I said cynically, “So, naturally, you brought all this to the attention of the police and . . . ?”

  “I tried to tell them my theories, Winslow,” he said heatedly. “But before I could expound, they cut me off—tossed me out!”

  I feared I could guess the answer, but asked anyway. “Why?”

  He looked away, reluctant to admit, “’Twas a painful lesson, Winslow. Bitter tea to swallow, but I learned that no authorities will give a shilling about my opinions on face value, nor even listen”—he looked squarely at me—“until I can conclusively prove who I am. Only then will anyone fully grasp and respect the enormous body of successful detective work I’ve accomplished in the past. Only when I have such proof will they appreciate all that I have to offer, that I am eager to offer.” He blew out an angry puff. “It was made all the more ironically, insanely frustrating because the moment I set foot outside the building I gained additional insights, saw more pieces of the puzzle and logical reasons to believe that the good Leftenant will not long remain alive.” He lowered his brow, his eyes locked onto mine, his voice low and insistent. “Unless you and I intervene to help.”

  Ding. My burrito was ready to go.

  Five minutes later I was starting up my Accord as Holmes put a cylindrical canvas duffel bag into the back seat. Rain was imminent, and it was already misting.

  Wearing his newsboy cap, he climbed in front with renewed energy as I activated the nav unit and the screen lit up. “Okay,” I asked him, “what was the address?”

  “196 Dardenelle Avenue, Pacifica, California.”

  I input it and the map showed our location as Siri’s voice came on, “Calculating directions to 196 Dardenelle Avenue.” Holmes blinked with delight. Siri added, “Drive time by fastest route, thirty-four minutes.”

  He whispered aside to me as though thinking Siri could hear us and he didn’t want to be rude, “Is she always on call for you?”

  I nodded. “Actually, she is.”

  “But how in the world can she determine with such alacrity that—” Then he deduced it. “Ah. She is using a computer.”

  “No, Holmes.” I smiled wanly, as tired as I was. “She is a computer.”

  Holmes stared at the screen, saying quietly, “Miraculous.”

  Siri’s voice instructed, “Head south on Baker Street for three hundred feet then turn right onto Bay Street.” I made a U-turn following Siri’s instructions while I asked, “What exactly is down at 196 Dardenelle Avenue?”

  Holmes was watching the map display on my dashboard screen and spoke distractedly, reiterating, “Possibly information that will help me recover those damned identity papers.” Then he frowned when Siri guided us north onto Richardson. “Is she confused? Pacifica is south.”

  “She’s taking us by the fastest possible route.”

  “How is she aware which way that is?”

  “She’s constantly getting input from GPS—Global Positioning System satellites that—”

  “Satellites, as in moons?”

  “Very small ones that have been launched on rockets up into orbit.”

  “Ah. Jules Verne lives!”

  “Yes.” While driving, I was fumbling with the wrapper on my “bury-toe” and finally handed it to him. “Would you, please?” He unwrapped it with his long fingers as I went on, “Siri also gathers information from traffic cameras and sensors and even other drivers. She’s your kindred spirit, Holmes, always looking for data, data, data.” I saw his eyes twinkle at the concept.

  By then we’d merged onto the 101 freeway and were crossing through the Presidio when Siri interjected, “In a quarter mile, take exit 438 toward California 1 south.”

  Which I did. I’d also taken a couple of bites of my Trader Joe’s entrée and of course gotten salsa on my fingers. I pointed down toward the floor by Holmes’ left leg and asked, “Hand me a tissue, would you?”

  He retrieved it, but also noticed on the floor the book of Doyle’s Sherlock stories just inside a small shopping bag. He cast an inquiring look my way, prompting an explanation. “I had a couple hours to glance through it at the hospital while I waited in recovery for a young surgery patient to wake up.”

  “Had you never read any of them?”

  “A little bit, long ago, but I was immediately reminded why they’ve had such popularity for so long. I was surprised to read that A Study in Scarlet was actually rejected four places before being accepted for the 1887 Beeton’s Christmas Annual.”

