The Sherlockian

CHAPTER 44 Is It Your Turn to Kill Me Now?

January 17, 2010, cont.

Harold and Sarah sat down, finally, on a small outcropping of rocks. The stones were cold against his thin pants. The wind was blowing fast and cold across his face.

They looked down at the valley below. In the distance they could just make out the museum, illuminated by the flashing lights of a few police cars. Officers, little black dots scampering between the light beams, seemed to be approaching the scene.

“We should be safe here,” Sarah said. “Eric’s the only one who knows we were even in the museum, and he didn’t see where we went. The cops didn’t follow us. No one knows where we are.”

Harold nodded but didn’t speak.

“How’s your head?” she asked.

“Bleeding.”

Sarah took the bright yellow scarf from her neck and wrapped it around his head, covering the wound. She pulled the scarf tight, tying it off, and Harold winced. She had been wearing this scarf the day he met her, he realized. He watched now as the bright yellow of the scarf was blotted black by the red blood gushing into the fabric.

“You’ll be okay,” she said. “It’s not a deep cut. Head wounds just bleed a lot.”

He gestured toward the gun she’d placed on her lap. “Is it your turn to kill me now?”

She smiled. “No. It was never my turn to kill you. Nobody was ever going to kill anyone.”

“Eric?” Harold said, pronouncing the name with particular bitterness.

“Eric wasn’t supposed to kill you either, all right? I promise. Look. I’m sorry. Okay? I know I have a lot to explain, and I’m going to, but before I start, I just want to say I’m sorry.”

“Do you want me to forgive you?”

“Yes, I do. But not right now. I know that you won’t. At least I wouldn’t. But please, believe me, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Harold after a sizable pause. “I’m sure.”

“Here.” Sarah took the gun from her lap and handed it to Harold. It felt cold and heavy in his hand. “You take this. If you want to shoot me, then shoot me.”

Harold felt the weight of the gun, turning it over curiously between his hands. He regarded it as he would a mysterious relic dug up from a lost civilization.

“No,” he said. “I don’t shoot people.” He wound up his arm behind him as best he could, and pitched the gun over the ledge. They heard no sound of its landing, though it most likely fell into the river at the mountain’s base.

“Were you following me?” Harold asked after another long silence.

“I wasn’t. Eric was. I followed him, which was easy enough. He works for my ex-husband.” She looked at Harold, trying to gauge how much of this he already knew. His expression did not register much in the way of surprise.

“I used to be married to Sebastian Conan Doyle,” Sarah continued. “Used to be, okay? Everything I said about the divorce was true. He’s a bastard, let me just say that straight out. But I seem to have a long history with bastards. I don’t know. They find me, I guess.”

“Why do I care?” The harshness in Harold’s voice surprised even himself. As he felt calmer, and safer, he also felt angrier.

“Because none of this was my idea, okay? At least not the worst parts. You have to think I’m a terrible person, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Sarah sighed. “I understand. But listen. I really am a reporter. Well, I really was a reporter. That was all true, too. Sebastian and I separated six months ago. We did. You can look it up. It’s a long story, and you don’t care. After we split, I wanted to write again. And I had all these Sherlockian connections, because of him. Or at least I knew a lot about Alex Cale, and about all of your organizations, because Sebastian followed them religiously. He hated you all so much, I can’t even begin to tell you. But he wanted that diary. And I’ll tell you right now, I think he would have killed Alex to get it. He didn’t, I know. But I think he would have.

“When Alex announced his discovery…I wasn’t there, but I can only imagine how furious Sebastian was. When I heard about it, I knew this would be my opportunity to write again. That’s when Sebastian called me. I honestly don’t know how he found out about the piece I was working on. He said we could combine forces. We could work together to find the diary. I could write whatever I wanted, as long as I helped him. And we were finalizing our divorce… He offered to make things easier. A lot easier. There were some complications that didn’t make me look very good, and he was offering to be very generous, and… I said yes, okay? I said yes. I accept responsibility for that. It was complicated, and I said yes. I’d play the reporter, and I’d help him get the diary.”

“Where the hell did Eric come from?”

“He works for Sebastian. He has for a while. But that’s all I know.”

“If Sebastian got you to help him find the diary,” said Harold, “and then he got me to help him find the diary, then what was Eric doing? Why did Sebastian need Eric running around with a gun if he had me and you?”

Sarah paused for a moment. This was a problem she’d thought about before.

“Because he didn’t trust you,” she said. “And God knows he didn’t trust me. It’s just like Sebastian, really. You have a problem, so you throw as much money at it as possible. Hire three different people to work on it, but don’t tell them about each other, keep everyone in the dark, and if they kill each other… well, whatever. At least one of them will find what you’re looking for. I told you, Harold. He’s really, truly, totally, and completely a bastard.”

Harold looked up at the glittering stars. They barely lit the side of the mountain. Even Sarah’s face was disappearing in the blackness. He believed her. But believing her didn’t make him feel any better.

Sarah reached behind her and took the diary, placing it on Harold’s knees.

“We can use the light from my phone,” she offered, “if you want to read it.”

Harold swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Sarah removed a cell phone from her pocket and opened it, using the face of the phone like a spotlight as she pointed it at the diary. Harold gently pried open the covers. The pages were fragile and yellow, but he could make out the words written in Arthur Conan Doyle’s broad hand.

Harold held the diary between them, and together they read.