This random little plot bunny bit my nose as I was surfing Ebay the other evening in search of Sherlock Holmes books; if the auction had not ended by now I would have the link to prove that this compilation (dated 1894, first edition was actually for sale…needless to say I didn't win the auction) actually was possible – since it has ended, you'll just have to trust me on the matter.
I had just entered the sitting room that stormy night in autumn '94 and taken my seat once more in front of the fire, attempting to bury myself so far in the latest treatise on an obscure type of cerebral degeneration that I could forget that Sherlock Holmes was in the midst of a particularly vile-sounding composition.
That it was of his own improvisation was unmistakably evident, since no self-respecting composer ever should have dreamt of passing the atrocity off as a member of the classics.
He stood in the window (I was sure the neighbours across the way were going to take a sniped shot at the infernal instrument if he continued to screech in the line of fire), his long arms moving and his entire thin body swaying with the vehemence of the piece as the notes trickled dismally off the strings to eat their way through the carpet fibres.
I was debating whether or not to procure some cotton-wool for my ears when suddenly the music (and I use the term in its most liberal form) ceased with a loud screeetchh, and I glanced up to see the detective pulling back the curtain with one hand to gaze out upon the rain, which was pouring down the window in fat oily streams.
I have never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and in consequence I utilized this respite with a pleased sigh, going back to my reading though my mind was not really upon the treatise in my hands but on another matter. I had gotten halfway down the page, when…
"Watson, I should really prefer you at least allow me the opportunity to listen, rather than simply passing judgment upon my reaction in that dismissive manner," said he, a trifle miffed.
"Why should I bother telling you, when I know exactly what…here now, Holmes!" I exclaimed, shutting the pamphlet I had been reading with a definitive papery slap. "How the devil did you know what I was contemplating?"
He continued to gaze out the window, tracing a wayward rain-drop down the glass with a thin finger until it merged into a larger stream of water. Then he whirled round with that infernally smug smirk that nettled me more than even his superiour airs.
"It is a most ridiculously childish conclusion," he stated, pointing his violin-bow at my head.
"No doubt," was my sagacious remark. "Are you going to enlighten me or continue to stand there aiming that bow at my cranium?"
"You have made it a point to reach the post before I can the last three days, Watson," he opened with the obvious, which I myself was more than capable of deducing. "Not ten minutes ago the afternoon post arrived, and you promptly dropped your treatise there to rush downstairs and snatch it. You stuffed an envelope in your pocket as you re-entered and then set the other mail upon the table before vanishing to your bedroom upstairs.
"This indicated that you wished to take no chances about my seeing the missive. Exactly two and three-quarters minutes later I heard your outcry all the way down here, even above my composing. As you have returned just now in a mood so positively chipper that it is fairly nauseating rather than worried or distrait, I can safely deduce it was excitement and not bad news that caused your outburst of a few minutes previous.
"Good news, then, that you do not wish to share with me. As normally you are the talkative sort that likes to share good fortune with the world ad nauseum, this is unusual and can only brook the explanation that you know I will not approve of whatever this news is. Correct?"
"Correct," I muttered, my light mood of before vanishing with his dismissal of my slower intelligence.
"Come now, out with it. You know you want to tell someone, Watson, you always do." His tone had gone from sardonic to more gently teasing, and the unusual fact encouraged me enough to lean back and cautiously begin to word my reply.
Whilst I was dithering, he set his beloved Stradivarius tenderly in its case and smoothed the protective velvet cloth over the instrument before snapping the case closed and flinging himself down on the settee, his hands behind his head and his eyes upon me expectantly.
"Well…" I trailed off, thoroughly uncomfortably, for I knew well what his reaction would be to the news.
"Watson, vacillating and prevaricating neither one suit you, and we have not the time before tea to indulge in either."
"Very well then," said I in annoyance. "I've had a publisher take up my stories and put them into book form – the second set of memoirs has just been released, and Reiner's Book Emporium on Oxford Street has requested my presence tonight for a book signing. The letter just now confirmed the fact and gave me particulars about the fellow who is to meet me there at half-past five."
