The time was perhaps fifteen minutes past eleven, for Watson had been unable to read his watch since Holmes had turned down the lamp. True, Holmes had not entirely extinguished the flame within the glass--for fumbling to light the lamp in the darkness would be greatly trying in an emergency--but the lamp was certainly kept at the barest minimum of oil burning. Sitting in that pitch-black, silent room of Roylott Manor together, they abruptly heard a key turning in the lock of the door. Both held their breaths and got to their feet; Watson particularly remembered to draw his gun in case Dr. Roylott planned as much damage to them as he had done to their fireplace poker in the morning.

The door opened, and the slight figure of Helen Stoner appeared by the light of the corridor lamps. They exhaled in relief, but were still stunned.

She looked from one to the other of them, Dr. Watson standing by the dressing-table at the left of the window, and Holmes by the bed, with a cane, candle, and matches lying upon it. She then shut the door behind her and took one or two hesitant steps forward. "Sirs, sirs," she whispered with a tremor in her voice.

Holmes came forward, with a quicker and surer step than Watson could manage in the dark, and he whispered low, "Miss Stoner, you must leave. I instructed you to sleep in the other room."

"I know, Mr. Holmes, but--"

Watson stood just behind Holmes, having found his way at last, and he endeavoured to see Miss Stoner clearly. He so far could observe that she wore nothing but a light cotton night-gown, and seemed to be shivering intensely.

Holmes grasped her by the arm and pulled her back to the door, where slightly more light penetrated from the corridor lamps, and where their voices would less likely be heard from Dr. Roylott's room. "Just leave," Holmes hissed.

Watson followed them and looked upon her shivering form with concern.

"Oh, but sir!" she implored.

"Leave this business to us," he said, gripping her with one hand and feeling for the doorknob with the other.

"Oh!" she cried softly.

Watson came forward and removed Holmes's grip from her. "Holmes!" he touched her soothingly. "Have you bruised her?"

Holmes could read the meaning of Watson's accusing tone; he referred to the abusive bruise that Dr. Roylott had left upon his stepdaughter's wrist earlier. Watson was indignant that Holmes could even think of treating her as roughly.

Miss Stoner for her part flung herself upon Watson's gentle sympathies with a whimper, laying her head against the doctor's shoulder.

Holmes sighed and attempted to be patient. "Very well," he murmured. "Please, madam, will you go?"

She shook her head, clinging close to Watson. "I can't. So c-cold, and frightened."

"You are in great danger if you stay here," Holmes pressed.

"But there is danger there! It's open and vulnerable to the baboon and the cheetah!"

Watson held her closer, and looked to Holmes imploringly. "Surely we can let her stay and protect her here, Holmes?"

"Very well. But keep her with you at the table. Away from the bed." Holmes then turned and strode soundlessly back to his post at the bed.

Watson put his arm shelteringly around Miss Stoner's waist, though it was she who truly guided them in the dark back to the dressing-table. He offered her the chair and retrieved the second one from the corner of the square carpet, then sat next to her. She still shivered intensely and Watson chivalrously gave her his coat.

By the very faint gleam of the lamp and the reflected light from the mirror on the dressing-table, Watson could see the sharp contrast of her pale night-gown framed by his dark coat. He was reminded of the other item he had left on the dressing-table, his revolver. Watson leaned gently toward her and cupped her ear with his hand, recalling how Holmes had done the same to him when they had first arrived in the room. He cleared his throat softly and whispered, "Miss Stoner, if you notice the revolver that I have brought and laid upon your table... do not be alarmed. This is a precautionary measure only, and I promise you that I shall keep you quite safe."

She widened her eyes for a moment, but took the statement quite calmly. "Oh," she glanced to make out the gleaming lines of the gun lying within reach of his hand, and then nodded.

When in the next moment she pulled the coat closer around her and trembled, it was out of cold rather than anxiety, for she sneezed softly. Watson thought of what reaction Holmes might have to even that faint sound, and he quickly offered his handkerchief to stifle her sneeze.

Her eyes regarded him with a slightly quizzical gaze while she covered the rest of her face with the white scrap. She was an interesting pattern of darks and whites now, and surely an engaging sight in the near-total blackness. She dutifully muffled subsequent sneezes, but could not keep from shivering.

