To my alarm, Holmes acquiesced to my decision almost immediately. He insisted on having young Simpson stay to report the verdict by telegram as soon as possible, but allowed himself to be taken out of the court by Bunter and Anstruther with barely a word of protest.

The boys were harder to convince. If I hadn't struck on telling Alfie that he was to tell our cook to feed the lot of them as soon as she could, I doubt they would have gone. But their stomachs were nearly as empty as my own.

Mary, however, wouldn't concede an inch.

I signalled to Anstruther, who paused for a moment to spread the blanket higher over Holmes's shoulders before coming to me.

"It's time you took him home," I said, coming straight to the point. "The machine will need fresh chemicals soon, and he's done all he can for me here. The boys can help you."

Anstruther frowned. "The jury won't take much longer, surely?"

If Collins were too frightened of Moriarty to concede to Holmes, they might take all night, but I couldn't say that to Anstruther. "I'd rather he were somewhere safe. The crowd may not like the verdict."

The sunlight streaming in the western windows did little to ease my headache. I took a surreptitious look at my watch and realized that part of the misery in my gut was due to hunger. It had been hours since I had shared my luncheon with Wiggins.

Any hope I had for a quick verdict faded as the minutes passed. The chatter of the audience slowed and faded as the wait grew longer. Wiggins gnawed on a fingernail. The other boys played at cat's cradle. Mary and Mrs. Hudson were knitting. Merridew was sulking. And Holmes...

Holmes had fallen asleep.

Between them, Wiggins and Smythe convinced me that I must show my face to the jury before they retired to decide my fate. I could only hope that they could not read my thoughts, as Holmes was wont to do. My head ached with the desire to run, to break free of the constraints which would entrap me, regardless of anything which it was in my power to do. For tuppence I'd have taken them all on, judge, prosecutor, hecklers, even Moriarty himself. Yes, and saved a few blows for Holmes, too, or anyone else who got in my way.

Reluctantly, I returned to my seat, and listened with my head in my hands while the ladies were brought back in and Holmes explained to the court why his injuries proved that my reasons for attacking Merridew were urgent enough to justify whatever means had come to my hand. His voice was losing strength, it seemed to me, although only Holmes knew if that impression were deliberate, a ruse to draw Moriarty's fire.

And I was furious at the thought that it might be. How dare he play the martyr, risking the life I had done so much to save?

"Moriarty must have a target," Holmes vouchsafed quietly to me, once the prosecutor and Collins had departed for their places to consider the proposition, and I was left winding the bandages which Anstruther had brought around his thin, damaged chest. "And I'd rather it was me than your good lady wife."

"I can't say I think much of either choice," I growled. "You're not in any condition to stave off a murder attempt."

But Holmes only patted my arm consolingly. "They won't try for me, not yet. The professor will try to find out where I've hidden the manuscript first."

For an interminable interlude Holmes and the prosecutor held a silent battle of wills over my head, and I saw the gleam in my friend's eye when the prosecutor conceded to the terms. But I had taken notice of the omission Holmes had left, and had no doubt it had been done deliberately.

"But Holmes," I protested, once I was sure I could do so quietly. "What about you?"

His grip upon me tightened with a warning. "Once you've left the game, Doctor," he said, sparing me only the mildest glance of condescension, "you cannot expect to set the rules."

"And if that fair judgment goes against you?" the prosecutor asked, which saved me the trouble of asking the same question.

"I have faith in an honest English jury," Holmes said. He was grimacing with pain as I eased him back into a sitting position, but he would not let that stop him. "If Collins has been neglecting the evidence in favor of a pre-determined outcome he need only side with the majority."

"And that's all?"

"It is. Except, of course," Holmes added, with steel in his voice, "that Mrs. Watson and the Doctor shall not be retaliated against, afterwards."

I crumpled the cloth in my hand and returned it to the basin, reaching for a towel. "I'll have to rewrap your chest, Holmes," I said, mechanically, while my mind raced. I needed to keep Collins here, at least until Holmes had struck whatever bargain it was he had in mind. "Make yourself useful, and look in that bag there for fresh bandages."

