Detective Mary

Chapter 31

Thin, strong palms covered Mary's mouth and nose, and Sherlock Holmes' voice came from above her, "Hold your breath!"

Mary did so almost immediately, and the next thing she knew, she saw a dark shadow rush out of the room.

The situation was urgent, and Holmes was the only man in the narrow alley. Even if the detective's powers had been of the highest order, it would have been impossible for him to attend to the safety of the two young ladies in a moment, and he could only seize Mary and drag her backward.

"Sir, sir?"

"Don't breathe," snapped Holmes, "and don't speak!"

He gave Mary a tug, and the petite girl planted herself directly into Holmes' arms, thus escaping the shadow that rushed out. The large, lanky figure rushed straight at the red-haired Irish girl, but she reacted in time and jumped out of the way.

It all happened so quickly that by the time the redhead had steadied herself, she could see the dark figure that had broken out.

"Henry?!" The redhead screamed.

What?

Is this Henry Decker, the worker they're looking for?

Mary's head was in the machine, and she was still being held over her mouth and nose by Mr. Holmes, the man's palm pressed dead against her cheek, blocking out all the choking gases.

It wasn't until she was dragged away from the room that Mr. Holmes let go.

Mary finally had a chance to look up.

Her eyes met Henry Decker's, and the madness and fear in his eyes startled Mary. The worker who had broken out of the room circled the room and let out a strangled cry.

"Eyes!!! So many eyes! So many eyes - don't look at me! Don't look at me!!!"

The mournful voice echoed and hovered in the alley, hardly human. Such a treacherous scene sent chills down Mary's spine - what was going on? What had he seen? It was as if what stood before Henry Decker were not three human beings, but some kind of monster!

"What's going on?"

Two screams in quick succession finally drew the attention of the other Irish workers. Several of the youths followed suit, and at the sound of their footsteps, Henry Decker flinched for a few moments, then bent over.

Mr. Holmes reacted almost immediately, "He's trying to run, stop him!"

As soon as the detective's words landed, Henry Decker made a mad dash toward the crowd.

The Irish workmen who had gathered in the neighborhood were strong and able-bodied, and, hearing Holmes's command, hastened to hold Henry Dyke down with seven hands. The youth who had spoken out earlier to question Mary could not help but speak, "What is going on here, sir?"

Holmes did not answer, but left Mary's side.

He strides towards the redhead, "Were you attacked, miss?"

The Irish girl waved her hand, "No, I'm just a little ...... dizzy."

Holmes wrinkled his nose.

"Will you please tie up Henry Dyke," he turned to the Irish workmen, "and take the young lady and spend an hour together in a well-ventilated and wide-open place."

Mary responded.

"The gas in the room is poisonous, isn't it," she spoke hurriedly, "and Henry Decker was poisoned?"

"Yes."

Holmes drew his handkerchief from his arms and covered his mouth and nose, "One moment."

With that, he turned around and headed straight towards the room Henry Decker had broken out of.

He was not afraid to inhale the pungent gases any more, and the detective was extremely quick, as he quickly stepped into the room and opened all the windows and doors.

After ventilating the room the pungent odor quickly disappeared into thin air, and the detective lingered in the room for a few moments as if examining the scene. A short time later he emerged from the chamber with a tray containing burning ashes.

"I smelled that odor long before I walked into the alley," declared Mr. Holmes, "and it was the devil's heel."

"Ah ...... Devil's heel?"

Mary froze, then realized what it was.

It wasn't because of her extensive knowledge of chemistry, but this "Devil's Heel", a chemical fictionalized by Conan Doyle in The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries. When humans inhale the incendiary gas of the Devil's Heel, they experience intense and realistic hallucinations. In the original case of The Devil's Foot, this type of poison was used to harm people.

Sherlock Holmes is well versed in chemical pharmacology, and it's a good thing he reacted in time, or they all would have been attacked by a deranged Henry Decker.

Several Irish workers tied up Henry Decker and helped the redhead out of the alley. For a while only Holmes and Mary were left in the narrow space.

The detective carefully removed a bag from his coat and filled it with the powder. And then his sharp eyes flicked over Mary, "You're not feeling well either?"

Mary: "Hmm? No."

Holmes gives a skeptical look.

Mr. Detective watched Mary without a trace, making sure she was lucid and bright-eyed before nodding and collecting his scrutiny.

"It was an emergency situation just now," he said, "purely out of necessity."

Mary: "......"

Without mentioning it, Mary felt her cheeks immediately become hot.

It had happened so quickly, leading to the fact that now that it was over, all the details were still etched in Mary's mind - especially some of Mr. Holmes' actions.

He had one hand on Mary's shoulder and the other covering her face. Mary was practically grabbed into the lean, tall gentleman's arms, the back of her head resting in the middle of the detective's chest.