Watson was considering offering her his waist-coat as well when abruptly she threw her arms around him and whispered desperately, "I'm thoroughly chilled!"

Abashed by this familiarity, he placed his hands soothingly upon her shoulders, replying in her ear, "Perhaps, if you have further clothing in your bureau...?"

"Oh, how warm you are!" she declared without warning, sighing against him.

Watson blushed and was grateful for the darkness. With her so close, he could smell a sweet trace of some feminine perfume upon her neck.

Not discouraged by his silence, she leaned forward in her chair and clung to him all the closer for warmth. Watson held her, as she wished, and rubbed her back in warming motions. He was somewhat embarrassed to think how inappropiate this embrace would appear if anyone, including Holmes, could see them, but Watson concluded that in this case, reducing her trembling was the more important consideration. He turned around gently to face the bed, but still could not really see Holmes.

Meanwhile, continuing her faint murmurs, Miss Stoner thanked Watson profusely for his intervening upon her behalf at the door, as she could not bear another moment in the other room. She had forgotten the extent to which the exterior wall in her old room had been pierced by the building repairs. The aperture let in the cold night air as well as the wild sounds of the animals out on the lawn, so that she had been overcome with terror.

Watson soothed her anxieties with chivalrous attention, patting her tense hand that still clutched his handkerchief.

She relaxed rather comfortably in his arms, even venturing to sneak her legs from under her own chair towards his own. After a silence during which Watson inwardly considered whether he should or could make a statement on the matter, she interrupted his thoughts and inquired curiously, "Doctor, why is it that Mr. Holmes is at my bed and you are here at my dressing-table? Surely there was room for you to sit next to him on the bed?"

"Yes, I suppose so," he shrugged, quite disarmed by the query. He had wondered about the purpose behind the arrangement, too, but did not know what to tell her. "Holmes has his reasons for everything, even if he does not disclose them to others. I only know that he felt it was important that I sit apart, perhaps to gain another vantage point about what is happening at your bed, and to gain a clear shot if--" Watson cut off that most inappropriate speculation, for fear that she might panic about the danger in this room. He thought instead of the cane, candle, and matches that Holmes had brought, and tried to divine what connection they could have with the clamped bed, the false bell-rope, and the ventilator. "Holmes has specific plans about the actions to be taken when the whistling recurs tonight, and in those circumstances, I am more useful here." Watson attempted to be assertive rather than vague.

She was silent for a time, her eyelashes blinking against his skin. "He keeps secrets from you, Doctor?"

"No, he..." Watson fished for some explanation, but could not resolve the matter to his satisfaction. "He keeps secrets from everyone."

"Everyone? Clients, perhaps, at first... but you? His partner?"

"I, um... am not a business partner as you believe, Miss, but something a bit more... informal." He had difficulty in clarifying any further, for their association in these cases had come about rather as a habit, a shared interest, even a sign of friendship and warmth. How could he explain?

She seemed to sense his discomfort and changed the subject. "Bed!" she sighed. "How I would give anything for some covers just now! I am still so cold."

Watson considered that, in the absence of other options, her next move to combat her chill might be an even bolder and more inappropiate thrusting of herself onto his lap. So, gently murmuring in her ear, "Wait here," he pulled out of her arms and rose from the chair. Then he walked to the bed as best as his night-vision could take him.

Left alone, Miss Stoner drew up her legs onto her chair seat with the rest of her and made careful adjustment to the mirror on her dressing-table so that she might shine enough light to see the bed. She could see Holmes sitting up rigidly with annoyance on his features as he waited for Watson to get near enough that they might speak.

Arriving then, Watson sat upon the bed gingerly and leaned near to whisper in Holmes's ear. Other than their faces, the rest of their bodies did not touch, but simply hovered on the verge of contact. A long shadow fell on the line between them, and it quivered tensely with their every movement. From the gesturing motions that Watson made, he seemed to be negotiating for permission to bring covers from the bed over to warm Miss Stoner, or clothing from the bureau in the far corner, or both. She watched the discussion with rapt attention.