  “Quite true.” Holmes nodded. “Then Doyle received twenty-five pounds sterling for the copyright of the story. Quite a nice amount in those days.”

  “Well, put this in your pipe: I discovered that a copy of that Beeton’s Annual sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2007 for one hundred fifty-six thousand dollars.”

  He was stunned. “You’re joking!”

  “Making it the most expensive magazine in the world.”

  “My, my,” Holmes pondered that. “Reviews were favorable but certainly not that enthusiastic. Although our exploits proved quite popular, particularly in America. Partly because anyone outside of England could print it without paying the author. And the story’s great success caught the attention of an American publishing house, which then commissioned Doyle to supply a new tale, for which he would be properly and amply rewarded.”

  “So he came back to Watson and you, hoping to hear about more cases.”

  “Indeed, yes. Watson supplied him with material and case notes, from which Doyle crafted a new story that he eventually titled—”

  “The Sign of the Four,” I said. “Published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, 1890, to great acclaim.”

  He was surprised by my specificity. “Why, Dr. Winslow, when did you become such a wellspring of Sherlockiana?”

  I smiled, delighted to be one-up on him. “Just surfed the web a bit today for more data.”

  “I see. You have been gargling.”

  I glanced at him curiously.

  He frowned and tried another word. “Gurgling?”

  “Googling?”

  “Right!” He said it as though that’s what he’d said the first time. “And your Mr. Google is correct.” I drew a breath but decided to let “Mr. Google” go by as he continued, “The Sign of the Four was received with even more positive notoriety and enthusiasm than A Study in Scarlet. Thus, Watson and I extended our arrangement with Doyle, allowing him to scour our numerous case files to form the basis for additional stories.”

  “Those were the ones that got published in that other magazine, The Strand ?”

  “Yes.” His nose turned up a bit. “A periodical which could occasionally be a bit lurid. And sometimes Doyle would ‘enhance’ our case files with romanticism, which for me had much the same effect as working a love story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”

  “But Mr. Doyle’s stories were wildly popular,” I said while feeling a bit of envy, wondering if my own writing might someday be published. “Is it true that people began to believe that his Sherlock was a real person?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And would-be clients really came looking for 221B Baker Street and were frustrated to discover that it existed only in the stories?”

  Holmes nodded. “Watson soon put up a small sign near where 221B would have been situated, suggesting that they instead call a few doors away at 236 Baker Street. That was where I had actually taken rooms. Where Watson and I made our headquarters.”

  “And then what? You’d explain to potential clients that Sherlock was fictional but Hubert was real and could do the job?”

  “We began that way, but quickly realized that it was easier and—as good old softhearted Watson always noted—kinder to simply say, ‘Yes, I am Sherlock. How can I help you?’”

  “And no harm done,” I said, “since you obviously had the skills they were seeking. Besides, lots of writers have taken a nom de plume.”

  “Of course, like Amantine Dupin, who wrote under the name—”

  “George Sand.” I was surprised that he actually did know of the female writer.

  “Precisely. And it was also a common occurrence for an actor or actress to assume a stage name. Sometimes this was done so their relatives might avoid the embarrassment or shame of having a thespian in the family. Thus, I slipped into using the name Sherlock for my public persona while I simply went on being exactly whom I’d always been. That allowed Watson and me to avoid repeated explanations to new clients and a lot of irrelevant chatter so we could get on with solving whatever mystery they presented us.”

  Siri spoke up, “In a quarter mile, turn right onto Sloat Boulevard, then bear left onto Skyline Drive.”

  As I made the turn toward the west, Holmes gazed at the dark road ahead through the windshield, on which a misty rain was being swept by the wipers.

  “But Inspector Layton—whom you said Doyle renamed Lestrade—and his fellow officers at Scotland Yard would have known you by your real name, right?”

  “Yes,” Holmes said sardonically. “I often had to endure their clever little gibes and jests about my dual identity. But whatever his given name, Consulting Detective Holmes had been so helpful in a great many of their difficult cases, solving so many intricate mysteries which had left them baffled and confounded, that they went along with my charade. Even so, Layton was not overly fond of me ‘interfering,’ as he put it, in police matters.”