Holmes's sharp grey eyes blinked once. "A book-signing? They are going to pay you to come and autograph that rubbish?"
I ignored the slur on my writing and concentrated on the man's error. "Not paid, Holmes – an author does that for publicity's sake, not for the money. Usually the increase in book sales will be a great increase in the royalties which eventually will benefit the author – but the publicity itself is a valuable thing. Specially since you have placed an interdict upon my publishing, I frankly could use all the royalties I can receive from the sales."
Holmes scowled darkly, as I had known he would. "So not only has the Strand magazine infiltrated society with those florid tales, but now the things have been actually put into a volume?"
"Two volumes," I said through a tightened jaw.
"Why, in heaven's name?"
"Apparently not every reader shares your low opinion of them," I retorted.
"The general public is ignorant on more than one subject," he said with a snide smirk, reaching a long arm up for his pipe.
I steeled myself against his rudeness, being well used to the fact by now, but I will admit that still the words stung me slightly.
"I really do not see why you began writing the things back in '91 at any rate, Doctor," Holmes went on complacently. "It is not as if you needed the money, for if I remember correctly your practice was doing better than ever with me conspicuously absent and not dragging you from it on a case here and there."
I did not appreciate his callous reference to his faked death, his continued rude comments on what he knew was a sensitive subject, nor his intimation that I had allowed my patients to suffer neglect while I was out with him on various adventures. Each of those contributed to making my words slightly more bitter than I had intended when first opening my mouth to answer him.
"I did it as a method of dealing with grief, if you must know, Holmes," I snapped uneasily, rising to my feet and pouring myself a drink from the decanter upon the sideboard.
He waved my outburst off with one languid hand, the emotional repercussions of it completely escaping his notice, and pressed on eagerly as if explaining a logical thought process to a very dull student.
"If that were true, would it not have been a far more fitting tribute to make those florid little bedtime-stories something I should have been happy to have my name attached to? You could have made each of those romantic tales a lecture in the finer points of criminology, and yet you settled for popular fiction. Such a waste of your talents as a writer, my dear fellow – why?"
Such was my frustration with the man by this point that the last backhanded compliment fell on completely unheeding ears, so angry was I with his callousness.
"I never thought for an instant that you would ever read them, for one thing, seeing as the world, I included, believed you dead at the time," I said quietly, too quietly.
He started in obvious surprise, but I waited no longer to prolong the painful conversation. I retrieved my treatise and left the room, shutting the door behind me, and climbed the stairs to my bedchamber, intent upon attempting to regain my cheerfulness in preparation for the ordeal that awaited me tonight.
I had entertained some very faint, very foolish, whimsical hope that perhaps Holmes might deign to put aside his disgust with my literary pursuits and accompany me tonight – obviously it had been a vain and stupid fantasy, one which I should waste no more daydreaming time upon.
I shut the door firmly and threw myself into the treatise, forcing my mind to read the words nearly aloud in order to concentrate.
Sherlock Holmes made a brief appearance at tea, but only to snatch a plate and cup and then immerse himself in his chemicals, completely ignoring me. As this was no uncommon occurrence and as I had no desire to be drawn into another lengthy conversation with the insufferable man, I said nothing, not even when he got a phial of chloride slightly too near the half-eaten crumpet on his plate to be medically safe.
I myself finished the meal in short order and finished preparing to leave, not anticipating this event as greatly now as I had been for the last few days. Ridiculous how one man's criticism has the power to destroy the praise of many others, if that one man is the sole person one wishes to please.
I took a cab to Reiner's, for the rain was still beating down steadily, as if doing its best to make the entire world miserable for no apparent reason. The young fellow I was to meet, a small, dapper, very active lad in his early twenties named Cyril Smythe, whose single vice seemed to be falling all over himself in an effort to be helpful to me, greeted me upon my arrival, obviously having been primed to recognise me by sight though that Paget fellow's illustrations were not the best I would have chosen.
