My friend did not seem convinced.
I watched with interest to see if our visitor—a nervous fellow resembling a long-legged stork in a solemn black suit—might still be able to present his case in such a way as to pique Holmes’s interest. It seemed unlikely. We were due to return to London by train the following morning, having just concluded a rather seamy bit of business related to a traitor within the ranks at Edinburgh Castle.
I filled my coffee cup, considering whether the strong brew would keep me awake when the sunset in a few hours. I decided that I didn’t care. It had been a trying day, and I needed the jolt. I offered a cup to our visitor, but he declined, instead choosing to pack his pipe with rather pungent cherry tobacco.
Sherlock Holmes and I had started the morning with a grim meeting with representatives of both the military and the Crown, where Holmes spent a great deal of energy explaining the truth of the matter that had summoned us to the Scottish capital. The meeting concluded with an offer of a revolver and one bullet to the traitor, and five minutes of solitude to confer with his God before he had a tragic gun-cleaning accident. Within three minutes we heard, through the closed door, a ringing curse directed toward Holmes and then the gunshot.
We delivered the man’s confession into the proper hands at Holyrood Palace, however the bureaucratic process took time. Twenty minutes late for the last train back to London, we were now back in our tidy little hotel near the center of the Royal Mile, ensconced in the small sitting room between our two bedrooms. Holmes had made a show of impatience about getting home, but I could tell that the idea of an enforced rest wasn’t entirely unwelcome. Nor was a sunset walk through the city Robert Louis Stevenson has described as “what Paris ought to be.”
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