The Kidnapper in Oxfords

I have never regretted my marriage to Mary or my departure from Baker Street, despite the various strange and unsettling behaviors of my friend. Yet there were times when, in my absence, Holmes did not fare well, and I was overcome with guilt because of it. I could never quite tell whether he was truly unwell or merely making it clear how much he disapproved of my ceasing to be a bachelor and leaving him on his own. For him—something that always amused me—this was an undeniable sign of selfishness on my part.

‘It is rather selfish of you to leave me for your marriage,’ he remarked in a petulant tone as I packed my belongings. When I pointed out that he could very well marry himself, he merely scoffed and retreated to his room, sulking in silence and swallowing the bitterness caused by my wedding.

And yet, despite his childish moods, I did not dismiss Mrs. Hudson’s reports of my friend’s ill health. A growing sense of unease settled over me—though the last thing I wished for upon returning from a brief honeymoon by the shores of Brighton was distressing news.

Without hesitation, I left my unpacked luggage behind and, braving the almost-November chill, headed straight for the apartment I had once shared with Holmes, a growing sense of unease settling over me.

‘It is such a relief that you are finally here!’ Mrs. Hudson greeted me at the door, adjusting her spectacles as she regarded me with a somewhat anxious expression. ‘Ever since you moved out, I have been unable to communicate with him, and it seems he is losing the last remnants of sanity he had left!’

Under different circumstances, I might have greeted this complaint with amusement—our landlady had a tendency to exaggerate some of my friend’s peculiar habits—but this time, I sensed that it was far from a mere remark made by a flustered woman.

‘Calm yourself, Mrs. Hudson,’ I said, hoping to soothe her, though I found it difficult to maintain my own composure. ‘What has happened?’

’It all started with the discovery of that poor woman’s remains,’ the landlady began, her voice trembling as she sobbed quietly.

We sat in the kitchen, and I handed her a handkerchief along with a glass of water. She accepted them with a faint nod of gratitude, dabbing at her eyes.

’What remains?’ I asked.

Mrs. Hudson gave me a startled look, then let out a heavy sigh.

‘You’re lucky you don’t know,’ she replied, wiping her nose and recalling that I had spent the last two weeks by the sea, far from the city. ‘In early October, during the construction of the new police headquarters on Whitehall, part of a woman’s body was found.’

‘What do you mean… part of it!?’

The landlady shot me a reproachful glance, emphasizing her irritation at my constant interruptions. Yet, beyond the hint of anger in her eyes, I detected a strange fear. Mrs. Hudson hesitated, clearly reluctant to continue:

‘Well… the rest…’ She swallowed nervously and tightened her grip on the glass of water. “They say it was the torso of a woman—headless, limbless… And that the hand and foot found in the Thames earlier that September belonged to her…’

Her voice broke, and she buried her face in a handkerchief. I patted her thin, pale-skinned hand reassuringly and forced a comforting smile, though I had the distinct feeling it emerged as little more than an awkward grimace.

‘Calm down,’ I said gently, still covering the landlady’s hand with mine in a reassuring gesture. ‘Calm down,’ I repeated, as if it were a mantra rather than a mere word. ‘What about Holmes?’

Mrs. Hudson blew her nose into a handkerchief and let out a heavy sigh before she spoke.

’Holmes…’ she began, wiping her face. ‘Since the beginning of October, he has been consumed by this dreadful case. You know, doctor, I endure a great deal and try not to complain about his eccentricities, but what has been happening lately has crossed every boundary.’ Mrs. Hudson’s worry was slowly giving way to anger, mixed with fear. ’Coming home at ungodly hours in all sorts of states. Sitting motionless for entire days in the drawing room, shutting himself off from the world. Strange noises and foul-smelling experiments that corrode the furniture. One time, he brought home severed animal limbs in a sack, and to this day, the stench of decay lingers in the sitting room, with traces of blood still visible on the carpet…’ The terrified landlady once again buried her pale face in her hands. I suspected the worst was yet to come, though I doubted anything could be more dreadful than what I had just heard. ’But the most horrifying thing of all was that devilish laughter.’

’Laughter?’ I repeated, bewildered.

