Sherlock Holmes and the Zombie Problem

CHAPTER ONE

It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself became to some extent modified. He still came to me from time to time when he desired a companion in his investigation, but these occasions grew more and more seldom, until I find that in the year 1890 there were only three cases of which I retain any record. During the winter of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that he had been engaged by the French government upon a matter of supreme importance, and I received two notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered that his stay in France was likely to be a long one. It was with some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of April 24th. It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual. Holmes was in his early forties, and yet looked like a man who could have been ten years more senior.

“Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely,” he remarked, in answer to my look rather than to my words; “I have been a little pressed of late. Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?”

The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I had been reading. Holmes edged his way round the wall and flinging the shutters together, he bolted them securely.

“You are afraid of something?” I asked.

“Well, I am.”

“Of what?”

“Of hideous henchmen.”

“My dear Holmes, what do you mean?”

“I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to

understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognise danger when it is close upon you. Might I trouble you for a match?”

He drew back his jacket to pull his cigarette tin from his waistcoat pocket, revealing a leather holster with his typical firearm of preference, clearly indicating he considered the situation a dangerous one. Knowing I was also still wearing my handgun from earlier that day was a comforting thought, as Holmes did not fret unduly. I handed him a match and he drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if the soothing influence was grateful to him.

“I must apologize for calling so late,” said he, “and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.”

“But what does it all mean?” I asked.

He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his knuckles were burst and bleeding.

“It is not an airy nothing, you see,” said he, smiling. “On the contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over. Is Mrs. Watson in?”

“She is away upon a visit.”

“Indeed! You are alone?”

“Quite.”

“Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come away with me for a week to the Continent.”

“Where?”

“Switzerland.”

There was something very strange in all this. It was not Holmes’ nature to take an aimless holiday, nor to run away from impending danger, and something about his pale, worn face told me that his nerves were at their highest tension. He saw the question in my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows upon his knees, he explained the situation.

“You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?” said he.

“Never.”

“Aye, there’s the genius and the wonder of the thing!” he cried.

“The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That’s what puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. I tell you, Watson, in all seriousness, that if I could beat that man, if I could free society of him, I should feel that my own career had reached its summit, and I should be prepared to turn to some more placid line in life. Between ourselves, the recent cases in which I have been of assistance to the royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French Republic, have left me in such a position that I could continue to live in the quiet fashion which is most congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention upon my chemical researches. But I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.”

“What has he done, then?”

“His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London, where he set up as an army coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am telling you now is what I have myself discovered.

As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organising power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts forgery cases, robberies and murders I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavoured to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.

He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the man behind half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly organised. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed? The word is passed to the Professor, the matter is planned and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent is never caught, never so much as suspected. This was the organisation which I deduced, Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking up.”

I showed my astonishment.

“But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence which would convict in a court of law. You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill. But at last he made a trip, only a little trip, but it was more than he could afford when I was so close upon him. I had my chance and, starting from that point, I have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to close. In three days, that is to say, on Monday next, matters will be ripe and the Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them; but if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands even at the last moment.”

He continued at length and I listened with concentration.

“Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of Professor Moriarty, all would have been well. But he was too wily for that. He saw every step which I took to draw my toils round him. Again and again he strove to break away, but I as often headed him off. I tell you, my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest could be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit of thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection. Never have I risen to such a height, and never have I been so hard pressed by an opponent. He cut deep, and yet I just undercut him. This morning the last steps were taken, and three days only were wanted to complete the business. I was sitting in my room thinking the matter over, when the door opened and Professor Moriarty stood before me.

My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start when I saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing there on my threshold. His appearance was quite familiar to me. He is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head. He is cleanshaven, pale, and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features. His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. He peered at me with great curiosity in his puckered eyes.”

“You have less frontal development than I should have expected,” said he, at last.

“It is a dangerous habit to have finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s dressing-gown.”

