The Circus Murders

Shoot me Instead

Mrs. Hudson answered the door to a man in a black, billowing coat with sharp features and grey, darting eyes. A golden pocketwatch veritably sparkled from a hanging chain wrapped round his waist. I disliked him immediately.

"Mr. Phelps, do come in," said Holmes, gesturing to the sofa.

"I just got your summons, Mr. 'Olmes." His squinted eyes appraised my companion appreciatively.

"How kind of you to come straight away."

Our visitor did not take the seat offered him, but preferred to stand, peering at my friend as though he were an antiquated object of much interest.

"I am, of course, Sherlock Holmes, and this is my intimate friend, Dr. Watson."

Phelps turned his gaze upon me, and out of the periphery of my vision I saw Holmes put the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand together and make a twisting motion at Mrs. Hudson, as of one locking a door. Our landlady turned the lock in turn.

We were locked in with a madman.

I felt sweat beading on my forehead. Though I was certain, at the time, Holmes knew perfectly what he was doing.

"He's all for giving you a hand as frequently as possible, isn't he?" said our oily visitor, and I felt myself blush to the ears at the suggestiveness he had put into that word.

"I am frequently here to help on a number of cases."

"Now, personally, I don't think there's a thing wrong with two gents being together in this day and age. Some people think it's damned odd, but I think it's a beautiful thing, yew know?"

"How long have you known Ms. Paltrow," Holmes marched on, oblivious to the innuendo in his statement.

"Oh, about three years I should say. Beautiful girl. The type I would spring for if women were my type. Now yew, Mr. Holmes, are the right thing. Tall, long, mysterious. It's a wonder the good doctor can't get enough of yew."

Without any sign of being stirred by his words, Holmes continued speaking. "You are the circus hyptonist, Mr. Phelps. How long have you held that position?"

"Again, three years. Since I threw in my lot with the circus."

"Why did hypnotize Ms. Paltrow?" said Holmes icily. "Were you too much of a coward to commit murder by your own hand that you had to commit murder by proxy?"

In one deft handmovement he had drawn a slim revolver from the pocket of his greatcoat.

I have stared down the barrel of a gun many times before that, and many times since, once even one held in my own unsteady hands. Yet, only one other time have I believed with such utter conviction that another human being meant to steal away my life, and that was when the killer Evans had tried to murder me in the tale of the Three Garridebs.

"Make a move, and he dies," said the snake.

I heard Holmes inhale sharply.

"I may just kill him anyway. Just for my own satisfaction. It wouldn't be as satisfying watching him die as to watch you live. Without him. Your entire life obliterated in seconds. Gone. How sad for you."

"Don't do this," said Holmes breathlessly. "Have reason."

"You've invited a lion to a lamb's den, my good man! Plead with me and I may change my mind."

"Don't!" Shouted Holmes. "No, don't. Watson, don't move."

"That's not good enough," said Phelps. "I'm not feeling any emotion there. On your knees, if you would. Really grovel about. Remember, a fraction's more pressure and his blood will be spattered all over you."

I watched, my heart beating so fast that the apartment wavered before my eyes, as Holmes sunk to his knees on the fraying carpet and looked up at his captor with such an expression of combined hatred and misery that my heart nearly shattered.

"Shoot me instead!" He cried, and Phelps laughed delightedly as the door burst open and Inspectors Greg Lestrade and Jones stormed into the room, their guns drawn.

Lestrade hit the hit the snake over the head with a club and he sank, delirious, and then unconscious, to the floor. His slack face lay a few mere inches away from Holmes, who still knelt on the floor, shaking.

Sherlock Holmes got to his feet, uttered a half insane bark of laughter, and then began to throw off his clothes. The great coat went first, followed by shirt, until he stood in nothing but his trousers and a leaden, bullet proof vest.

He abandoned the vest, then began, with shaking, uncertain fingers to rebutton the shirt.

"Wonderfully done, Lestrade," he commended, clapping the Inspector on the shoulder as he handcuffed Phelps and Inspector Jones stared in awe and fear at the thin, half delirious form of my companion, whose eyes could not seem to focus on any of us, but went from myself to Lestrade, back to Phelps, and then back to me again. "You did cut it rather close, though."

A sliver of ice cut into my heart. "You planned this," I said coldly. "It was all a set up?"

"Oh, don't take offense, Watson! It all went off particulary well. The code word for the Yard was "shoot me instead." They came as promptly as a pack of trained Russell terriers to the scene of a hunt. Even if they had not been quick enough, I was wearing my vest. All is well that ends well, as they say."

I turned my face away.

"Come now, Watson!"

"You could have told me."

"And risk that you would not act the masterful scene you just enacted. No, I could not."

"You treat me like a child sometimes! Leaving me in the dark, no hand to hold, no guidance."

Holmes sighed very slowly. "I did not believe one could be described as impossible, but you do fit the bill."

I swiftly turned and left him standing there, the buttons on his shirt in the wrong holes, at once at a loss for words.