Chapter 30

They go to a coffee shop near the detective agency, where Charles stands in line to order while Julian finds them a seat. They end up jammed in at tiny table, knees knocking against each other, surrounded by customers with headphones and laptops. The shop’s heat has been cranked way up to combat the cold and gloomy day, and Charles feels a little flushed.

“So,” he says, handing Julian his coffee. “This anonymous letter.”

“Yes.”

“If it’s really not from the same person who sent the earlier email to that prospective student,” Charles says, “that’s an awful lot of anonymous letter-writing happening in one department.”

“This is the same department where somebody planted listening devices in people’s offices,” Julian says wryly.

“True.”

“Maybe this new letter-writer is the same person who planted those bugs,” Julian muses. “Maybe that’s how they know Kevin Ng and Karen Gavras sent the earlier email.” He frowns. “I can’t imagine they’re pleased to have been exposed.”

Charles takes a drink of his coffee, a cookie-flavored concoction that’s already going cool. “The letter-writer made it sound like they were grateful to Kevin and Karen.” The coffee fills his mouth and he swallows slowly, letting the artificial sweetness distract him from the brush of Julian’s knee against his. There’s not room under the tiny table to move apart. “But you’re right. That wasn’t something Kevin and Karen would have wanted anyone to know.”

“One of Lu’s crowd, then?” Julian asks.

“Maybe. This letter is going to be bad for them, too, though.”

“True.”

“Maybe someone genuinely concerned for the prospective students did it,” Charles ventures. “Maybe someone in the department is having a change of heart.”

“Hm.” Julian takes a long sip from his hot black coffee. “Hm.”

Charles can tell the gears in his head are turning, but he can’t guess any more than that. He waits, but Julian just drinks again and then moves on.

“The police took Francis Pace in for questioning,” he says. “Why?”

After a second Charles realizes he’s actually meant to answer. “Well,” he says, “they’re going to ask him about Jack’s murder.”

“But why Pace? He’s Jack’s advisor. He’s on Jack’s side.”

Charles considers. “The bugs, then? I’m sure Isabel and the others insisted he’s the one who planted the listening devices, or told someone else to. If the police believe that, it might not seem like too much of a jump to assume he’s responsible for Jack’s murder. Surely spying on his colleagues ranks higher to them than the fact that he uses the same methodology as Jack.”

Julian nods. “You know, that’s really a very good point.”

Charles tries not to show that he is pleased by Julian’s praises. He ducks his head, taking another sip of coffee.

Julian drums his fingers against the table. “In fact, all of this must look very different to the police than it does to us,” he says slowly. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well. Think of it this way.” He spreads his hands as if to enclose his theory within them—another gesture pulled up from the past, how do they still keep coming, still keep knocking the breath out of Charles, even after weeks?—and says, “Here’s how it happened for us. Piper comes to see us: their friend Lu is missing. She left a note, so maybe she went under her own duress, maybe not. Piper explains that there’s a conflict in the department: us against them. We look for Lu, but before we can get very far, another student is murdered. One of them. We think: a graduate student on one side has disappeared; a graduate student on the other side has been murdered. Everyone we talk to traces everything that happens in the department to that central conflict. This conviction only increases when listening devices are found in the offices of Lu and Piper’s allies. Anonymous letters are posted on the internet warning prospective students away from the department—attempts at sabotaging the opposing side that go awry. Still no sign of Lu, but the police take back their assertion that the murder was committed by a random stranger and bring in the leader of Jack’s side for questioning. Why would they do that, we ask? Surely they ought to be looking at Lu’s side of the conflict to find out who killed Jack. But…”

Charles frowns, thinking. “But maybe Jack was being disloyal to his allies? Maybe he was jeopardizing their efforts somehow?”

Julian makes a noncommittal noise. Charles takes another sip of his drink to give himself time to think. This is it, the little commentator at the back of his brain says, learning to be a detective with Julian Ellsworth! He shushes it as best he can. “Um…” he says, face warming with his uncertainty.

“What are we forgetting, Charles? What doesn’t fit?”