“The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognised the extreme personal danger in which I lay. The only conceivable escape for him lay in silencing my tongue, and I could hear the faint sound of who were clearly his associates the other side of the door. In an instant I had slipped the revolver from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through the cloth. At his remark I drew the weapon out and laid it cocked upon the table. He still smiled and blinked, but there was something about his eyes which made me feel very glad that I had it there.

“You evidently don’t know me,” said he.

“On the contrary,” I answered, “I think it is fairly evident that I do. Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say.”

“All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,” said he.

“Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,” I replied. “You stand fast?”

“Absolutely.”

He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from the table. But he merely drew out a memorandum book in which he had scribbled some dates.

“You crossed my path on the 4th of January,” said he.

“On the 23rd you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.”

“Have you any suggestion to make?” I asked.

“You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,” said he, swaying his face about.

“You really must, you know.”

“After Monday,” said I.

“Tut, tut,” said he.

“I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure. You smile, sir, but I assure you that it really would.”

“Danger is part of my trade,” I remarked.

“That is not danger,” said he.

“It is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organisation, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realise. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.”

“I am afraid,” said I, rising, “that in the pleasure of this conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me elsewhere.”

He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.

“Well, well,” said he, at last.

“It seems a pity, but I have done what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before Monday. It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to place me in the dock. I tell you that I will never stand in that dock. You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.”

“You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,” said I.

“Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter.”

“I can promise you the one, but not the other,” he snarled, and so turned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of the room.

“At this moment I fully expected the villain’s henchmen to burst through the door and finish me, and yet, at that moment, Sergeant Withers of the police arrived to see me, almost certainly saving my life. That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty. I confess that it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind. His soft, precise fashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could not produce. Of course, you will say: ‘Why not take police precautions against him?’ the reason is that I am well convinced that it is from his agents the blow will fall. I have the best proofs that it would be so.”

“You have already been assaulted?”

“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet. I went out about midday to transact some business in Oxford Street. As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street crossing, a two-horse van furiously driven whizzed round and was on me like a flash. I sprang for the footpath and saved myself by the fraction of a second. The van dashed round by Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant. I kept to the pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my feet. I called the police and had the place examined. There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to some repairs, and they would have me believe that the wind had toppled over one of these. Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing. I took a cab after that and reached my brother’s rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked, bringing us to the latest problem at hand.”

“Are you injured?” I asked of him.

“A man came at me with the intent to do serious harm, to which I struck a blow to his ribs, a second to his jaw, neither had the desired or pre-determined result. This animal kept coming at me, trying to grab at me with his grubby hands. This assailant foamed at the mouth, with a wide eyed and crazy expression about his face, nothing appeared normal about this attacker. With every essence of my strength and precision I stuck at this mad ruffian. We came to grips, and quickly to the floor, whereby the villain tried to reel me in closely, opening his unclean jaw in an attempt to bite, a thick but not echoing sound of a bludgeoning blow sounded above me and my assailant slumped over me.”

This story was already a shock to me, not just in the fact that Holmes had been assaulted in the street, but by the nature of the attack and his inability to fight off the thug. Holmes was one of the best boxers I had the pleasure of knowing, and had many times seen him use his skills in an expert fashion. Holmes was a slight man, but he delivered blows with precision and power, it was rather then surprising that a perfectly placed blow to both the man’s ribs and jaw had no noticeable effect. I could only imagine that the ruffian was intoxicated or of very stout nature.

“A policeman who had been nearby and seen the foul ruffian attack had given him a stout blow with his cosh. I threw him aside and the police have him in custody; but I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible connection will ever be traced between the ruffian upon whose jaw I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who is, I dare say, working out problems upon a blackboard ten miles away. You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on entering your rooms was to close your shutters, and that I have been compelled to ask your permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous exit than the front door.”

I had often admired my friend’s courage, but never more than now, as he sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have combined to make up a day of horror.

“You will spend the night here?” I said.

“No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have my plans laid, and all will be well. Matters have gone so far now that they can move without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my presence is necessary for a conviction. It is obvious, therefore, that I cannot do better than get away for the few days which remain before the police are at liberty to act. It would be a great pleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the Continent with me.”