  “Doubtless annoyed that you often solved cases which he and Scotland Yard could not.”

  “Correct. So, in 1899, when I told Layton I was leaving England, bound for exotic foreign climes, and that he might never hear from me again, you can imagine how eagerly he agreed to fingerprint me and supply me the official papers verifying my identification as Mr. Holmes, Hubert, a.k.a. Sherlock in the Doyle stories.”

  “He was probably happy to get you out of his hair,” I said, with a slight shading of my own current feelings.

  He smirked. “How tastefully stated, Winslow.”

  “I read that the Strand stories were very popular.”

  “Frightfully so. Young Dr. Doyle received quite a financial windfall from them. So much so that he was able to completely abandon his medical practice and, to his delight, focus entirely on his burgeoning career as an author.”

  “Then why in the world did Mr. Doyle kill off Sherlock in only the twenty-fourth story? Did he tell you he was going to?”

  Holmes looked greatly taken aback. “I’m astonished you would even ask the question. Of course he informed me. He would never have wished me to just read about it along with the public at large. Doyle was honest, honorable, and a thoroughgoing gentleman. He was extraordinarily appreciative of how Watson and I had given him open access to our files, to the raw material that provided the foundation of his literary accomplishments. Material to which he had added his own editorial artistry and made a success, from which we had all three benefited financially.” He looked off into the distance, recalling, “As I sit here with you, I can vividly picture sitting there with him that night in 1893 in the handsomely furnished old Savile Club.” He glanced at me. “Considering your fondness for historical novels and environments, you’d have been impressed by it, Winslow. Its walls were ornamented with the choicest French paper, enriched by an elegantly designed, gilded cornice. A maroon carpet covered the floor. Two superb mirrors—one above the chimneypiece, extending to the ceiling, and the other at the opposite end of the room, reaching floor to ceiling—multiplied the length and spaciousness of the room while reflecting the flames of the crystal chandeliers. The padded leather chairs were marvelously comfortable.” He shifted in the passenger seat of my Accord as though recalling the preferable feel of the Savile’s vintage chairs.

  “I love London.” Just thinking about that great city always made me smile. “Whereabouts was the Savile?”

  “Overlooking Green Park. It commanded a generous view with Buckingham Palace in the distance.” He chuckled slightly, his eyes narrowing as though focusing on well-remembered images. “I can absolutely see Doyle’s sturdy round Anglo-Irish face, with its crescent mustache illuminated by the gaslight, Winslow. We three were talking over snifters of Courvoisier, Watson smoking his cigar, Doyle enjoying the shag cut tobacco in his bent billiard pipe as I drew on my favorite old briar-root. Doyle told us of the tremendous delight he had taken in publicizing our investigations. How he would have loved to continue writing about them ad infinitum, but that lately he’d felt a yearning to move on to other ‘more serious’ writing he had long been delaying. And now, in order to do so, he planned to bring the stories of our exploits to a dramatic and irreversible conclusion wherein Sherlock would meet his end while fulfilling his destiny. He assured us of his gratitude and fondness for us, which we never doubted, and also that our percentages of any revenue he might yet receive from the existing stories would continue.”

  I asked delicately, “Did you have any concerns that ending the stories might affect your livelihood?”

  “No. At the time, I still had former clientele returning for assistance with new problems and also fresh inquiries for help. Watson had satisfactory earnings from his medical practice to support his family. And we both did receive minor earnings from our percentages,” Holmes drew a breath. “But yes, Winslow, over the next several years, my services were less frequently sought, and my caseload dwindled.”

  I nodded. “Because people thought Sherlock was indeed dead.”

  “Requiescat in pace.” He chuckled sadly. “Alas.”

  “Weren’t you able to explain the truth to prospective clients? Who you really were?”