Collins stumbled to do as I asked, all too glad to have Holmes release his arm. But Holmes's attention had fixed upon the prosecutor. "All I ask," he said, "is that the jury gives a fair judgment."

Holmes's sharp intake of breath was my fault, for in my sudden alarm my hands grew clumsy. Over my shoulder, the prosecutor, whose presence I had almost forgotten, gasped too, albeit for a different reason. But that small exhalation of air proved to me that Holmes's deductions as to the author of my difficulties were most certainly correct. I'd spent six months writing about the Birlstone Valley business and its fatal results, only to set the whole manuscript aside at Holmes's request when I decided to marry. But despite that discretion I'd still managed to fall afoul of Professor Moriarty.

Non-combatant?

I would have cocked an eyebrow at Holmes if he'd done so much as spare me a glance. But I did not dare to interrupt him, for I'd not be able to stall much longer.

"There is a manuscript," Holmes went on, "which would raise questions about the death of John Douglas. Questions I could answer now, if necessary, thanks to Merridew. Remember, a man already in prison has little to fear from a charge of libel, and his trial might uncover many things. The Professor is not the only one who can employ the power of the press."

With a mouse trapped under his paw, and my careful ablutions satisfying his catlike love of cleanliness after a week of having his torso trapped within a suffocating pall of bandaging, Holmes was all but purring. At least so it seemed to me, although Collins might be forgiven for seeing nothing but the claws.

He squirmed in his chair like a schoolboy, but Holmes would not let go. "What are you after?" he hissed, trying to keep his mouth nearly closed.

"A temporary ceasefire," Holmes replied. "To give the noncombatants like the doctor and yourself time to clear the field."

As the cool wet cloth touched his skin, Holmes gave a small shudder, and let his eyes fall nearly shut. "You must agree," he muttered, so softly that I doubt anyone but Collins or I could hear, "that by attempting to avenge himself on the doctor's wife, Merridew has destroyed any chance of this trial turning out in his favor. Even if you manage to deadlock the jury and cause a mistrial, Dr. Watson is sure to be exonerated at the Assizes. And by then, I shall be ready to explain why I began my investigation. And what I found."

Collins, for that had to be his name, froze and went white to the lips, his eyes bright with terror. "How..." he exclaimed.

I took the soggy cloth hastily. "I'll wash, you watch," I said, clearly enough for the court to hear. "You'll never make a soldier, man, if a few bruises make you faint."

The burst of laughter from the audience covered Holmes's quiet command to Collins to keep still. My friend had taken the young man's arm in one hand, holding tight enough to make his knuckles whiten. "You don't want anyone to overhear our negotiations, do you?"

Bunter appeared with a basin of soapy water and a soft cloth – no doubt Holmes had warned him of his intentions – and offered them and a bedside chair to the juryman, who accepted both but then sat with the cloth dangling from his hand. "I don't know where to start," he stammered.

"Near the edges, please," I interjected hastily. "Additional pressure on the original injury would aggravate the damage. Go carefully."

"Yes, caution would be a good thing," Holmes murmured, his expression unnaturally closed. "You don't want to make things worse for me – nor for yourself, do you, Mr. Collins?"

I studied the juryman as he stepped down from the box, trying to apply some of Holmes's precepts. Despite the scented brilliantine in his hair and the barbershop neatness of his mustache, his ragged fingernails and badly polished boots showed him either careless of his appearance or under unusual strain. The knees and elbows of his suit were wearing thin, which I took as proof that he had not been able to afford better in some time. A pink corner of paper showed from one pocket, betraying why. A gambler, then – and a gamble too, if he were playing false.

I admit to paying scant attention to the audience around us, but Holmes had not forgotten them. He turned to the jury with a simulacrum of his usual masterful air and said, "To forestall any doubts you may have, should the subject of my skill with disguises be raised, I suggest that a closer examination would be as well. With a little soap and water, I'm sure that any question of make-up can be eliminated."