Watson made little progress with Holmes, who still scowled at the disturbance to his plans. He did not show much sympathy for Watson's frequent gesturing back toward Miss Stoner at the table; apparently Watson hoped that relating her distress and shivering would win Holmes over, but he was wrong.

Just as Holmes was hissing, "Well, she shouldn't have left her warm clothes and blankets in the other room, should she now? Nor burst in here to perform some banal melodrama--!" he was abruptly interrupted by Miss Stoner launching herself straight into bed and burrowing under the covers.

Completely unnoticed, she had sneaked up upon them in the midst of their discussion, and thus joined the party. She now lay shuddering right next to them and heaved a sigh of relief at the warmth.

In dismay, Watson pulled the covers off of her head and leaned down to her ear. "Miss Stoner, I asked you to wait!"

"Oh, I couldn't!" she responded piteously. "I couldn't bear another moment without you!"

Watson jerked back and distinctly blushed, realising that she spoke just loud enough for Holmes to hear.

Her fingers crawled across Watson's hand as she continued, "You have such blessed heat."

Watson only choked when he attempted to reply.

Holmes as much as slapped her hand when yanking it away from Watson. "That's enough."

"Oh, but I--"

"Stop talking!" he snarled quite close to her face. "Silence, or your stepfather shall hear us."

"What?" she spoke even louder. Holmes immediately clapped her mouth shut with his hand, but she threw it off. "He won't hear!" she sat up. "He is completely dead to the world when he sleeps. Mother often commented that Julia was the lightest sleeper in our family, then herself, then me, then stepfather."

"You're certain?" Holmes pressed, with a look of utter disbelief.

"Of course! He can hardly be roused at all once asleep, and will rarely get up unless for a medical emergency or some other unusually urgent matter. He prefers those camping gypsies of his to lock the animals into their cages in the early morning hours rather than go out himself." She huffed, "I made certain he was asleep before signalling you to come. So this is why you've both been skulking around in whispers?"

"Why did you think we whispered?" Holmes asked suspiciously.

She hesitated, looked at Watson, and then spoke in an undertone, "I-I thought it was the darkness, and the anticipation, and--and the memory of Julia's mysterious death. Her terrible shriek from this room, and her delirious cries of 'the speckled band'... " She swallowed and huddled beneath the covers once more. "Oh, poor Julia!"

Holmes did not bat an eye, but Watson moved close to embrace her comfortingly. He pulled her up to sit next to him on the bed and wrapped her in the blankets. She clung with her head on Watson's shoulder and sniffled sadly.

Holmes cleared his throat, "There is still the matter of the danger in her being in this bed at all. You did promise to keep her at the table, Watson."

"I, um... yes," Watson stammered, showing a distinct uneasiness not only for the fault pointed out by Holmes, but for the fact that Watson still remained in total ignorance of exactly what danger Holmes anticipated here. Watson could hardly argue logistics with Holmes if he didn't know how safe or perilous the conditions were. From his facial expression, Watson was clearly trying to add up the factors of the problem again--Roylott, clamped bed, false bell-pull and ventilator, a saucer of milk on a safe--all to no avail.

Miss Stoner interrupted. "Oh, the danger! Yes, sirs, you've been so kind and good to me. I must thank you so much, especially you Dr. Watson, for being here and risking your life in some unknown, dangerous venture. I am so grateful!"

Holmes looked on her pointedly direct addressing of Watson with folded arms, fully confirmed in his suspicion that this was just feminine wiles and deliberate flirtation. "Madam, would you--"

She then brought up the subject of her fiancé, who lately had been so cold to her, "...as if he is positively ridiculing my fears, and I've been so lonely for some warm, soothing gentleman who would listen--"

Holmes tried to pull her away from Watson. "Madam, do you wish us to solve your case or not? It is necessary that you leave and not be in our way."

She whimpered, and Watson came to her defense, making Holmes release her. "You have no need to be harsh."

"Watson!" he complained with a sigh. Holmes sat next to him, leaning his face quite close to Watson's, that the doctor would not be distracted by the sight of her. "Please, our case..." He attempted approaching further, but was annoyingly blocked by the still clinging Helen Stoner between them. "Do you not feel... crowded?"

