The Future Door (21 page)

The sun was setting, casting gentle shadows over the tall buildings. The
clip-clop
of a few horses' hooves pulling hansom cabs echoed on the cobblestones, but other than that, the street was empty.

Young Griffin gazed at the street, his sad, blue eyes reflecting the troubling question that he couldn't bring himself to ask. After a long pause the older man cleared his throat and said gently, “You're wondering if there was another way.”

Griffin didn't say anything. When the older man spoke again, his voice was still gentle but also firm. “No. There wasn't.”

Griffin looked sharply up. “But there had to be. It was someone's life!”

Older Griffin gazed down at him and sighed. “You know the way we think. Once our uncle finished building the time machine, I used it to explore every possible scenario.”

“How was that possible?” asked Griffin.

Older Griffin glanced back up at the darkening street and said, “I asked Rupert to create one last enhancement to the machine, a setting that would allow me to hop along the millions of different time streams as an observer.”

He glanced at Griffin. “Imagine the ability to watch endless scenarios unfold based on the different choices you would make. To see the cause and effect of every decision and never age a day while watching them!”

His voice grew quiet. “Rupert was able to make it work. He really is a genius. I think he called the invention his ‘Snodgrass Time Stream Synchronizer' or something like that.”

Griffin listened, awestruck. His older self continued, speaking slowly.

“I watched as I tried every possible way to stop Moriarty without killing him. The trouble was, no matter how hard I tried to find a different outcome, every time it turned out the same. Millions of possibilities . . . and I tried every single one.”

He sighed. “One time I tried capturing Nigel Moriarty, but later he escaped. Another time I used the Scorpion to teleport him somewhere else . . . of course, he found his way back into power again. Every scenario, every timeline, ended with the same result. I tried hundreds of times to keep Charlotte Pepper from stealing the machine, and yet it still happened. I tried persuading Rupert Snodgrass to never build it, and yet it still was made. Sometimes by him, sometimes by someone else. But no matter what I tried, Nigel Moriarty stole it and had countless innocents murdered, and his way into power always hinged on the death of Sherlock Holmes.”

Older Griffin gazed back out to the streets, and Younger Griffin noticed the lines around the older man's eyes. They were eyes that looked like they had seen too much.

“If one evil man has to die so that countless innocents can live, then there is no alternative,” the man said. Then he looked back down at Griffin, and when their eyes met, young Griffin was surprised to see the tears in the older man's eyes.

“But taking a life, no matter whose it is, is always a terrible thing.”

They stood in silence for some time, each lost in his own thoughts. The words his older self said made sense to Griffin, but he had a hard time accepting them. Perhaps he would better understand when he was older, he decided. But then he wondered if he ever really would.

The sun sank below the horizon, and the gaslights on Baker Street came on one by one, each lit by a lamplighter and his young assistant.

Griffin noticed their matching, ragged clothes, counted the number of missing buttons on each of their coats, and calculated the difference in their sizes. And he realized that their body sizes were not that different from the size difference between himself and the older version that stood beside him.

He gazed up at his older self and felt that he had many unanswered questions. He took a deep breath and said, “What will happen now? Moriarty has been stopped and we fixed the future. Doesn't that mean that the version of you that I'm talking to shouldn't exist? How is it possible that you're still here? Did my uncle invent something that would keep you, you? And you said that you've seen all the different timelines. If that's so, what will happen to us in this one? What will I be like five years from now, or ten years? Will I grow up and get married? What about my parents and Uncle Rupert? How long will they live? How long will I live? Is there anything I need to watch out for? Will I really become the World's Most Secret Detective?”

Older Griffin smiled down at his younger self, his teeth shining bright in the gathering gloom. “Do you really want to know?”

Griffin paused to think. Here he was, with an opportunity to have answers to any questions he wanted to ask. Should he do it?

He had an inquisitive mind, a mind that noticed everything. As long as he could remember, he had sought the answers to his questions, and the more difficult and puzzling, the better.

But now, as he gazed up at the same pair of sad, blue eyes he himself possessed, he found that for the first time he didn't want to know.

“It would spoil the adventure, wouldn't it?”

And as the older Griffin put his arm around the shoulder of his younger self, he laughed, and Griffin knew exactly what he was going to say.