“The practice is quiet,” said I, “and I have an accommodating neighbour. I should be glad to come.”

“And to start tomorrow morning?”

“If necessary.”

“Oh yes, it is most necessary. Then these are your instructions, and I beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you are now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest rogue and the most powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe. Now listen! You will dispatch whatever luggage you intend to take by a trusty messenger unaddressed to Victoria tonight. In the morning you will send for a hansom, desiring your man to take neither the first nor the second which may present itself. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will drive to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, handing the address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request that he will not throw it away. Have your fare ready, and the instant that your cab stops dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to reach the other side at a quarter past nine. You will find a small brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red. Into this you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time for the Continental express.”

“Where shall I meet you?”

“At the station. The second first-class carriage from the front will be reserved for us.”

“The carriage is our rendezvous, then?”

“Yes.”

The door abruptly rung with an obnoxious and heavy handed tone, clearly made by an uncivilised and crude being. Holmes looked at me, evidently suspecting more than a casual evening call. Not believing more attacks could be made in one day than had already been, nor in my presence, I strode to the door and opened it. It occurred to me after I had already turned the door handle that whilst walking to the door I had heard Holmes rising and drawing his Webley, a sign that should have led me to greater caution.

As I turned the handle and began to pull it backwards, the door was struck with great force, crashing the edge in to my head and sending me barrelling to the floor. Slightly dazed and with the uncomfortable feeling of a blood trickle beginning to run down my face, I looked upwards at the door. Before me stood four men, rough and primitive looking, with murder in their eyes, and yet, unarmed.

Before I could react, gunshots rang out from above me, the reassuring sound of someone coming to my aid. We rarely fired a gun in this line of work, Holmes must consider these men of the utmost danger. The gunpowder residue wafted overhead from the three shots he had already fired into the first assailant. Holmes was an especially average shot, but at this range that mattered little. The strong sound of .450 Adams rounds being belted out of Holmes’ Webley Bulldog slammed into the first man, a stout but punchy piece.

These men had fired no shots and bore no weapons, but clearly meant us serious harm, that much Holmes was clearly certain of. His first shot cleanly struck the man in the chest, but his second, resulting from the recoil and double action pull lifted, effecting the grouping in such an amateur fashion, striking the side of the man’s neck, and going straight through, hitting the man behind him in the right arm. The third shot hit the attacker just off centre in the forehead, sending the man tumbling to the ground in a completely lifeless manner.

The aggressive defence and threat of firearms clearly meant nothing to the further aggressors, who merely kept driving forward over the body of their comrade. I drew my gun from its shoulder holster, a Beaumont Adams, converted to the same .450 Adams calibre that Holmes favoured. Still lying flat on my back I took aim at the man coming right at me, I fired two shots to the chest, neither stopped the man for a second, I fired three more shots in the centre of the man, each striking solidly with a clean grouping. He stumbled back, and yet seemed to feel no pain or be particularly effected in anyway.

Shocked and in fear I stumbled to my feet and withdrew across the room, two more shots rang out from Holmes’ gun, one hitting the same attacker in the shoulder, the other missing, it had no effect. Both of us now out of ammunition, I ran for the gun cabinet, seeing Holmes reach for the nearest object, a stoker from the fireplace. I had a great degree of respect for Holmes’ fighting abilities with his hands and various other tools, but these were nothing like opponents we had previously faced.

Grasping the stoker in two hands, Holmes struck with force against the very same man I had shot five times, he first struck the collar bone, knocking the assailant’s stature slightly and clearly incapacitating he left arm, though no pain seemed to ensue.

I ripped the cabinet open, taking up my recently purchased rifle, a wonder I now was pleased to have purchased just a few months before, an 1881 model Marlin under lever rifle, kept for this very type of situation which I had hoped to never face but prepared for anyway. The 45-70 was expensive and difficult to come by here in England, but a fact I was willing to accept for such a fine piece of equipment.

