would not stop struggling and we eventually had to lock him in the garden shed while we waited for transport. Yet I think things ended happily for Vladislav Lestrade—when our prisoner asked for a cloth to staunch the flow of blood, Holmes handed him a drinking glass instead.
Wiggles was immediately dispatched with the direction to hire two more hansoms to drive us to Scotland Yard. When these arrived, Warlock insisted that only he and I should be allowed to ride with the killer. He trusted neither Grogsson’s fury nor Lestrade’s thirst. Thus, our two monster friends were banished to the first cab. Holmes, the murderer and I followed in the second. Surprisingly, of the three of us, it was our prisoner who began the questioning.
“What kind of gun was that?” he asked.
Holmes smiled. “That depends. First you must tell me who you are and why you expect to die.”
The killer shrugged and gamely answered, “My name is Jefferson Hope, out of… well… I suppose St. Louis was the last real home I had. That’s in America. I ain’t from here, as I’m sure you know. I followed Enoch and Joseph out here to do ’em in. As to why I ain’t going to be around long… I got cardio-cranial narrative-sensitive exploditis.”
Holmes turned to me and asked, “Doctor, are you familiar with that affliction?”
“No,” I replied, “but the language is simple enough. It describes a condition in which some element of a story will cause this man’s head and heart to… explode. That said, I have never heard of such an illness and I doubt its veracity.”
“I don’t,” said Holmes, respectfully. “Mr. Hope, I’m afraid that you are quite right and not likely to survive much longer. I have always been able to sense impending doom and, if you will forgive my directness, you are ripe with it.”
“I know it,” Hope said. “I been wishin’ doom on those two so long, I come to have a sense of it my own self.”
“Why?” Holmes asked. “Why go to such lengths to ensure those two men’s deaths?”
To my great surprise, the killer burst into tears. It took some moments for him to regain his composure enough to tell his tale.
PART II
NOT FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. JOHN WATSON, BUT FROM SOME NEBULOUS, UNDEFINED SOURCE THAT IS SUDDENLY THIRD PERSON AND ALMOST MAKES YOU THINK YOU’VE PICKED UP THE WRONG BOOK
11
SOUTH OF CANADA AND NORTH OF MEXICO LIES A LAND many Englishmen do not deign to speak of. For the triple crimes of bloodying our nose, stealing itself from our empire and eventually surpassing us at the industrial revolution that we ourselves started, it has been banished from the thoughts and vocabulary of our more conservative element.
Towards the western edge of that cursed land, lies a blighted waste called the Mojave. It is as if the hand of the creator, having formed the earth but not yet adorned it with flora and fauna, paused here. Unable to think of anything apt to draw, the immortal architect resolved to complete the rest of the earth first, then come back and finish up.
Except, he forgot.
Nothing of consequence lives here. In fact, any life that happens to wander into this sun-blasted hell usually dies before the day is out. This is the place where scorpions go to perish of dehydration.
Behold the Spring Mountains, unfinished and unadorned, which jut from the empty plain. These are naked heaps of rock, shoved up from the bowels of the earth just so there could be
something
here. East of them lies an open basin of sand and alkaline dust, an almost endless open expanse of
vegas
which the Spanish call
Las Vegas
. It is a place of madness, where the heat and the unending miles of sand have caused delusion in the few travelers who have managed to traverse it and live. Many report ghostly visions. They speak of a city of a million lights, rising from the sand. Some claim to have seen an ebony pyramid, capped in light, some a vast Italian villa that takes the tiny quantity of precious water that exists
Wiggles was immediately dispatched with the direction to hire two more hansoms to drive us to Scotland Yard. When these arrived, Warlock insisted that only he and I should be allowed to ride with the killer. He trusted neither Grogsson’s fury nor Lestrade’s thirst. Thus, our two monster friends were banished to the first cab. Holmes, the murderer and I followed in the second. Surprisingly, of the three of us, it was our prisoner who began the questioning.
“What kind of gun was that?” he asked.
Holmes smiled. “That depends. First you must tell me who you are and why you expect to die.”
The killer shrugged and gamely answered, “My name is Jefferson Hope, out of… well… I suppose St. Louis was the last real home I had. That’s in America. I ain’t from here, as I’m sure you know. I followed Enoch and Joseph out here to do ’em in. As to why I ain’t going to be around long… I got cardio-cranial narrative-sensitive exploditis.”
Holmes turned to me and asked, “Doctor, are you familiar with that affliction?”
“No,” I replied, “but the language is simple enough. It describes a condition in which some element of a story will cause this man’s head and heart to… explode. That said, I have never heard of such an illness and I doubt its veracity.”
“I don’t,” said Holmes, respectfully. “Mr. Hope, I’m afraid that you are quite right and not likely to survive much longer. I have always been able to sense impending doom and, if you will forgive my directness, you are ripe with it.”
“I know it,” Hope said. “I been wishin’ doom on those two so long, I come to have a sense of it my own self.”
“Why?” Holmes asked. “Why go to such lengths to ensure those two men’s deaths?”
To my great surprise, the killer burst into tears. It took some moments for him to regain his composure enough to tell his tale.
PART II
NOT FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. JOHN WATSON, BUT FROM SOME NEBULOUS, UNDEFINED SOURCE THAT IS SUDDENLY THIRD PERSON AND ALMOST MAKES YOU THINK YOU’VE PICKED UP THE WRONG BOOK
11
SOUTH OF CANADA AND NORTH OF MEXICO LIES A LAND many Englishmen do not deign to speak of. For the triple crimes of bloodying our nose, stealing itself from our empire and eventually surpassing us at the industrial revolution that we ourselves started, it has been banished from the thoughts and vocabulary of our more conservative element.
Towards the western edge of that cursed land, lies a blighted waste called the Mojave. It is as if the hand of the creator, having formed the earth but not yet adorned it with flora and fauna, paused here. Unable to think of anything apt to draw, the immortal architect resolved to complete the rest of the earth first, then come back and finish up.
Except, he forgot.
Nothing of consequence lives here. In fact, any life that happens to wander into this sun-blasted hell usually dies before the day is out. This is the place where scorpions go to perish of dehydration.
Behold the Spring Mountains, unfinished and unadorned, which jut from the empty plain. These are naked heaps of rock, shoved up from the bowels of the earth just so there could be
something
here. East of them lies an open basin of sand and alkaline dust, an almost endless open expanse of
vegas
which the Spanish call
Las Vegas
. It is a place of madness, where the heat and the unending miles of sand have caused delusion in the few travelers who have managed to traverse it and live. Many report ghostly visions. They speak of a city of a million lights, rising from the sand. Some claim to have seen an ebony pyramid, capped in light, some a vast Italian villa that takes the tiny quantity of precious water that exists
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