’Laughter,’ she confirmed, her voice laced with fear. ‘One night, I woke up in the middle of the night, and he was just sitting there—laughing. Laughing as if the devil himself had possessed him, taken hold of his already corrupted soul. I saw him like that once. He was sitting in his armchair, wrapped in his robe, smoking that dreadful pipe, and laughing like a madman, yanking at his own hair,’ she sighed. ‘After that, it happened almost every night—that infernal laughter. Until he was finally taken off the case, I could no longer tell whether it was real or whether my own imagination had begun twisting quiet nights into nightmares.’ She shuddered. ‘He is ill, Doctor. He needs someone to look after him. I can’t do it because...’ Tears welled up in her eyes again. ‘...because I’m too afraid to even bring him tea!’ She shook her head in despair.

With each word Mrs. Hudson spoke, describing Holmes’ strange behaviors, my anxiety grew more and more. Though in the seven years of our friendship I had witnessed much of his conduct and had grown accustomed to many of his ways, the behavior she described was a clear alarm that I was still needed on Baker Street. Balancing two important chapters of my life had been quite difficult, but, as I saw it, the situation urgently required my attention.

’How did he react? To being removed from the case?’ I clarified.

’Terribly.’ The landlady shook her head for the umpteenth time during our conversation. ‘ I’d rather deal with his eccentricities than his apathy and locking himself in the sitting room like a hermit. And now he’s gone back to the cocaine!’ she sobbed, looking at me helplessly. ‘Please help him, doctor. It’s been going on for a week, and for the last two days, since I left him the breakfast tray, I doubt he’s put anything else in his mouth! He’ll destroy himself if he keeps living like this!’

I bit my lip upon hearing those words. While I could easily handle Holmes’s apathy, his withdrawal from the world, and even his moments of euphoria, excitement, and agitation, the breaking of his hunger strike and the rekindling of his relationship with an old friend—cocaine—was something else entirely. Like a husband unable to resist returning to his mistress, despite a promise made to his wife, Holmes continued to fall back into its grasp. Despite my medical and friendly advice, dealing with this required far more patience and effort from me than I had anticipated.

The silence that had settled between me and Mrs. Hudson was broken by a shocking gunshot that reverberated throughout the entire apartment. I flinched in surprise, while the landlady jumped, startled and agitated. She crossed herself almost in tears and turned toward me, her eyes wide with terror, like those of an animal trapped in a cage.

’Good God!’ she cried, her voice trembling. ‘He’ll destroy the entire house! Please, doctor, do something about him, I beg you!’ The last sentence was uttered with a desperate plea for help, the kind only a person mortally terrified could express.

Once again, I tried to calm the increasingly hysterical landlady and, after convincing her to prepare something comforting for my friend, I left the small kitchen and made my way toward the stairs. I climbed the seventeen steps with my heart pounding desperately somewhere around my throat and quietly knocked on the wooden door.

As I had expected, I was met with a silence that fed dark scenarios, heavy with the scent of gunpowder. I knocked again, but once more, the same result followed. At the foot of the stairs, with a look on her face that spoke the words, ‘Didn’t I tell you?!’, appeared Mrs. Hudson, only to immediately retreat back to the kitchen.

I pressed the door handle and, with no small amount of fear, I noted that the door wouldn’t give way. However, it wasn’t locked from the inside, which was a relief. It had simply been blocked by some heavy piece of furniture, as after a few attempts, the door began to resist less and less, striking something behind it from the direction of the living room. Finally, without worrying about scratching the elegant wood, I pushed hard and decisively against the door, which opened just enough for me to slip into the living room.

The room was shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The only source of light was a narrow beam that filtered through a small gap between the door frame and the door. The air was thick, heavy with smoke, gunpowder, and the musty scent of dust and dirt. It felt as though I had stepped into a dense cloud, enveloping me in its unpleasant stench.

Blindly, stumbling in the dark, I made my way to the covered window. With a swift, practiced motion, I drew back the curtain, filling the room with the gray light of day. At the same moment, I heard a quiet hiss behind me—most likely, I had just disturbed the peace of the resident of this cave. Paying him little mind, I uncovered the second window, letting even more light pour into the room. Only then could I examine the room more closely, now transformed into the den where my friend had been living for the past few days.