I snatched up a box of cartridges from the shelf in the cabinet but in the heat of the moment spilt its contents across the floor. Picking up shells as quickly as I could I began loading in the rounds, but time was too short to load its full capacity of ten. As I got three rounds into the rifle I reached for the lever, Holmes could not wait any longer, with the reassuring course ratchet sound of it clicking forward and back I took aim at the third ruffian.

These thugs were clearly dosed heavily with something which had created the rage filled, pain free aggression state that they were in. That second attacker may well die in a few hours of blood loss, but that was too long to wait. At a distance of just three feet I took aim at the third man’s heart and squeezed the trigger, smoke filled half the room and the both pungent and yet rather satisfying sulphur smell of black powder dominated the small space. The bullet struck the man dead, causing his body to twist ninety degrees. The shirt on his back was spattered with blood, but the bullet had not left his body, the bulge of what was evidently part of his spine now protruding from his back and pressing against his shirt was an unpleasant site, but no worse than I had seen many times in the service of Her Majesty.

Despite his injuries the mangled man still stumbled towards me with what were clearly his last minutes or seconds of life, I didn’t fancy risking being struck with the last of his strength nor having personal contact with the savage ruffian. I racked the lever and raised the muzzle of the Marlin just a little higher and let off a second round between his eyes. This time the bullet went clean through, the exit wound showering blood and brain matter across the floor whilst the bullet imbedded in the door, my opponent toppled like lumber to the dirt.

I looked over at Holmes who had clearly knocked his opponent to his knees, the man’s right leg crooked from a break, with a powerful two handed strike Holmes hammered down towards his head, though the assailant lifted his hand, either in defence or to reach for Holmes. The stoker struck the thug’s forearm smashing it to the ground and before he could recover Holmes quickly

delivered an equally hard stroke to the left side of the skull. A gaping hole opened as the skull cracked and split, the eyes immediately became lifeless and his body slumping to the floor.

I turned to my right side where the fourth and final assailant was coming at me, just as strong as the others; morale clearly meant nothing to these men. Holmes being the other side of the room threw the stoker at the man to slow him down, just as I was taking aim with the Marlin. I fired as it struck the man across the head, causing him to shift slightly and avoid my last bullet. The beast was now upon me, throwing me straight to the ground, I held him upwards and away from me with my rifle. He was strong and I could do nothing but keep him at arm’s length.

A familiar metal on metal contact rang out from my left hand side, the sound of my service sword being drawn, Holmes ran across the room with it like a charging cavalryman and in one full horizontal slash took the man’s head clean off. The head flew across the room and blood spurted across the floor to my side, a truly unpleasant site. I pushed the body to my side as Holmes’ hand was offered to assist me up. The bloodied sword still in his right hand, my 1845 pattern infantry officer’s sword, a lovely brass hilted weapon that I had kept in its dress scabbard on the wall since ’80. The thick blood trickled down the etched and blued blade, a tragedy for such a well kept piece, who’s blade read “In Arduis Fidelius” Steadfast in Adversity; it lived up to its promise.

We both stood in shock now that the events had caught up in our minds and looked silently around at the bloodshed which surrounded us in what was, just minutes earlier, a perfectly kept and clean, relaxed and comfortable room. The mangled bodies now lay lifeless from here to the door, blood trickling along the floor. Holmes knelt beside the closest body and inspected it closely. He opened the jacket of the man looking for a purse or anything else which might give some idea of his identity or purpose, but there was nothing. I looked closer at the remains myself, but something struck me as odd, the faces of all were heavily textured and worn, as if they were much older than the bodies that carried them. Holmes knelt down closer to the body of one, scrutinising it. For a number of minutes he looked over the body with intrigue as much as surprise.

“Most peculiar, heavily wrinkled skin on younger bodies, congealed blood around their mouth and jaw, the eyes are glaringly bright and red,” said Holmes.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“These were Moriarty’s villains,” said Holmes.

Yet no man would fight with that form of unforgiving devotion to his master, nor fight through such pain and injury. I had many times seen the results of the bravest men of the British Army sustain gunshot wounds and few were able to keep up that sort of fight.

“These were no ordinary villains,” I said.