Watson frowned and relented. "Crowded? I-- What do you m--?" he gave up on puzzling the answer out, only certain that Holmes felt hostile to Miss Stoner, as Holmes often felt to emotions and love and other weaknesses. "Then what is to be done about her? Shall I return with Miss Stoner to the table? Shall you let her have her own bedcovers? Shall you banish her to her former bedroom, to be attacked by wild animals?"

"Watson, I-- Have the damn covers, then!" He rose to clear the bed of the cane, candle, and matches he'd laid out. "Just get her away from the bed, away from you."

Thereupon Miss Stoner broke into the discussion, sitting up. "Please, not yet," she begged. "A bed of three people is so much warmer! Please, I won't stay long or be in the way. That mysterious whistling sound--it has always happened at about three in the morning, according to myself and to Julia. Nothing should happen until then, if at all. I shall go away before then, I promise." She buried her head in Watson's shoulder again. "I just cannot sleep now, and I am so lonely for company."

Holmes still stood there, glaring with distinct ill-humour.

Watson reproached him softly, "The things you do, in front of clients! What harm is there, really, in a little while?" He suggested that Holmes sit again and be calm.

"Yes, please do, Mr. Holmes," she added, in such a sweet tone.

When Holmes had finally settled beside them again, if only to watch her closely, Miss Stoner snuggled nearer to Watson and even tickled him by drawing up her cold feet.

"Miss Stoner!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she sighed and giggled girlishly.

"You are a woman of thirty-two," Holmes insisted.

Watson frowned in bewilderment at the statement. "Holmes? I do not see the point in bringing that up."

She clung to Watson, at the same time slyly kicking Holmes's thigh with those same feet. She looked angelically into Watson's eyes. "You're so kind. You have such a different bedside manner than my stepfather..."

"No doubt because Watson has never beaten a butler to death, nor thrown a blacksmith over a parapet," Holmes responded acidly.

"Holmes!" Watson shook his head to himself, as if trying to comprehend how Holmes could ever keep a client of his own, without Watson's sense of civility and diplomacy.

Rather to both men's surprise, Miss Stoner became quite mollifying to Holmes. "My dear Mr. Holmes!" she spoke sweetly again. "I know you are irritated with me. You have no patience for my irrational feminine emotions, much like my own fiancé Percy has been concerning my anxieties about Julia's long unsolved death. Yet unlike him, you have devoted your great abilities in my cause and have taken me seriously enough to come investigate, even at the risk of considerable danger. I am perhaps too effusive in praising Dr. Watson, but his warm, human nature is the one I relate to better than your cold reasoning. Please understand how much I appreciate you too. Your iron bravery, logic, and sureness of every step help keep me from falling apart utterly, and I would not know what to do without you either." She looked from one to the other of them, "I hope you can only both consider yourselves to be my dear friends in a time of great distress!"

Though impressed that she was able to drop her damsel routine long enough to make a coherent and significant speech, Holmes remained cool to her, believing that she simply wanted to be in his good graces to get to Watson. "We are your hired detectives, madam, in search of the truth, and no more."

"Oh, yes, I know. And the truth will be greatly comforting to me, for poor dear Julia's sake! Oh how I miss her so!" Her eyes clouded with tears so that Watson embraced and caressed her with concern.

Holmes sighed, hearing the return of the helpless damsel refrain. "My dear young woman, you certainly missed your calling as an actress on the stage. A romantic melodrama would suit you just so."

"Holmes!" Watson struck Holmes on his arm, then went back to soothing her.

She raised her head, sniffling. "I hear that you are a great actor, yourself."

"Why, yes," Holmes blinked in surprise, then looked suspicious. "How did you know?"

"Mrs. Farintosh told me of how you solved her case while in disguise. I knew then that you must be the proper detective to help me, and that you would do anything in your power to fulfill my need." She sniffled into the handkerchief that Watson gave her. "Is it not so, Doctor?"

"Yes," Watson squeezed her hand softly. "You need not fear, my dear."

She sighed, blinking. "Oh, my Percy has not called me 'dear' in some time. I think that you must be very comforting to your wife, Doctor."

"I have no wife."

"No? But you are so kind, and so handsome..."

Holmes rolled his eyes, looking at his watch.

