Chapter 19: The Medical Bag and the Hidden Compartment

The bag was on his desk when he returned from Holborn.

Watson stopped in the doorway. He did not reach for the revolver immediately — he stood for three full seconds, reading the room the way he had learned to read rooms: the chair unmoved, the window latched precisely as he had left it, the stack of annotated clippings on the floor at the same improbable angle that only accumulated over days and could not be easily replicated. Nothing disturbed. Nothing out of place.

Except the bag.