Though disorder had always reigned in our sitting room, as long as I could remember—sometimes lesser, sometimes greater—the room now resembled the warehouse of an exceptionally cluttered antiquarian, to put it mildly. Had I chosen to comment on this mess more harshly, I would undoubtedly have described it as the victim of a violent tornado, transforming it into a veritable battleground, a pandemonium of chaotic traces of the detective’s endless struggle with his own possessions.

The floor was perhaps the most cluttered—everywhere were scattered dirty clothes, trash, and dishes that belonged in the sink, not the sitting room; a crystal ashtray, as if grieving the fate of its companions, lay sorrowfully tipped over, spilling its gray ashes like tears; somewhere among the tangle of bric-a-brac, I glimpsed a gray tobacco slipper and a flash of empty vials and syringes; a wooden chessboard, inlaid with marble, granite, and gold, formed a makeshift tent in the sea of disorder for the brave, intricately carved, hand-painted soldiers in black and white uniforms; and finally, the poor pine Stradivarius looked at me from the corner, carelessly tossed aside, with a silent plea for even the slightest bit of attention.

One could say that the worst of the infernal chaos was already behind me. The rest was merely a matter of rearranged furniture, tilted paintings, new bullet marks near the initials of Queen Victoria—VR—or letters knocked off the coffee table. And yet, all of it still contributed to the pitiful and sorrowful picture of my friend’s carelessness and untidiness.

At last, I turned my attention to him, after a long moment of absorbing the sight of the devastated salon. He sat in an armchair, facing the window, exuding an air of strange stillness and indifference to everything happening around him. The only signs of life he showed were his eyes, narrowed beneath twitching eyelids, and his hand, instinctively covering them. Only after a while, when the harsh daylight ceased to stab at his pupils with steel, glowing red needles, did he dare to move his hand away, open his eyes, and at last—reveal his face.

I had seen Holmes in all manner of states before, but this one, despite my accustomed familiarity with such sights, was by no means an improvement over those to which I had grown used, and which had never caused me any real concern.

His tangled, dirty hair, full of knots, hung over his pale forehead, with rebellious strands sticking out here and there. On his sunken cheeks, a stubbled beard had turned a bluish hue, extending down to his neck and accentuating the detective’s gaunt Adam’s apple. Beneath drooping eyelids, his sharp yet vacant eyes, clouded and unfocused, peered at me with irises of an indeterminate color, set deep within hollow sockets—or perhaps it was merely the swollen, pink-brown circles under his eyes that gave that impression. His thin arms were draped in a scarlet bathrobe, patched in several places, and underneath it, a crumpled white shirt could be seen, its fabric sharply contrasting with the black suspenders attached to trousers of the same color.

To my friend, although his sharp profile and the austere lines of his face still bore traces of his true nature, he now resembled more of a weary and emaciated patient, aware of his impending death, rather than the brilliant detective known throughout London—and perhaps even the country. His long, delicate fingers, slightly trembling and as sensitive as insect antennae, weakly gripped the black, gleaming handle of the still-smoking revolver.

The first thing I did was snatch the weapon from his hand, grasping the still-heated barrel, and place it on the table, away from him. He didn’t react. The burning fire of anxiety within me was stoked like coal by the complete lack of resistance from Holmes. It was as if he simply didn’t care, or perhaps he was so weakened that he no longer had the strength to properly hold the gun.

His irregular breathing undoubtedly indicated the use of some substance. Though Mrs. Hudson had mentioned cocaine, I prayed it was some vile liquid instead—one of those he had a habit of drinking, perhaps even the one I had poured out of the shattered crystal glass into the cold hearth. I would have accepted it with a slight sense of relief, as long as it wasn’t that deadly drug.

As usual, however, I was wrong...

When I sat down on the small stool, facing the dazed detective, my eyes were drawn to his elegant leather case, which concealed clean needles, lying on the table, and the empty, unscrewed vial. Holmes noticed my gaze shifting from him to the case and, with the speed of a cobra, extended his slender arm to seize his possession. But before he could hide it again, I tightened my grip on his wrist, feeling the jutting, round bone beneath his pale skin. The case fell back onto the table, but neither Holmes nor I paid it any mind. With a strange, unfamiliar strength—one I would not have suspected of him at that moment—he tried to break free from my hold, which I tightened further, not concerned that I might leave bruises on his wrist for the next few days. Feeling my friend’s cold, furious gaze upon me, I rolled up his sleeve to the elbow. Before me lay his thin, pale forearm, marked with fresh puncture wounds and some bruises, between which several small cuts reddened, no older than a few hours.

