just… I feel like this should be illegal.”

  “Well happily, it isn’t,” Mary hissed through a disingenuous smile. “It’s a tale as old as time: a happy home torn asunder, all because the husband’s wandering eye comes to rest upon the maid. I do not intend to fall prey to such misfortunes.”

  “Not for another decade or two, clearly,” I agreed.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” said Mary. “We’ll fire her before then.”

  Little Sally began to cry. I tried to comfort her—tried to convince her Mary wasn’t being serious. Yet, as the days went on, I realized she was. Mary had a hard and fast rule: no female household member was to be more attractive than she was—not by a long shot. Conversely, no male servant was to be less attractive than I. Again, not by a long shot.

  Very long.

  Very long and toned and hot and throbbing.

  But, at least, as Mary’s collection of luscious man-meat continued to grow, her hidden purpose revealed itself: Mary intended to turn our house into the social hub of the neighborhood. As she herself was utterly devoid of charm and social skills, this had to be achieved through guile. She began hiring speakers and inviting the local ladies around to hear them. Said ladies knew they must attend at least once, for propriety’s sake. On their first visit, they were rather shocked by the state of our butler. Even more so by the state of our butler’s trousers. And most of all, by the fact that the tea service was kept on a low shelf, behind Mary. Thus, whenever one of them wanted a splash of milk, Joachim was forced to turn away from the assembled guests and bend deeply at the waist. They were, of course, scandalized. Or no… that’s not the word I’m looking for.

  Jealous: that’s the one.

  Not only was Mary horrifyingly wealthy, she was married to a successful doctor who thought nothing of leaving her alone in such mouth-watering company. The neighborhood women were more than a bit interested in exactly what was going on with that.

  We began to become popular.

  And not just with the guests, but with the lecturers, too. Mary filled our drawing room’s social calendar with painters, poets, sculptors, writers, wits and wags. Not the good ones, you understand. Oh no, no. Those had been snapped up by trendy social circles years ago. We got the leftovers. But the advantage to these fellows was that they were willing to clear their schedule in exchange for quite nominal fees, just to feel they were making money in the artistic endeavor they were embarrassing. And did they notice how freely the drinks flowed at Mary’s little soirées? Yes. Yes—to the detriment of their livers—they rather did. Even better: Mary was what they called a patron of the arts. By this they meant that if they had accidentally trotted out some unsaleable sculpture of Venus (or maybe some roses, depending which angle you looked at it from) Mary Watson would buy it.

  They came in droves. I think it took less than forty days for Mary to establish herself as the absolute queen of London’s third-tier artistic set. Evenings at my house were loud, boisterous, and not particularly intelligent. I spent a great deal of time in my upstairs study, trying to ignore it all. Or—whenever I could manage it—lingering about on Baker Street.

  How I yearned for a glimpse of W
arlock Holmes. Sometimes I rehearsed little harangues I would use to dress him down—to humiliate him for his unfair treatment of the man who had been his faithful companion through so many adventures. Sometimes I only wanted to throw myself in my familiar chair by the fire, to complain of this everyday vexation, or that one. To ask if Holmes had any interesting cases at the moment. And inquire if, perhaps… he needed my assistance?

  Yet it was to no avail. I had no trouble finding Baker Street, but 221B was oddly absent. I could easily retrace my steps to that familiar and beloved place, but when I looked up to see that battered old door… it just wasn’t there. The whole middle part of the building was missing. And it seemed as if the street were thirty feet shorter than it ought to be. What’s more, I noticed that the addresses on either side of where I thought 221 should be were 335 and 339. So, it did seem as if there was an address missing, but not 221.

  I could not fathom why. Had Holmes changed them to keep me from finding my way back? Was he hiding from me? Or had this always been part of the magical defenses that stopped the army of enemies he’d built over the last two and a half centuries from finding him and murdering him where he slept? Had it only been the fact of my residence at 221 that had allowed me to perceive it? Now that my residence was dissolved, was I prey to the same tricks that had fooled Moriarty’s minions for all these years?

  Or was it a question of need? I recalled that during “The Adventure of the _eckled _and”, Holmes expressed wonder that our client had even come to him at all. He’d said something to the effect that the only people who ever found him to ask his help were the ones who particularly needed his help. Was that the problem? Did I not need Holmes?

  I felt like I did.

  In the end, it was not any effort of mine that brought me back in contact with the world of adventure I had lost, but one of Mary’s friends. Or rather, her friend’s drug-addled husband.