Charles blinks. “The lockers. Lu’s locker. And Jack’s.”

Julian gives him a brief heart-stopping nod of approval. “Exactly.”

“They’re connected,” Charles says. “Lu’s disappearance and Jack’s murder. But…we’ve known that for a long time.”

“Yes,” says Julian. “But we’ve been seeing it through Piper’s eyes—through the lens of this departmental conflict. But Lu and Jack were on opposite sides, and both of them were threatened. So what if…”

“It’s not about that,” Charles says. “It’s not about the conflict at all.”

Julian inclines his head. “I think we have to start considering that possibility.”

Charles looks down at the table, at his hands clasped around his paper cup, and swallows down a jolt of excitement. When he is steadier, he says, “What, then?”

“That,” says Julian, “is the question.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Charles thinks; thinks back. “Lu’s note,” he says slowly. “The note she left for Piper. Do you think it could hold a clue, somehow?”

“The Sherlock Holmes reference,” Julian says, maybe a little reluctantly. “Perhaps I—perhaps we ought to have taken it more seriously. When Holmes disappears, in the story she’s referencing, he’s disappearing on purpose, like Piper pointed out—pretending to die in order to take out Moriarty’s criminal investigation. Maybe…I mean, the letter didn’t seem like it was actually in code or anything, but just that reference…”

His face goes suddenly still. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he mutters angrily, and stands up.

“What is it?” Charles asks, hurrying to follow Julian, who is gathering up his things and jamming his knit hat on his head.

Julian shakes his head shortly. “Something I should have figured out before.”

He doesn’t say anything more till they’re back in the office, where he sits down at his computer, opens his laptop, and types in the web address for Lu’s Archive of Our Own profile.

He pulls up the recent fic, the one called “Men, Dancing.” The one that might—or might not—have really been written by her. When we had finished the case, and a family had been broken alongside the code of the dancing men, Holmes took my elbow and steered me to a cab with uncommon force. Charles reads the first sentence before Julian jabs his finger at the tags. 

“‘The eternal mystery of desire,’” he reads. “‘Secret codes. Epistemological uncertainty.’”

Julian scrolls down and taps the screen, which shows one of the three images of stick-figure dancing men that Lu has pasted into the text. Charles remembers that in the original Sherlock Holmes short story, “The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” these figures are used to spell out a threatening coded message to a woman with a dangerous past: “Elsie: Prepare to meet thy God.” In the fic, Holmes uses them to write a coded message on Watson’s body. Only ink on my skin and fingers in my hair for clues to his heart.

“Why would she bother drawing out the dancing men? Why wouldn’t she just describe them?” Julian asks Charles intently. “Why, Charles?”

“Are you saying—” he says, understanding flushing through him slowly, “that these are actual coded messages?”

Julian cracks a grin: wide-open, sudden, blinding. Sun all at once rising over the hill. Charles almost raises a hand to shade his eyes.

“I am. And what’s more,” Julian says, “I think Holmes lied.”

He does something quite adorable, then, and prints out the fic. Charles supposes it’s a sensible thing to do for code-breaking purposes, but there’s something about the analog nature of it, the counter-intuitiveness of reading fanfiction on paper, that’s oddly heart-melting. Julian lays the single sheet of paper on the desk and picks up a pen, hovering it over the first of the three sets of dancing men.

Charles waits with bated breath.

Julian’s brow creases. “How does it work in the story?” he murmurs.

“It’s a substitution code,” Charles supplies, though he’s not sure Julian was really talking to him. “Simple. One figure for each letter.”

“Yes. And Holmes solves it by…”

“By figuring out which letters appear most frequently in the messages and matching them to which letters appear most frequently in the English language. E is the most used letter in English, apparently, so…”

“Mm.” Julian sits back. He frowns. “Does the story give the key to the whole code?”

Charles thinks. “It’s possible to figure out most of it, if I remember right. There might be a few letters missing.”

“Hm.” The detective stands up. Before Charles can blink, he’s gone out the door. But instead of heading into the waiting room, he goes down the little hallway and stops outside the drab brown door, the one that’s always locked, that Charles has always assumed was a closet.