As I, almost hypnotized, stared at his mutilated hand, Holmes wrenched it from my grasp. However, he was too late to seize the case—I quickly shoved it into my trouser pocket, pretending not to notice his indignation as he rolled down his sleeve again.

A powerful wave of sadness and despondency swept over me, unable to quench the guilt and anger burning like dry straw in the summer, which only grew stronger. I could hear the thin, mocking voice of my conscience in my head, taunting me, pointing out how much fun I had in Brighton, while my friend—and still, in some sense, my patient—might have been enduring unpleasant days in London. I had the distinct feeling it was speaking with his very voice, and inwardly, I prayed that this time, it would prove to be the cruel echo of my leaving the Baker Street rooms for my own cozy flat. I would have preferred that to the words I heard later, which made me realize that, in fact, Mrs. Hudson had not been far off.

’What happened?’ I asked gently at last, speaking for the first time since I had entered the sitting room. Holmes’ vacant gaze slid over me before settling on the sight of the gray, wet street outside the window. The only response I received was a slight shrug of his shoulders, so I asked again, only to receive the same answer.

’Nothing,’ he replied at last, when I asked for the third time.

’Really?’ I wanted to say more, but held myself back. As a doctor, I always tried never to lose my composure or add fuel to the fire, ensuring the patient as much comfort as possible. And Holmes, above all, needed medical help first; only later, as a friend, would I address the state of his troubled mind.

’Nothing has happened that might concern you in any way,’ said Holmes, his tone as indifferent as when he was wearily outlining his reasoning, receiving unremarkable information from the police, or simply dismissing an uninteresting client. ‘Leave, Watson.’

I felt anger gradually evolving into a burning rage within me. I had no intention of leaving this sitting room; surely, he didn’t think I would abandon it in such a state? I’m not sure if he realized how much his words had upset me, but I decided not to make it any easier for him, taking a few moments to calm myself completely before I spoke again.

’You’ve destroyed our sitting room. You’ve locked yourself in there for days, without a word, existing like a mole, in darkness and chaos. You’ve been using cocaine again. You haven’t eaten for several days. Your behavior is troubling not only Mrs. Hudson, but also me—your doctor and, above all, your friend.’ I took a deep breath, trying not to shout my emotions in his face. ’Do you really think I’ll just get out, leaving you in this state?’

He didn’t speak. It was hard for me to tell, given his unchanged expression, whether my words had moved him in the slightest. Had they angered him, saddened him, or perhaps embarrassed him, prompting some reflection? Or maybe he hadn’t acknowledged them at all, ignoring both me and my concern? It was truly difficult to tell, though I tried to read anything from his stony face.

’Leave,’ he repeated wearily. ‘Please.’

I gripped the cuffs of my shirt tightly, feeling the cold of the cufflinks against my fingertips. Truly, was he so indifferent, even to the concern and worry of a friend? Did my fears, my anxiety for him, not affect him at all?

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I replied firmly. ‘I want to know what happened. The fact that I’m married doesn’t mean you can’t write to me if something... like this…’

I bit my lip, feeling my voice slowly falter and catch in my throat. Holmes remained motionless in his chair, not uttering a word. I had never seen him in such a state of lethargy and apathy, a far cry from the moods I was accustomed to. It made the fire of emotion rise in my throat, burning me with an unbearable and even stronger sense of guilt. My thoughts eventually drifted to Mary, standing amid half-unpacked luggage in the bedroom, casting worried, expectant glances out the window, listening for the doorbell announcing my return.

I wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, explaining that I didn’t know when I would return, and handed it to Mrs. Hudson, who entered the sitting room carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. Holmes paid her no mind whatsoever upon her arrival, and when she tried to place his precious violin safely on one of the chairs, he dismissed her with a growl.

‘Send a messenger with a letter to my wife,’ I said as I left the sitting room with the landlady.

‘Do you intend to stay here?’

‘I shouldn’t leave him in such a state.’

The landlady nodded and opened her mouth, as if to say something, but immediately closed it again. She looked at me with only a hint of sadness, then, adjusting her apron, she descended to the kitchen. As for me, I had no choice but to return to the sitting room, sit in the armchair, and wait.