  “I attempted that for a time, even showing them an affidavit Doyle had volunteered, but my veracity was increasingly questioned, some even presuming I was a charlatan, a pretender endeavoring to cash in on the amazing reputation of a well-beloved but now sadly deceased hero. The irony was amusing, but it was also . . .” He paused, and I sensed that he was searching for a word that would not make him sound too vulnerable. He finally sniffed dryly, and said, “It was somewhat debilitating. Work had always been the antidote for any frustrations, but with less and less call on my services, my life grew ever more empty.”

  I spoke softly, “I’m certain that was very hard. Particularly for someone of your abilities and worth to find himself in forced retirement.”

  Holmes turned his head slightly away to look out the side window toward the dark ocean that was now on our right.

  “But Inspector Layton knew the truth, knew of your tremendous value. Didn’t he ask for your help after that?”

  “On a few occasions, yes. But he was a proud, ferret-like little man, protective of his own esteemed position. When he did seek my counsel, he did so privately and often as though he were going out of his way to do me a favor.”

  By then we were driving through Lake Merced Park, several miles above the town of Pacifica. “Nowadays, someone might go to a media outlet or newspaper to get the truth out to a broader public,” I said. “Did you ever consider—”

  Holmes sat up stiffly. “Never.” He glowered at me. “Neither Watson nor I ever expected or requested any public credit be given us for supplying our cases that inspired Conan Doyle’s stories. Besides, the general public would likely have dismissed me as an impostor. And also”—he grew more introspective—“it seemed an appropriate time to bring his chronicling of our investigations to a close, because it came within a few weeks of my return from Switzerland.”

  “Where you dispatched James Moriarty to his death at the Reichenbach Falls.” I glanced at him.

  Holmes paused, with a thousand-yard gaze through my rainy windshield, as though recalling that moment of “dispatch.” He finally said slowly, “Yes, he fell into the abyss.” Holmes sat, staring down the foggy, dark road ahead.

  “I actually jumped ahead and read that story today,” I admitted. “The Final Problem. Doyle wrote that there was clear evidence of the struggle between the two of you and that you had tumbled off together . . .” As I spoke the next five words, Holmes whispered them along with me. “‘Locked in each other’s arms.’”

  “Yes,” Holmes said quietly, “That’s what Doyle wrote.” After an introspective moment, he added, “Perhaps the way it should have been.”

  “You mean, because that left no one who was a worthy challenger to your skills.” I understood. “That brought on your depression and heavier addiction to opiates and cocaine.”

  Without looking at me, he gave a single nod.

  I weighed whether I should ask. When I did, it was a whisper. “What really happened that day at the falls?”

  “Moriarty and I did struggle ferociously, hand to hand, fired by our mutual hatred. We fought so intensely that I was barely aware of the narrowness of the ledge on which our combat was engaged.” Holmes glanced at me. “Try to envision it, Winslow: a torrent of plunging water roared downward right beside us into the glistening, black rock chasm with its flickering spray hissing upwards.” Holmes’ intense eyes wandered as he described the scene. “The constant, thunderous whirl and clamor were dizzying as we clutched at each other’s throats with extreme exertion and the wafting mists soaked us to the bone.” I glanced over and saw that Holmes’ respiration had increased, he was deeply into the memory, saying, “Moriarty was a physically powerful adversary. I felt my strength waning. We were both near exhaustion when I managed to shove him backwards”—Holmes thrust out his hands—“against the sheer wall of the black cliffside, and in doing so, I recoiled a step back toward the precipice.” He paused, blinked. “Oddly, I remember having a fleeting thought of Newton’s third law of motion: action causes reaction.” Emotion flooded back into his description as he continued. “Then I chilled, having felt nothing but air below my left heel. At that moment”—Holmes unconsciously acted out the moves as he spoke—“Moriarty’s right hand drew from within his greatcoat a dagger—the classic secret weapon of the sinister—which he plunged straight toward my heart, putting his full weight behind the mighty thrust. But my Japanese baritsu training protected me. I turned sharply to the right, pivoting on the toe of my right foot to barely avoid his blade as my right hand parried and grasped his oncoming wrist. I pulled him onward, pivoting further to my right, onto solid ground, while using his own inertia—Newton’s first law—to propel him past me. And off the cliff.”