"I wish that my Percy was like you."

Watson blushed and looked away, withdrawing a bit from her in modesty.

"Yes, it seems most evident that you do," Holmes remarked.

She reached for Holmes's hand. "I do not intend to exclude you again. You are most incisive and assuring in your own way."

Holmes snatched his hand away. Then he noticed the odd, and boldly wicked, smile that she wore while looking at him. "Your intentions are quite clear, madam."

She shook her head, mouthing silently, "Not quite." She turned sorrowful again, looking once more to the doctor, "Dr. Watson, do you believe I'm too plain to be married?" At Watson's surprised and puzzled expression, she explained tearfully, "I believed all these years that no man would court me simply because of my stepfather's terrible temper, but then Percy proposed, with no objection at all from Dr. Roylott. I thought Percy loved me and we would be happy, but he has only been tolerant of me and dismissive of my fears, as if I were a child." She cried more openly, "I don't think he loves me, and I fear it is too late for me to find anyone else at my age. Oh, I shall be all alone!"

Watson shook his head, caressing and comforting her. "Nonsense!" he stroked her hair tenderly. "No, you are perfectly lovely, perfectly sweet. Any man with a heart would adore you."

"Oh, you are just saying that!" she cried. "I shall be a spinster like my aunt!"

"No," he insisted, still gazing with a gentle softness in her eyes. "You're just lovely." He kissed her forehead. "Just beautiful." He kissed her cheek.

Holmes looked away with distaste before their lips met. He could hear a sigh, though, as their kiss deepened. Case or no case, Holmes moved to rise and exit the room before he had to witness any more. However, he found a hand tugging on his arm when he tried to go. Miss Stoner was holding him back.

Holmes turned around and stared with bewilderment. Even as she remained in the midst of kissing Watson, she opened an eye to peek at Holmes, and with a beckoning finger behind Watson's back, she gestured for him to come closer.

Speechless, he glared with even greater distaste and outrage. What on earth would make her even imagine that he would participate in such a--?

That insolent damsel ended the kiss just then and turned to Watson's cheek with a sigh. She glanced at Holmes, still grasping his arm, and mouthed, "I have a plan for you."

"Miss Stoner!" Holmes growled, snatching her hand away.

Watson turned about, shielding her and looking at Holmes blinkingly. Sudden unexplained outbursts and vented anger were most unlike Holmes.

"Watson, do you even realise--?"

"Oh!" Miss Stoner interrupted, with a lonely, mournful sort of sound. She shrank away from both of them, covering her face as if in shame. "Oh! I--I've been inappropriate. Vile and unspeakable. I'm so sorry!"

Quite confused, Watson reached to hold her. "My dear?"

She repelled him and sobbed to herself almost hysterically. "Oh forgive me, Doctor! Forgive me, please."

"For what, my dear? Miss Stoner? Helen?" he was most anxious.

Holmes attempted coming between and distracting him from her crocodile tears, "Watson, if you would just see the machinations she practices behind your back--!"

"Yes!" she wept woefully, nodding with full agreement. "Oh, I'm wicked! Nice detectives," she sniffled, "come to save me," she sniffled, "and I just throw myself upon..." She descended into unintelligible sobs.

Watson managed to hold her against his shoulder, shaking his head. "Throw yourself?" Her confession only served to convince him of her innocence. "You've done no such thing. It was me, it was the moment. We simply forgot ourselves..." Watson threw a fierce scowl at Holmes for his unfair and abominable accusations. "Shh..." he soothed her. "It--it was perfectly understandable."

"Watson!" Holmes pleaded in frustration. However, he only received any measure of mercy from her, of all people.

Stifling a sob, she turned and glanced up at Holmes apologetically. "I-I never intended to be in the way," she spoke in a soft, broken voice, "nor come between you. I would do anything to amend for my offense." She suddenly gave Holmes a sly, friendly wink that distinctly disturbed him. She beckoned to him again carefully, and even pointed first to Holmes, then to Watson, right behind the doctor's back.

Holmes gaped in shock at her insolence.

Just as abruptly, she became contrite again. "Oh, Dr. Watson, forgive me!" she moaned. "I should know that no man would be so passionate to me, if not for my sinful deceit!"

