Sherlock Holmes in 2012: TIMELESS DUEL Read Free Page B

turned the clock ahead one day, yet I would have landed on the same day as the one I departed. Moreover, the reverse would be true; leaving the island on a designated day, I would arrive in London a day ahead of my supposed arrival date.. Incredible, but indubitably correct!” Holmes stood up and began pacing the floor under the amazed gazes of Watson and their host. Retracing his steps to the chair he had abandoned moments ago, Holmes sat down once again. “If such is the case then, would you be so kind to tell us where the machine is stored?”
    “Not far from here, Mr. Holmes. It had to be in a building which I could reach easily by day or night. Come, I will show you.” Wells got up from his chair and invited the two guests to follow him to the kitchen at the back of the house. “You can only see the roof of the disused house beyond the trees, but that is where the time machine is stored.”
    Holmes and Watson peered through the window pane at the rooftop to which Wells had pointed as they had entered the kitchen.
    “May we see it now?” Holmes asked somewhat impatiently.
    “I am afraid that will not be possible today, Mr. Holmes.”
    “And why wouldn’t that be possible, sir? I came all this way intending to view your invention, and you refuse me the pleasure?” Holmes sounded more than obfuscated at the refusal.
    Wells shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. “I am not refusing you the access to the machine, Mr. Holmes, I am simply asking you to come back another day when I will be freer of my time to demonstrate its functions to you. That’s all.”
    “I think that’s only fair, Holmes,” Watson said, opening his mouth for the first time since entering the premises. “We have come unannounced, and Mr. Wells is probably busy with other pressing matters today; we should be able to come back.”
    “Well, if we must, we must,” Holmes agreed, surprisingly enough to Wells.
    “Let me accompany you to the door then,” Wells offered. “If you would like to come back tomorrow, I shall be at your entire disposal then.” He stretched an arm in the direction of the hallway leading to the foyer.
    On the stoop, Holmes gestured to the waiting hansom coachman for him to come back. He then turned to Wells. “Until the morrow then.. Good day, sir.”
    “Good bye, Mr. Holmes,” Wells replied, re-plunging his hands into his trousers’ pockets.
    Watson saluted the man, touching his hat with his cane before boarding the cab behind Holmes.
    Comfortably ensconced once again in the seats of the cab, Watson couldn’t refrain from asking, “What do you think we will see tomorrow, Holmes?”
    “You will see nothing, Watson,” was Holmes only reply before he fell silent for the rest of the trip back to Baker Street.

 
    “What did you mean by I would see nothing tomorrow?” Watson iterated once both men had made their way upstairs to Holmes’s apartment.
    “Exactly what I said, Watson,” Holmes replied, taking a seat in his favorite chair and grabbing The Chronic Argonauts article that he had discarded to the floor before departing that morning. He read through the story, flipped the paper in the air, got to his feet and began pacing the floor.
    Watson knew from long experience that Holmes was evidently in one of his brewing moods and wouldn’t come out from his torpor-like state until the morning. It was time for him to take his leave. He rose from the sofa, mumbled a few words of farewell to his friend and left the apartment without acknowledgement from Holmes.
    In the hours that followed, Holmes prepared himself for what he hoped would not be a wasted trip back to Woking. He could not wait until the morning to verify that what he had read in the article and what he had heard from Wells’s mouth was true to life. In fact, ambivalent thoughts, whether the time machine was capable to travel anywhere-be that in the past or the future-encumbered his mind without relief. The article had been clear enough