I feel myself growing nostalgic. It is as though I can see his face again, my oldest friend. Ah. I can hear the hansoms as they clomp over the teeming streets. I can see him pacing, fretting, his face white, tense. He was always a desperate coil of energy and I felt that no one understood him but me, and not even I understood him completely. I can see Mrs. Hudson, and I can see the papers strewn everywhere across the flat, and Sherlock Holmes throwing them in the air. Sberlock Holmes, alone now on the Sussex Downs, and I must see him again before it's too late...
Once this record is written, once I have rested and I have enough strength, I will go to him. I have now this last project to undertake, this tale for which the "world is not prepared. It's important that I return briefly to the past, to my Queen Anne Street rooms, to Sherlock Holmes shaking visibly as he pulls together the curtains and sinks down on the sofa, his face white. It is July 1906. He had come unexpectedly to visit from his retirment on the Downs. My heart was light when the familiar figure appeared in my doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He was a little grayer and craggy, but his eyes were as ever bright and shining as streetlamps.
What follows is the moment that stands apart, that changed almost everything in my life:
"But what is it, Holmes?" I asked. He was looking with concentration out the window. He shussed me with a finger to his mouth, and motioned dramatically for me to get down now. I thought perhaps there was a gunman outside the window, someone as sadistic as Moriarty or his henchmen. We got down together, two bodies hunched on the now rugless floor, and I could hear the sound of his breathing, not rapid, but pressured. I opened my mouth to speak again, but Sherlock Holmes plastered a white hand over my lips. He did not even hiss a resonse to me as he usually would have done as we hid away in some dim closet or compartment.
Over the years, Holmes and I had developed a kind of unspoken telepathy with each other. His eyes telegraphed the fact that he was more afraid than he would ever let me know with words. His fingers over my mouth had a slight tremor to them. I telegraphed my alarm, my willingness to take out the revolver I was now carrying in my coat pocket, for I carried it with me everywhere now. When I touched a hand to my coat pocket, Holmes shook his head in denial of the idea.
All right. I would not get to be the hero in this drama, I saw.
Finally, after we had hunched there for over two minutes, Holmes rose to his feet and dashed to the window. He gently peeled aside the curtain and peeked out into the street. A spasm of relief seemed to come over him, and then all his countenance relaxed and he turned round to face me.
"What the devil was that?" I asked. I was still shaken. I am now reminded of the great bombings during the War, when all of London fell under an evil spell. I felt I would never know the same peace and relaxation I once had after the event.
"Apparently, nothing at all. He disapeared rather in a flash this time," he said, and his face was so calm, serene again, the logician come back to life, risen out of the ahses. He was at my side suddenly, brushing the dust from my coat with long, white fingers, and I studied him carefully, yet casually, so that even he did not suspect. I could tell he was on the verge of laughter suddenly, for the cold gray eyes were dancing with some hidden mirth. "My dear Watson, I have not yet gone senile, I assure you."
"But I did not..."
He took a step back, smiling, a very rare but welcome sight. "You did not have to say for I can read you like an open book. Entirely transparent, after all these years. Your face said it, your eyes screamed it to the heavens." The lips twisted, a small chuckle, very amusing, came from deep in his throat. "You were simply looking at me as if I were mad, and you needn't worry, at least not yet."
"Was I that obvious?"
"Indeed."
"At least not yet?" I teased. "Are you planning on going mad anytime soon? Should I be concerned?"
"I don't plan on it," he said thoughtfully, "but if such an occurence were to take place, I would like you to kill me immediately." His face had taken on a sudden, inexplicable gravitas. I struggled again to understand him, he who I thought I knew so well.
"And how would you like to be killed?" I jested. "Mrs. Hudson, I am sure, has thought up many plans over the years. Perhaps if she was still alive, I would go ask her."
"With your gun to my temple," said Sherlock Holmes, still serious. "Promise me."
"My God, you're serious!"
There was no mirth in his expression anymore, he was looking at me steadily. "Yes."
"I can promise no such thing. Turning my revolver upon my oldest friend, Holmes, I know you must be joking, surely."
"To the contrary I have never been more serious in my life. I suppose I would have to find someone else to fullfill the promise if you would not do so?"
"I shall bring forth the revolver now," I said wryly.
"But that's a good fellow!" said Holmes. "But wait until I have gone thouroughly insane..."
"I believe there was never a moment in your life when you were entirely sane to begin with. But truly, what does insanity have to do with what you saw outside the window? More importantly, what did you see?"
The following story, transcibed by Sherlock Holmes, is enclosed in full as follows...