“Couldn't have said it better myself,” the two of them said at the same time. And then they both went back inside Sherlock Holmes's apartment, each walking with the help of his ebony cane, to help themselves to as many of Mrs. Tottingham's famous scones as they could possibly eat.

EPILOGUE

G
riffin's determination to become the World's Most Secret Detective only grew stronger as the years went by. And that is why, dear reader, none of the things he's done have ever been written down until this point.

The years went by, and Griffin grew older, but whenever a crime was solved, he gave the police the credit and never gave his name to the press.

It couldn't be helped that a few of the great criminals knew about him, like Professor Moriarty and the Black Widows, but most of the evildoers didn't. And that was why Griffin was able to catch so many, and how he ended up saving our entire planet from destruction more than thirteen times.

And although he is currently well over a hundred years old, he still goes on doing the same thing.

Oh, didn't I tell you? Griffin remains one of four people who tasted the water from the Fountain of Youth.

But that is another story. I have said enough. I express eternal gratitude to Mr. Sharpe and his daughter, Dame Victoria, for allowing me to tell two of his tales, and until allowed to do otherwise, I shall remain silent. For, if Griffin was able to remain humble and fade into obscurity, so too shall I.

Thank you for reading.

HOW SHARPE ARE YOU?

S
ee how many of these questions you can get right without looking back in the book. Here's your rating system:

1
TO 3 CORRECT
: You'd make a good Baker Street Irregular,
one of Sherlock Holmes's assistants.

4
TO 7 CORRECT
: Scotland Yard police inspectors will be keeping their eye on you.

8
TO 9 CORRECT
: Rupert Snodgrass would be jealous. Good job!

PERFECT 10
: You're the next Griffin Sharpe. Well done!

1. In the very beginning of the book, what meal was Mrs. Hudson preparing?

2. In what city did Griffin's parents live?

3. Name three of the inventions listed in Rupert Snodgrass's notebook.

4. What was Charlotte Pepper's sister's name?

5. What do some people believe Stonehenge was?

6. When Griffin and his uncle traveled to the future, what Bible reference did Griffin look up in the bookstore?

7. In the future, what was Sherlock Holmes's apartment turned into?

8. What creature did Nigel Moriarty run into when he first used the time machine?

9. What happened to Griffin's cheek?

10. Who was the man who helped Rupert develop his time machine? Hint: He was kidnapped by Moriarty.

THE CASE OF THE
BIG GAME HUNTER
A Griffin Sharpe Mini-Mystery

G
riffin Sharpe sat quietly in his theater box seat, waiting for the show to begin. He was excited to hear the lecture, a speech by the notable explorer and world traveler Sir Henry Moss! All who were in attendance had heard of the incredible hunting trophies Moss had brought back from exotic countries, many of which were housed in the British Museum.

The idea of hunting didn't appeal much to Griffin. He hated to see anything killed. But like most boys his age, he loved adventure, and the legend of Henry Moss was well-known to him even back home in America. The famous Moss had been to the deepest jungles, navigated impossible rivers, and faced all kinds of danger in places that nobody had ever ventured to explore. Griffin had read all about him in the Penny Dreadfuls, the nickname for inexpensive magazines filled with sensational stories, and could recite each of Moss's adventures from memory, often boring his uncle with his obsession over the details.

The special event was by invitation only, and Griffin had been delighted when Sherlock Holmes had passed along two tickets to him and Rupert, claiming that he had a very serious case that was taking up his attention.

Suddenly, the footlights on the stage grew brighter, and a round of applause thundered around the auditorium. Griffin clapped as loudly as everyone else, his eyes shining with excitement.

A rotund man with a very bushy beard introduced Sir Henry Moss, stating “that he had done more to further exploration and protect the British Empire than Admiral Nelson himself,” which was no small claim. Everyone knew that Admiral Nelson was the greatest British hero who ever lived!

Seconds later, a tall man with very distinguished side-whiskers took the stage, to more thunderous applause. Griffin noted that he wore a pith helmet, a tawny-colored jacket, and heavy explorer's boots. To his delight, Griffin saw that he looked exactly like the illustrations of him that he had seen in the magazines!

The applause died down, and Sir Henry Moss launched into one of his harrowing tales.

“It was on a blistering day in Zimbabwe that my companions and I approached a nearly impassible river. The banks of the Limpopo had been almost entirely swallowed by the rushing, swirling water, due to a torrential downpour a few days before.”