Holmes then fixed his gimlet stare upon the nervous young man I had noted earlier. "You, sir," he commanded. "In the checked suit. Come here."

His ribs had healed enough that the damaged section no longer rose and sank with each breath, but the dark purple of the bruising there showed clearly where he had been struck. He took a deeper breath, and quirked a shaky smile in my direction. "It's almost easier to breathe," he observed.

Easier, perhaps, but he was beginning to tremble. I eased him back onto the pillows and laid my fingertips upon the pulse point in his throat, waiting until the tumultuous fluttering of his heart began to steady into a more regular rhythm before I allowed myself to relax.

I knelt by Holmes. "I'm doing this under protest you know," I murmured as I began to undo the strapping. "Your ribs need the support."

"It's necessary," Holmes answered, his fingers digging painfully into my shoulders, his jaw set too tight for more words.

Layer by layer the cloth came away, and revealed on each pass more of the hideous aura of yellow and green which had expanded to cover Holmes's torso from collarbone to beltline. The colors deepened, dark mottling following the indentations left by the constrictive bandaging as I worked my way towards the heart of the damage.

The men still in the courtroom jostled for a better view as soon as they were able, craning necks and whispering as Bunter stepped forward to help Holmes remove his jacket. For all that he was very careful I could see Holmes flinching as they worked together to free the tail of the nightshirt he still wore from the confines of his trousers. It was a huge relief to me when at last Holmes was freed of the shirt and nothing but his bandages remained. He looked to me, "Doctor, I think you'd best be the one to unwind these."

To my dismay, Holmes began to shrug out of the jacket which he wore over his nightshirt. "If the ladies would be so kind as to retire to the hall temporarily?" he said, looking to Mary.

She nodded, accepting calmly what was already making me shake with a mixture of apprehension and comprehension. "We'll return when you are decent," she said and stood to go, drawing the other women in the courtroom to their feet by the sheer force of her personality.

"Go with her," I hissed at the nearest Irregular. "All of you boys, go too. Keep her safe."

"In short," Holmes summed up his reasoning, "the location of the altercation is significant, because if Watson and I were 'in cahoots' as the saying goes, there would have been no need for Watson to take anyone to my lodgings. He would have known which papers were significant without Merridew's assistance. The location of Merridew's worst injuries is significant because clearly the attack focused upon the hands, where one might reasonably expect him to have been carrying weaponry." Holmes shifted on his pillow and swallowed a cough. "And there is one more incontrovertible item which you must take into account."

Knowing Mary, she had noticed the discrepancies in that young juror's behavior as well, for all her air of calm. She has never been one to fall apart when others are distressed. I drew Smythe's attention to the jurybox and then tried to contain my own dismay. I scarcely listened as Holmes outlined the reasons why the evidence supported my version of events and not Merridew's. Judge, prosecutor, juryman, and I suspected not a few of the roughs in the gallery... how many of the people in the courtroom were plotting against me, and for the love of heaven why?

Reminded of the recent danger, I turned my head to be certain of Mary's safety, but she was surrounded by vigilant constables and equally alert Irregulars, and only smiled reassurance to me and nodded toward the jurybox. I looked too, and saw the jurors pulling on their chins and leaning on their forearms, clearly deep in thought as they concentrated on Holmes's quiet words. All but one, a dandified youngster in a checked suit who fidgeted and bit at his nails nervously, casting glances now and then at the judge and prosecutor as if looking for some kind of cue.

Holmes's lecture was somewhat marred by the necessity of drawing upon the oxygen again, but the prosecutor was too flabbergasted to take advantage of the interruption. My friend, having dismissed the man from consideration, turned his attention to the jury. "This case is entirely a question of credibility. Had Dr. Watson denied using the acid, or claimed that it was merely spilled, you would have cause to doubt his assertions as to why it was used. But, as was so very nearly demonstrated before us, a person who uses acid out of spite aims for the face, not the hands."