“In my research over the last week I discovered peculiar attentions that Mr. Moriarty was making in to either science or the occult, or rather both. I know that his attentions to Switzerland have been more and more common of late and that must have some significance,” he said.

“What do you expect to discover?” I asked.

“When you have one of the first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his beck and call, there are infinite possibilities.”

“Hence the impeding journey,” I quickly replied.

“No doubt, I suspected that evidence of the sort, to not only arrest but have Moriarty hanged, would exist in whatever practices he may be partaking in, somewhere in that land.”

“And yet it is a large country to look,” I both thought and said.

“The exact location of Moriarty’s dealings or practices will soon be revealed once he believes I am en route towards them, a simple bluff may be all that is needed to give his final secret away,” Holmes replied in his characteristic and calculating fashion.

“Using us as bait to destroy him?”

“Indeed my dear friend, I am a marked man for as long as this villain lives freely, and clearly the risk to our countryman now extends beyond organised crime. Whatever we just faced was a new kind of enemy, the likes this fine country has never seen. The hour is late and I must have time alone to fully understand and calculate the impending struggle. A war could be on our hands within days, Moriarty already believes us to be dead, and will not know otherwise till the morrow. Let us take this advantage to leave for Switzerland, threatening his very plan at the core while we can,” Holmes replied.

Despite Holmes’ urgency to leave my home, we both now took a short rest, propping a chair back upright from where it had fallen during the fight. Holmes took out another cigarette and offered one to me, I couldn’t say no. It was a strange thing, to relax in one’s own beaten home before the bodies and bloodshed. I should imagine this was the sort of calm in between the storm that the defenders of a besieged castle might feel amidst the many months of hardship, surrounded by the blood and death of your foe within your own demolished walls.

It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening, or call for the support of the police, for as he further explained, no more evidence yet existed for Moriarty’s involvement. It was evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he was under, and that that was the motive which compelled him to go. With a few hurried words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and came out with me into the garden, clambering over the wall which leads into Mortimer Street, and immediately whistling for a hansom, in which I heard him drive away.

Now left in the peace of the night in the carnage of my own home, I again sat back down, contemplating the day’s events. I had not ever seen my friend in such a worried state, nor ever one where he fired first. As much as Holmes had uncovered already using all is cunning and wit, it was quite evident that there was still plenty that lay in the dark, a worrying fact considering the evening’s events. Holmes may have left in order to make my home safer, but it did not feel so, now having the defence of only one man rather than two, and a broken door to weaken the defences. I walked over to my sideboard and poured myself a tall whiskey in a glass that would be considered uncouth due to its size, I didn’t care. Sitting down with my drink I mulled over the best way to secure the premises to allow me as comfortable and safe a night as possible, for that time was all that mattered; because evidently from the morning on I would not return to this place for some time.

The bodies did not bother me terribly, it was nothing I hadn’t seen many times before, I merely put blankets over them and left them where they were, as there was nothing more I could do in the time I had without causing a major ruckus with my neighbours, who would be far from understanding in the short term. I would likely have many questions to answer to the police on this matter, but something told me the problem would be resolved for me, or I would not ever return to answer them. Next I had to deal with the door, it was buckled on the hinges and would no longer shut. Pushing it as tight as I could I pulled my sturdy coffee table across the room and

placed it in front of the door to give it some support and strength. This would not stop any intruders, but it would at least give me enough warning to be awake and be prepared if necessary. I was now content that the room was as well prepared as was necessary and achievable at such short notice. Walking back over to the gun cabinet which was a mess, casings scattered across its base and out across the floor and my Marlin still on the ground nearby. I reloaded the rifle, as well as my service revolver. For the first time ever, I needed everything my cabinet had to offer. Picking up a canvas roll bag I kept for carrying weapons to the country, I loaded the whole contents of the cabinet, the entirety of my collection. This gun collection was considered excessive by many, but now it felt sadly lacking. I gathered up my officer’s sword and gave it a quick wipe down before loading that also. I was now content that things were as best they could be, sleep was now the vital element needed in preparation for the following days, the events of which were barely conceivable at this time. With all luck, I would go unbothered through the night.