The clock on the cluttered mantelpiece ticked softly, its hands moving slowly. With each end of the second hand, another minute passed; with each finish of the minute hand, another hour. I sat in silence in my old armchair, still bearing the white and brown hairs from my dog’s coat. I watched Holmes the entire afternoon and evening, rising only briefly to turn on the light when the shadows of the last day of October began to creep through the window. It wasn’t until around eleven in the evening, when the detective remained motionless, though faint sounds of snoring escaped him, signaling that he had fallen asleep, that I could rise without any guilt and retire for the night.

‘I’ve prepared fresh linen for you in the guest room, Doctor,’ announced Mrs. Hudson as I stepped out of the sitting room and deeper into the house.

‘Why not in my old room?’ I asked.

Mrs. Hudson made a face, as though she didn’t want to reveal the answer to that question, then, pressing Mary’s note into my hand, she disappeared into her part of the apartment.

Holding in my fingers the rough piece of paper with my wife’s neat, slanted handwriting—assuring me that she would spend the night at a friend’s and sending her best wishes for Holmes’s health—I made my way up the stairs toward my old room, curious as to why the landlady had not made up my bed there.

Walking down the familiar short corridor, beside the bannister of the stairs on the upper floor, I passed the locked door to Holmes’s bedroom and finally reached my own. I gripped the doorknob and pushed firmly. I wasn’t surprised when the door didn’t yield at first—it always resisted a little. Once inside, I fumbled around and found the lamp, turning it just enough to light up my old bedroom.

As the light illuminated the room, I understood why Mrs. Hudson preferred to make up the bed for me in the small, somewhat uncomfortable guest room rather than in the cozy bedroom I had occupied for seven years.

I remember with amusement, while packing my things, telling Holmes that after I moved out, he would have another room to store his clutter. I never thought he would take those words so literally, actually using my bedroom for his own purposes.

The bed, stripped of its linens, the empty wardrobe, the desk cleared of papers, the bookshelf devoid of books, and the shelves covered with a thin layer of dust where I had once kept my belongings still occupied the places where I had left them. And yet, the room was entirely unfit for use.

The wall behind the desk, positioned opposite the door, was entirely covered with newspaper clippings, yellowed photographs, pages from some books, handwritten notes, and other scraps of paper. They covered the space so densely that the dark green wallpaper beneath was completely obscured. Yet, it was not this that was so surprising or that made it impossible for me to spend the night in the old bedroom.

A tangled web of scarlet strings stretched across the entire room, attached to nails that pinned sheets of paper to the wall. They twisted and coiled, and within their chaotic tangle, I could discern some strange pattern. I followed one of them, placing it between my index and middle fingers, sliding them along the rough threads. The one I chose led me to an article in The Times with a rather dark title: SEVERED LIMBS FOUND ON THE THAMES BANK – SIGNS OF A GRUESOME CRIME OR A MEDICAL STUDENTS’ PRANK?

The article’s author described the discovery on September eleventh of a hand and a leg on the muddy bank of the Thames. The Times speculated that it was simply an immature and macabre joke by medical students. I immediately realized that these were the very remains Mrs. Hudson had spoken of.

From this newspaper clipping, several other threads branched out. I followed one of them again, which led me this time to a black-and-white photograph, slightly brownish as was typical with albumen prints, which had recently become perhaps the most famous form of copying photographs onto paper. The image depicted a woman’s torso, headless, limbless. Little was visible due to the poor quality, but dark stains of blood could be made out on the chest, and gaping blackened wounds were evident on the neck, shoulders, and hips, in places where the missing parts of the body had been severed. The very sight of the photograph made my stomach lurch, twisting in a wild somersault within me, and I dreaded to think how shocking the sight of the corpse must have been in person. Beneath the photo, I noticed another newspaper clipping, framed by yet another sensational headline: THE BASEMENTS OF THE NEW SCOTLAND YARD BUILDING: WITNESS TO A BRUTAL MURDER OR SIMPLY THE GRAVE OF THE VICTIM? and just below it, an article from the Daily Telegraph describing the discovery within the walls of the Metropolitan Police building. The journalist elaborated on the body of a woman, found on October 2nd during the construction of the new police headquarters in the Victoria Embankment area, not far from Whitehall in Westminster, her head and limbs missing, wrapped in some material—supposedly a black slip—and bound with string. The article’s author offered his own commentary, dwelling on the cruelty and savagery of the perpetrator or perpetrators, assuring readers that the police were already searching for him or them.

