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Write this down. The dimensions, estimated but likely substantially accurate: 80" x 24" x 18". We may assume on that basis twenty cubic feet of air, less the amount displaced by my body. It is constructed of, I should say, oak boards--old boards, with multiple fissures and some warping along left wall, creating gaps in those seams. Thus far, we are on safe ground. Unknown variables: Location? Number of people surveilling me? Concentration and amount of liquid chloroform employed?
Under conditions obtaining during an ordinary surgical procedure, the amount of time required to render the patient unconscious by means of a continuous drip of chloroform onto a damp cloth placed over the patient's mouth and nose is five minutes. Holy Peters is aware of this, but is also impatient and pays very little attention to detail. On past occasions, by counterfeiting insensibility after four minutes, I have thus gleaned quite a bit of information about their future plans for me. From the extroardinary measures taken on this occasion, I believe I am justified in deducing that this is their final move. For the first stages of this interminable journey, Peters assumed that he was preventing my escape by adopting his usual tactic of confiscating the victim's clothing. Most of his aristocratic victims would be too proud to run through the streets of a foreign city in nothing but a corset or, in my case, a pair of filthy drawers. At this point, however, there are very few things I am too proud to do. Peters discovered this during my aborted escape in Dijon. Since then, chains while stationary, chloroform while moving. But the box is a departure. I have never before been packed for shipping.
Write this down. Twenty cubic feet of air. Unknown quantity of chloroform, soaking the rags wrapped around my head. Hands bound behind my back. Lid on box. Light: zero. Room for maneuvering: almost nil. Time remaining: four minutes thirty seconds. This is the problem. These are the givens. Find the solution.
The lid prevents me from turning onto my side, but I can achieve a diagonal which takes some of the weight off my hands. I should not have allowed this. I would never advise anyone to allow this. If that officious Lady Carfax had asked me for advice to give Peters's future victims, I would have said: don't ever let them bind you and put you in a box. At that point it is time to fight your way out. If they kill you, well, once you're in that box you will die in any case, so there's nothing to lose. But Peters wouldn't have killed me. That would have ruined his investment. He'd have shot me in the foot, or the leg--some place where the wound would disable me--and then bound me and put me in the box, with an open wound. In all this filth. And then: infection, gangrene, amputation if not death. Even in the case of escape or rescue.
Time remaining: Three minutes fifty seconds. The Fraser woman is not a sailor, but she knows how to tie a knot. The cord is inelastic and the wrapping is tight. This is not working. Time is wasting. Give up. Try something else. Don't think about the smell. The smell. The sickliest and sweetest of all the chemical smells wrapped round your head like your own bespoke London fog. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake.
Write this down. Bandages loosened. Air flow improved. Estimated gain: thirty seconds. Estimated time remaining: Three minutes forty-five seconds. Darkness complete. Smell strong and astringent. Should have been a surgeon. Chemical smells heaven to me. Tinctures, solutions, extracts. Hated this one at first. Come not to mind it now. Masks the smell of filth. The smell of my unbathed skin, my unwashed drawers. No it's not the chloroform smell but what comes with it. Not the smell but the dark. The dark and the stifling and the lid on the box. Time remaining...
Write this down. Time remaining: three minutes perhaps. The box is lifting. The box is traveling. It's time to make noise. Cry out; kick; bang head.
Someone's there. Someone hears me.
Someone doesn't care.
I don't see a way out of this one, Sherlock.
Ah, there you are Mycroft, that's all that was missing from this sensational experience, a bit of gloating from my affectionate &c. To answer your question, no, my doctor has not returned, he sent the women to bring me home and this is what's come of it. Enjoy it, Mycroft, the confirmation, you always have, the look on my face when you offered Victor that lifeline and he seized it, no regrets, off to the Terai tea plantations for the glory of God and the East India Company and never a word from him after. What you wanted me to know, how he valued his own skin so much more than mine, how far and fast he'd run from me to save it. Between men that's what it is, you said, a flash of lightning a blast of thunder a gust of rain and then a thousand ordinary empty days open and close as if it never happened. Long term, Sherlock, life is the long term, if you want a future you must build it, I can't do all the work you burn down the foundations as soon as I lay them
Time remaining: two minutes and
Two minutes and
Write this down. Victor, all right, but not Watson, Watson always, always there, asking to come along every time as if one day I'd tell him absolutely not I work alone, I never would have and it wouldn't have mattered, dynamite couldn't have shifted him, before Mary and even after Mary even after Mary for a while
Well but you played the cards right with this one, Sherlock, you kept it legal, a sentimental man like him will keep a friend forever but ask him to come down into the dirt and love you there and see how long he
you don't know Mycroft you weren't there for any of it for that night at Baskerville Hall you weren't
yes and you ran Sherlock you did your very best Victor Trevor back to the hut on the moors and let us never speak of this again
stop it Mycroft he thought it was a dream and I couldn't
you did the sensible thing for once Sherlock and it worked you kept your doctor for a while kept your hands off him for a while
I was a fool he wouldn't have he didn't HE CAME BACK he married Mary HE CAME BACK I sent him away HE CAME BACK I kissed him in broad daylight HE CAME BACK HE CAME BACK
yes Sherlock then he left for England and he didn't come back and he won't come back they don't come back not the men women stay but not the men it's the lightning the thunder the leaving and then
STOP IT MYCROFT
no sign of your doctor he sent the women instead
because he couldn't come himself
that's it
the solution
he's not here because he can't be here every other explanation is impossible and whatever remains is the solution
not the solution to THIS problem of course
breathe breathe breathe breathe
WRITE THIS DOWN. Twenty cubic feet of air. Light nil Darkness entire Space closing in Smell stronger Body drifting catch it catch it catch up to it think think think
Time remaining
I will die in this box
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O Gott welch dunkel hier
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if there's heaven
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heaven for men like me he'll be there no more hands off we'll do it all again hands on hands on everything everywhere
hands on every train we took together every moment in the dark that hovel out in Stoke Moran that curtain in Milverton's study that long night in the bank vault every room and bed we shared every morning I went in to rouse him every evening by the fire every time I saw him blush every time he opened that little book every time he licked the end of his pencil every time he said my dear Holmes every where every time every time I ever told myself no Sherlock don't Sherlock EVERY TIME I will say YES YES YES YES EVERY TIME
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heaven for men like me perhaps we won't have bodies perhaps we'll feel the way we felt that moment on the path in broad daylight with the water rushing around us perhaps we'll be that feeling and nothing else together feeling that till the end of time
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WRITE THIS DOWN in heaven I will tell him EVERYTHING
EVERY TIME
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Ich seh' wie ein Engel ein Engel Leonoren
oh God
Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich
O paradis
THE END