The faint scent of tobacco, chemicals, and the cooler, less perceptible, scent belonging to the detective himself overwhelmed Mary in that moment. To this day, that odor seemed to hover at the tip of her nose, permeating her lungs.

God, to be that close, that close.

It was a good thing that Mary was a girl who had traveled through time and space from the twenty-first century, or else she would have had to pass out from fear if she had been grabbed directly into the arms of an adult male - or the man she adored.

"No, no it's fine!"

Mary blushed as she shook her head, "I'm the one who has to thank you for reacting in time, sir."

Holmes, on the other hand, looked at her a few more times in silence and frowned slightly, "Are you sure you're okay?"

".................."

Help, the detective really didn't mean it! How was she supposed to answer that?

Mary reached up and rubbed her face, trying her best to keep her expression taut, "It's really nothing, thank you for saving me, let's just get on with it and see how Henry Decker is doing, his companion should be in a hurry too."

Fortunately, Sherlock Holmes didn't dismantle Mary's attempt to change the subject, he just looked deeply at Mary for a few moments, as if he was contemplating something, and eventually began to uncover the topic.

"Go away." He said.

By the time they got back to where the Irish workers were meeting, they had helped the redhead to rest by the door.

As for Henry Dyke, he was tied up by the workers with a rope in another room with an open window, his hands and feet bound and a piece of cloth stuffed in his mouth, struggling and yelling desperately in his place.

He was still shouting vaguely what "eyes" what "don't come over", even if we know he was hit by the chemical reagent, but also can't help but let a person trembling - to say that the devil's heel can make people hallucinate, then this hallucination is also too long-lasting, too logical.

"What's going on here, sir?"

The redhead had only slightly inhaled the noxious gas, and she eased up by sitting in front of the door and catching her breath, "Henry was fine when he came through the door, why did he go crazy for no reason?"

"Rest assured," Holmes explained calmly, "Henry Decker is merely in the midst of a hallucination, and will return to normal when the effects of the chemical gas have passed."

"Is it really a hallucination," muttered the Irish laborer in a low voice, "it can't be some kind of witchcraft or curse, can it?"

Holmes sniffed.

Obviously, the detective would never tolerate such foolish talk polluting his ears, "This is no longer the Middle Ages, sir! You labor day and night in front of machines and deserve to be the first to feel the power of science."

"Yes," the youth couldn't help but mock, "What about the power of science to tie us to those machines for the capitalists to exploit ruthlessly."

"The detective didn't mean anything else," said Mary, hastily rounding off the conversation; "he only wished people not to panic; everything can be explained by knowledge of chemistry, and is in no way the work of some ghostly deity. The gas that Henry Decker inhaled came from a potion called the Devil's ...... Devil's Heel."

"Devil's heel?"

"An herb from Africa, to be precise," the detective explained, "which when burned produces a gas that causes strong and realistic hallucinations, and it was the sight of the hallucinations that struck fear into Henry Decker's heart and drove him mad."

Hearing Holmes' assured explanation, the crowd let go of their fears.

"That's odd," the redhead couldn't help muttering, "who would want to harm Henry Decker? Could it be that the overseer of the Hampstead factory was not even enough to dismiss him and wanted him dead?"

Mary: "......"

Hearing this, Mary's heart sank hard.

Yes, who would want to harm a worker?

Not the Hampstead factory, as the Mary girl, who shared her name, had already said, which had dismissed Henry Dyke for "stealing," eliminating almost all possibility of Henry's living in London - the last thing in a city as big as this was labor. No factory would hire a worker suspected of stealing.

It was enough to drive him out of London; if he was to die, why bother? Just get someone to throw him into the Thames while it's still nighttime. No one cares whether an Irish worker lives or dies.

Unless ......

Mary jerked her head up.

"Sir," she spoke, "it's too much of a coincidence, don't you think, that we got here one foot and Henry Decker was hit the next?"

This act was, surprisingly, the same as Captain Carter's instigation of young Geoffrey to steal Mr. Bentley's property, and that contract-the intention to destroy the body and cut off the trail was more evident than the desire to gain something.

The bottom line was that if this was the case, the person who had poisoned them would have known in advance that they were here.

-That is to say, that the person behind the scene, is aware that Sherlock Holmes is investigating this matter!

Mary was able to figure out this side of the story, and Sherlock Holmes himself was afraid that he had realized the key to it long ago.

He saw that Mary's eyes were burning and she was staring at him without blinking, and the lean gentleman nodded without a trace, "I see."

The said detective hooked an exuberant smile, "Now, things are finally getting much more interesting."

Mary: "Who do you think it could be?"

Just as she tries to press on, a broken moan comes from the chamber.

The worker in charge of taking care of Henry Decker rushed out with a surprised look on his face, "Henry is awake!"