Watson stubbornly fought off Holmes's renewed attempt to pull her away. "I do not know what you can mean, my dear!"

She trembled and shook her head. "I am so unworthy, and wicked!" she cried to herself again. "Not fit for such a kiss, not fit to be married..."

"No, don't say that. It isn't so." Watson stroked her and gave her fond kisses upon her forehead, while she lowered her gaze and murmured with a pout, "I should think that Mr. Holmes would agree with me." There came the sly wink again. "He doesn't think much of me."

"You may ignore him," Watson spoke firmly. "He doesn't think much of any woman!"

Holmes took Watson's critical look with his own unhappy scowl, fighting the urge to yank the vixen back by her hair so that she would get her conniving claws off of Watson. While it would be highly satisfying, Watson would not be reasonable enough afterward to appreciate the value of such a gesture.

She sniffled, maneuvering herself around again, as if she couldn't be still for all the "guilt" that plagued her. She planted herself right in front of Holmes, to block his exit and his resistance. She withdrew somewhat from Watson's arms, meeting his eyes earnestly. "And what do you think of me?" she whispered.

He caressed her, though she kept him at arm's length. "I think you're lovely and sweet and just frightened."

"Will you protect me?" she made a half choking sound and batted her eyelashes. "And love me?"

He looked at her deeply. "I shall try."

She held Watson's gaze long enough that he closed his eyes and leaned nearer for another kiss. As he did, she ducked out of the way unexpectedly and left Watson to kiss Holmes instead.

Holmes, before being dragged forward into position by Miss Stoner, had been mentally calculating just the proper angle at which to shove her off the bed so that it would appear to be an accident; he was considerably, although not unpleasantly, surprised by the lips he found upon his own.

Watson meanwhile had paused and his senses seemed to register something being... odd, wrong. He would not open his eyes to confirm his suspicions, though. Instead, he pressed against and explored the lips that he met, fascinated by their softness.

Holmes responded as cautiously and gently. After a moment, he blinkingly glanced to observe the awkward angle at which Miss Stoner had tucked herself away from them on the bed, wearing a highly pleased smile on her face. Meeting Holmes's glance, she put a finger to her lips and slid by degrees further out of their way.

After a few of these light, tender kisses, both Holmes and Watson seemed hesitant about what move it would be permissible to make next. How much might destroy this fragile illusion and make a discomforting and unforgivable reality?

She intervened in this matter, pulling Watson's hands forward to touch and caress Holmes's face. "Come now," she whispered, "Danger is well-worth the risk." She also encouraged Holmes to actually embrace Watson, drawing him closer by the waist. By such small touches and guiding hints, she soon had them clasping one another as closely as she had with Watson earlier.

Miss Stoner withdrew to a far corner of the bed, taking the cane, candle, and matches with her. She still had no idea for what purpose Holmes had brought them, but was not at all curious, for she was happily engrossed by their ever more passionate kisses. They entwined as if they belonged together, and she was much pleased by the accuracy of her judgment.

She was quite true to her words, for instead of coming in between them, she helpfully assisted in every way possible while their separate, caressing movements became a mingled, shared lovemaking. Just the right stroking touch here, just the right nibbling kiss there... all mixed with their ever increasing moans of each other's name. She watched them excitedly, biting upon a finger and sighing wickedly at their lovely bodies.

Regrettably, in view of her unaware fiancé, she was a shameless voyeur to the end--a problem that she would have to deal with in the next six weeks before the wedding. She imagined that she would just have some fit of nervous collapse as an excuse to escape to her maiden aunt in Harrow for a while. Harrow, after all, was much closer to London, and London would be full of delicious men like these two...

"Holmes," Watson sighed softly.

She sat up eagerly to listen, for they were in a relaxed, intimate moment just now, murmuring charmingly tender things to each other in low tones.

Watson asked, smiling and tracing Holmes's lips, "Why did you keep me at the table and not here at the bed?"

Holmes confessed, blinking, "I wanted to keep you away from the danger."

"Too late," he whispered, kissing him.

Reminding them of their three o'clock appointment in about two hours, she eventually left them alone, exiting with a sprightly step.