Julian takes a key from his pocket and opens it. And then he slips inside, too fast for Charles to catch a glimpse of the room’s contents, and shuts the door behind him.

Charles stares.

A few moments later, Julian emerges, clutching The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

He locks the door behind him and, without a word, goes back into the office.

He heaves the heavy book onto the table. Without looking at the table of contents, he flips to “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.”

“Hm.” He scribbles a few notes in the margin of the fic, muttering. “So that one would be E, and here we have N, V, and R—now we just need to match up the rest of the letters with the dancing men messages from earlier in the story—”

There is no time or space in Charles’ mind or heart to tell Julian they could surely just search for the key to the code online. There is no time or space in his mind or heart for anything but Julian, flipping through the volume of stories Charles had been sure he disdained, for Julian, opening a locked door at the end of the hallway, Julian, a key in his pocket, Julian, a frown on his face. Julian scribbling in bursts and darting his gaze back to the paper and counting in his head.

Julian, whose eyes light up as he breathes, softly, “Oh.” 

There is breath and light in that oh, like the first pink glow of day seeping through the gaps between dewy blades of grass, like the streetlamps as they flicker on one by one on the hills across the Monongahela River. Charles raises his head, captivated by the single syllable. Mutely, Julian pushes the paper toward him.

The first of the lines of dancing men. And, below it, Julian’s solution.

I AM VVELL

“Holy shit,” says Charles quietly. There is no W in the code from Doyle’s story, but the double V is clear enough. I am well.

Julian bends back over the papers, scribbling faster now. Charles bends over the detective’s shoulder, his arm grazing his back, as they lean their heads into the light of the desk lamp. Julian runs his finger rapidly between the fic and the key he’s made, scribbling letters below the second line of the little dancing men. 

STILL VVORCING

“Still…worcing?”  Charles asks, thinking hard. He could swear the air is buzzing, alive with an electric charge produced by their mounting excitement, potent and invisible and almost dangerous. 

“Must be working,” Julian mutters. “Still working on what?”

“Do the last one,” Charles urges, and Julian does. He leans forward, Charles back pressing against his, one of Charles’ hands on his shoulder, squeezing without realizing he’s doing so. The dancing men near their conclusion; with a final intake of breath, Julian scrawls the last letter of the last word.

BE SAGE

“Be sage,” Charles tries, then, eyes widening: “Be safe?”

“Holmes lied,” Julian says, his voice brimming with exultation. Charles has never heard him sound like this, not offscreen anyway—unguarded, joyful, proud. Like he is happy to be himself, here, in this minute. “He lied.”

In a flash, Charles understands. In Lu’s fic, Holmes tells Watson the code is not the same one from their recent case. He makes Watson believe he is inscrutable, that he is writing a message Watson will never be able to translate. But it isn’t true. The code is the same. Watson has had the key all along.

Julian takes Charles’ wrist in his hand and squeezes. Sparks shoot through Charles—a burst of voltage, his palm the socket Charles has stuck his fingers into—and then Charles realizes he is still circling him with his body, his chest against Julian’s back, his right arm wrapped around Julian and his left, the one Julian is touching, gripping the desk. And Charles has an erection.

Julian realizes in the same moment Charles does. An involuntary intake of breath, from Julian, Charles thinks, because Charles has stopped breathing, and Julian’s body tenses. The slight movement shoots through Charles, piercing up through his spine and behind his eyeballs. One of them made a noise; to this day Charles doesn’t know whether it was him or Julian. Charles shifts backwards, moving away, but Julian’s hand tightens on his wrist.

Neither of them say anything, but Charles is moving suddenly against him, furiously, rubbing himself against Julian’s back, and his hand is fumbling in Julian’s lap, finding him rising, and a bright white light is pulsing behind his eyes as they fight to keep breathing, and when they burst in flashes of electric fireworks their eyes are fixed on the little dancing men, who are careening dizzyingly across the page, turning cartwheels in their honor.

They regain their breath.

They meet each other’s eyes.

They smile, and then laugh a little.

