The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls Read Free Page A

Perhaps I should have checked his vital signs—looked for bleeding or broken bones—but I could only blurt, “Who are you?”
    “What?” he asked.
    “Who are you?” I repeated. “What’s your name?”
    Those radiant eyes grew dim. “I don’t know.”

2
    CALL ME SILENCE
    I ’m staring into a face—a young face with black hair and eyebrows and dripping whiskers that might someday amount to a beard. The face stares back at me. Is this a mirror?
    The face asks, “Who are you?”
    “What?”
    “Who are you?”
    A face in a mirror wouldn’t ask who are you? but who am I?
    “I don’t know.”
    The face considers me in amusement or annoyance. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
    I raise my hand between us. My fingers are slim but strong, the middle one marked with a deep callus above the final knuckle. My skin is white and mottled with scars, like stains from acid. “I’m old,” I realize. It’s not a pleasant thought.
    “You’re more than old,” the young man says, “you’re washed up—literally.” He gaped at the left side of my head. “You’ve got a big knot just here. Concussed, I should think, and in shock, and likely half frozen.” He unbuttons his woolen coat—a peculiar gray color, with a tag that includes an upside-down h as in Russian. Shrugging quickly, he shucks his coat and lays it over me. I only just realize that I’m lying down. “So—you don’t remember anything about how you got in the river—?”
    River? Yes, I hear it now, just to my left—chattering over stones. “No. I don’t remember.”
    The young man gives a grim nod and clamps two fingers on my wrist. “Pulse seems slow—but at least you’ve got one. Yes, I’d say shock, most definitely. Let me see your pocketbook.”
    Without waiting for a response, he rifles through my pockets. Perhaps he’s a thief—except that a thief wouldn’t lend his coat.
    “What does it say?” asks a new voice—a woman’s. I shift my head, seeing now beyond the shoulder of the man a young, beautiful face, framed by dripping blond locks. Worry knits her brow. “What does the pocketbook say?”
    The man holds up empty hands. “Says nothing. No pocketbook, no identification except …” He tugs at the collar of my shirt and turns it outward. “What’s this? ‘Harold Silence, clothier, London.’” A lopsided smile grows across his face. “Harold Silence?”
    “That’s his tailor. Not him,” says the woman.
    “Still, we’ve got to call him something. Mind if we call you Harold Silence?”
    Harold Silence. It’s a name, I suppose, as good as any other. “For now, no, I don’t mind.” Though it certainly doesn’t seem like my name.
    “Right, then, Harold. I should check the rest of you—for injuries, you know?”
    “You should call him Mr. Silence,” the young woman urges.
    “Mr. Silence? No. What about Harry, or H.S., or just Silence?”
    “Whatever you want,” I say. “But, um—what are your names?”
    The young man splays a hand on his chest and says, “I’m
Master Thomas Carnacki, scientist and student of the world. This”—he gestures over his shoulder—“is Miss Anna Schmidt.”
    The woman curtsies slightly and gives a blushing smile.
    “Now for a diagnosis.” Master Thomas Carnacki leans toward me, sets his fingertips on my skull, and probes through my hair. He seems surprised to find no damage except at the left temple—
    “Ahh! Blast!” I cry, recoiling.
    “It’s this whole left side of your head,” young Thomas says. “I’m surprised you’re even conscious—”
    “Or alive,” Anna blurts.
    I’m panting from pain, and there’s a claxon in my skull. It isn’t just my head that hurts, either: “There’s … there’s something wrong with my arm.”
    “In time, my friend,” Thomas replies. He gingerly draws back the coat he has laid over me and gently probes the sides of my neck, my collarbone, my shoulders, my upper arms. More pain erupts.
    “Broken left arm,” Thomas