I wandered around the room for a good hour, following the trail of strings, stopping at each document they led me to, examining them as carefully as if they were museum exhibits. I had seen photographs of grotesque remnants of bodies and of people completely unrelated to the case, though to Holmes, they probably held some greater, hidden significance. I read witness testimonies and newspaper articles. I studied nearly every document the scarlet thread had guided me to, and by around quarter past twelve, when I finally left the room, my mind was in a state of confusion.

I had to admit, however, that there was something strangely captivating about this tangle of threads. At first glance, they seemed jumbled, creating an ordinary tangle of red, but the longer one stayed within it, the more one could see its peculiar schematic nature, and perhaps even... its charm? It was hard to define, but certainly, such an enormous map of thoughts, hiding its order beneath the chaos, where every thread had its beginning and end, where everything was interconnected—Scotland Yard detectives could only envy it. It was hard for me to fathom that the disorganized Holmes, who could spend entire days in a cluttered sitting room and bedroom, had arranged such an infallible, orderly pattern that, in my opinion, allowed him to track down the culprits. But what could have happened to have him removed from the case? How was it possible that his involvement was dismissed, even though he had already proven time and again that he could solve investigations faster and more effectively—investigations that would normally take weeks, months, or even years?

I could find no answers to these and other questions, and they plagued me for many hours as I turned restlessly on the hard, uncomfortable bed that creaked with every movement. The clock, striking every half hour, announced the second hour when, at last, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, still burdened with unanswered questions and unresolved matters, consumed by worry for my friend sleeping in the sitting room.

The next day brought no change. My attempts to engage in any conversation with the motionless, still apathetic Holmes were in vain, and I braced myself for another day of watching over my silent friend, under his keen and hungry gaze fixed on the pocket of my trousers where I still kept his case.

Morning turned into afternoon, and afternoon into evening. All of these times were equally silent, equally long, and equally filled with inaction. I feared that once again I would have to fall asleep, consumed by worry for my friend, whose condition showed no signs of improvement.

Around eight o’clock, when Mrs. Hudson came in with sandwiches and tea, she brought some rather cheerful news—there was a young, desperate lady waiting outside, inquiring about Mr. Holmes’s availability and seeking his advice on some matter.

It was like a sudden impulse sent directly to the brain. Holmes flinched at the landlady’s words, and in an instant, the apathetic, stiff, motionless figure that had resembled a wax statue in Madame Tussauds turned into the familiar detective I knew, full of energy and ready for action, just as I had often observed before.

Seeing my face, puzzled and clearly unable to understand why he had suddenly returned to his previous, stable state, he handed me a strange letter. The problem was that it was written in Greek, a language I did not know, so I remarked aloud that I couldn’t read it.

’You don’t need to know Greek to decipher its contents,’ Holmes replied, bustling about the sitting room and quickly getting it into some semblance of order. ‘Notice how often the letters epsilon, iota, and tau repeat. The first one, at the beginning of a word, appears alongside the letter alpha, and such a diphthong does not exist in Greek. So, what can we deduce from this?’

’Has someone used the Greek alphabet, substituting our English letters for it?’ I ventured, offering my friend a plate of biscuits. ‘Eat,’ I added, but he waved me off, his enthusiasm evident as he paced around the sitting room.

’Excellent, Watson!’ he praised, quickly rearranging the furniture. Soft, feminine footsteps echoed on the stairs. ‘The young governess, in this cleverly encrypted letter, approached me last night, after you had already gone to bed, asking for my help, and announced her arrival for the first. Which is today, Watson?’

“November first,” I replied. Holmes looked slightly surprised, which didn’t surprise me—sitting in his den, he must have lost track of time.

’If I’m not mistaken, it’s her,’ he said, settling into his chair just as a timid knock came at the sitting room door. ‘Please, stay, Watson. You might be needed, and you know that sometimes your presence can be of help,’ he added, noticing me rise from my chair with the intention of retreating to my room. ’Come in!’

The door opened slowly, and after a moment, a young woman appeared, her hair slightly disheveled, unmistakably the client of Holmes.