The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls Read Free Page B

says.
    My eyes clamp shut, but they seep tears as Thomas continues his inspection. He finds bruises, abrasions, and a few weeping wounds, each of which he grimly itemizes.
    At last he sighs. “Well, Harry—”
    “Please, call me Silence.”
    “Well, Silence, you’ve got some nasty knocks—head and arm, here and there. We’ll splint your arm—we can use my kerchief for ties—”
    “And what about the napkins, from the picnic basket?” Anna volunteered.
    “Those, too, and we’ll find sticks for braces. Other than that, though, there’s not much we can do for you out here.
We’ll take you in our hansom to Meiringen, find a doctor … maybe even somebody who knows you.”
    “Thank you,” I say. “I owe you my life.”
    “Not that you remember any of it,” the young man replies with a smile and a shrug. “But—hey—it’s like your first day on earth. Clean slate. Happy birthday!”
    He’s a sardonic young man, this “scientist and student of the world.” As he gathers the cloths for my splint, I see a shiny Christ College ring on the third finger of his right hand. So, Thomas is a recent graduate of Cambridge. The adjacent pinky also wears a school ring, but it is much more battered, and it bears the crest of St. Petersburg Polytechnic—perhaps his father’s alma mater. The man must be dead, now, or he would have worn the ring himself. The small diameter of the Russian ring indicates that the older Carnacki was a small man, perhaps due to deprivation. It might be the reason he left Russia and came to England.
    Yes, Thomas Carnacki puts on a brash face, but his glib outside shields troubled things within. “Off to fetch some sticks,” he says.
    And what of Anna Schmidt? She has a German name and face, but her voice is inflected with London, Paris, Rome … . She could as easily be Anna Banks or Anna Chaillot or Anna Morenzi. Her outside, also, does not match her inside. She defers to Thomas in outward ways, but as he looks for splint sticks, she searches his rucksack, only to neatly replace the contents before he returns. And now that he is back, working on my splint, she frets about how cold and wretched I look, so that Thomas volunteers his own clothes, and Anna praises him for his insight and generosity.
    She is playing him. Perhaps he even realizes it.
    Thomas draws the last cloth napkin tight over the splint. “Is that too snug?”
    “It’s fine.”
    Anna comes up to hover behind him, her eyes shifting between us. “Do you think you can walk?”
    “I don’t know”—I’m so tired of saying that—“I’ll try.” Anna rewards me with a smile, and I see how easy it would be to be played by her.
    “Then, up we go,” Thomas says as he and Anna lift me to my feet. I stagger, but these young people are strong. They lead me to their carriage—a black hansom with room for two within and a driver’s seat above and behind. A few jolting steps up bring me into the compartment.
    “Do you need help?” Anna asks sweetly.
    “I’ll manage.”
    She hands me a neat stack of clothes that she has produced from Thomas’s rucksack. “We’ll give you a few moments’ privacy.” She and Thomas turn and step away from the carriage.
    At first, I stare stupidly at the stack of clothes in my hands. Then, shaking off my torpor, I examine them: A shirt that had been tailored for the young man—five years back judging by its nap and the wear beneath the arms; ah, the label confirms it. Thomas’s father must have lived then, to buy a shirt like this for a young man entering university. The shirt that Thomas currently wears is newer—perhaps a year old—but not tailored. So, there was not much money when this new shirt was bought, which places the death of the father from one to five years back. The trousers give an even graver comment—for the cuffs at the bottom have been let out, leaving the smallest possible hem. These had been the pants of Thomas’s father, adjusted by an inexpert hand—perhaps