The laughter fades. There is a wet, sticky, heavy mass inside Charles’ pants. There is a damp spot on Julian’s back.

Charles’ hand smells like sex.

There is only one bathroom in the detective agency.

“You can shower—” Julian says abruptly, then cuts himself off, the last word coming out faltering and uncertain: “upstairs.”

Upstairs. Where Julian lives.

Charles mounts the steps to Julian’s apartment stiff-legged with his heart in his mouth. Carpeted stairs, beige walls, fake wooden railing. Julian walks behind him, three steps behind him, farther behind him than perhaps is normal. Why does this feel like a walk of shame? Is what Charles feeling shame? With his skin still tingling and his mind whirling with letters and numbers and little dancing men? It’s all backwards, jumbled up, as if they’re un-solving the code—he is entering Julian’s apartment after sex, instead of before, instead of leaving it in the middle of the night or the early morning; he is seeing the off-white walls and impersonally adult decor, dark gray boxy sofa light gray curtains black coffee table black bookshelf, seeing where Julian sleeps and eats and sits and—and what? what does Julian do when he is alone?—with the scent of his dick on his hand. Backwards. Now maybe they’ll have a nice dinner, small talk, wine. And then—Charles will say hello, entering awkwardly, nervous for their date? Charles can’t imagine it unfolding that way, can’t imagine it without the breathless heart-pumping rush of discovery, clues and hands falling into place together, and all at once his throat fills with panic. His voice stumbles: “Do you—want to—” He gestures to the bathroom, which Julian has led them towards. “Go first?”

“Oh. No, it’s—it’s fine.”

Julian’s pale face is wildly flushed. His hands are clasped in front of him, not in any way that hides what has just happened, but protectively all the same.

“Towels—”

“I’ll just—”

Charles swallows his words. Julian says, “Towels are in the cabinet.”

“Thank you.”

The bathroom is less impersonal than the living room, only because it’s messier. Lotion and floss and a small pair of scissors litter the counter; there is a bit of dried toothpaste in the sink. Charles strips off his clothes with relief, balling up his pants and underwear and dropping them in the corner. He turns the water on too hot and jumps back. Now there is nothing at all impersonal about his surroundings; Julian’s dark green razor sits on the edge of the tub, and the shower conjures, as it steams up, the scent of coconut shampoo. The bar of soap that Charles scrubs himself with has slicked the surfaces of Julian’s naked body. He will smell like Julian now, like his soap, like the creases of his elbows and knees.

He wants to stay under the stream of hot water for much longer, but he is also jittery and impatient, knowing Julian needs the shower as well. The impulse toward over-politeness clashes with his desire to clean and clean and clean himself till he is pink and shiny-skinned; he turns off the shower with a dart of his hand and stands in the empty tub for a long moment before reaching for the towel.

The problem becomes apparent very quickly.

“Charles,” says Julian’s voice, tentative, from outside the door. “Would you like to borrow…some clothes?”

Something unnamable floods Charles: relief, yes, fear, yes (why?), queasy rushed excitement—but there is no other answer besides yes. He listens to the sounds of Julian rustling around while, naked, he drips onto the tiled floor.

“I’ll leave them outside the door, if you want—”

“Thanks,” Charles says in a weird strained voice. He cracks open the door. Julian is not there. He puts out his hand and grabs the underwear and pants that are folded on the floor outside.

Absurd, the indignities of sex. The rush of euphoria and desire and afterwards: what do to with his soiled clothes?

And, less base but more difficult: how to casually slip on the underwear of a man he may or may not be falling in love with?

Charles is sitting in the sober gray armchair, shifting against the tightness of Julian’s clothes, when Julian bursts out of the bathroom, dripping, half-covered in a towel, and says: “I’ve been an absolute idiot. We’re going back to Schenley.”

There is some part of Charles’ brain cataloguing and assessing his response to Julian’s bare chest, pale, narrow, mostly smooth (does it excite him?), but luckily the rest of him is able to reply sensibly with, “Why?”

Julian ducks back into the bathroom, calling out to Charles through the half-open door. “There’s something we need to check.”