"Dr. Watson, I presume?" he asked eagerly. As the youngster appeared completely and genuinely excited rather than attempting to be witty, I deduced that the pun was unintentional and merely smiled, shaking his hand.
"Mr. Reiner has instructed me to see that you have everything you need, Doctor," the fellow chattered nervously, fairly hopping about in his eagerness and gesturing excitedly to the back of the shop. "Can I get you anything? We've got a table all set up just there, sir, but if you'd like it somewhere else then –"
"Smythe, in all seriousness, I am sure everything is most satisfactory," I finally interrupted the ceaseless flow of chatter with amusement.
"Oh. Oh, good, Doctor. Well if there's anything at all –"
"I may need to refill my Waterman before the night is over," I ventured, more to stop the fellow's frenetic bouncing about than in actual need of the ink.
"Oh, certainly, Doctor. If you'll take a look round to see that everything is to your liking, I'll be right back in just one little minute –"
The lad skipped off toward a door at the back labeled Office, leaving me watching in amusement and my mind somewhat lighter than it had been on my way. Such obvious nervousness from a young fellow was flattering, to say the least. I absently perused the section of novels closest to me for a moment before taking a look at the stack of books upon my table, feeling a deal of what I believed to be well-deserved pride at seeing my name inside the front cover of the handsome volume.
"Here you are, Doctor!" the young man said cheerfully, plopping two fountain pens down on the table beside the books and beaming up at me.
"Thank you," I replied in amusement. The youngster shuffled his feet slightly and grinned. Then he promptly reverted back to a business-like air that made me no longer doubt as to why he was in such a position of authority in one so young.
"You've ten minutes, sir, before we technically are supposed to have you on call – would you like to wait in the office so you don't get mobbed?"
I declined, not feeling it necessary. And the place really was nearly deserted, no doubt due to the rain. "Do you suppose many people will be here, Smythe?" I asked conversationally.
"They'd be bloody fools not to be – begging your pardon, sir," the lad blushed, realising his language.
I merely laughed aloud, the rest of the tension and nervousness about the affair completely leaving me under the man's fresh influence.
"We did advertise a bit, Doctor, don't you worry. And if you have any trouble with people holding up the line, or asking personal questions, I'm here to see that you don't get harassed, Doctor. So please have no hesitation in calling out for me if you need extricated," Smythe said cheerfully, glancing at his pocket-watch. "Mr. Reiner sends you his apologies for not being here, but he's on the Continent at the moment and has been for a week, speaking with one of our suppliers. Here now, Carter! Be careful with those books, Mr. Reiner'll have your head if that leather gets scratched!"
The young fellow's mood swings were extremely amusing, and it was with a smile not at all put-on that I seated myself at the table to prepare to affix my signature to the volumes at my elbow.
A small trickle of customers, more driven in by the rain outside than actual desire to purchase reading material, was all that arrived in the first hour – but the rain ceased around six-thirty, and I was, to my surprise and gratification, soon swamped with a deluge of excited, and in many cases quite complimentary, customers. Mostly young women (how Holmes would have a field day with that tidbit of information!), but to my pleased surprise quite a few men and boys.
For a while I was merely scrawling my signature (which grew more sloppy as the evening progressed), until one young lad of about twelve years asked me wide-eyed if I had ever "seen Mr. 'Olmes in a scrap." After answering in the affirmative, I realised I had unwittingly opened the floodgates to a barrage of questions, both intelligent and inane.
"Is it true, Dr. Watson, that Mr. Holmes does chemical experiments in the house?"
"Can 'e really play the violin, or is that jist part o' the story?"
"Did he ever go to college, Doctor?"
"'As 'e ever shot anywun?"
"Doctor, did Mr. Holmes ever tell you in those three years that he was alive, or were you just as surprised as the rest of the world when he came back last April?"
I winced at this last, uttered by a tall fellow with a goatee, spectacles, dark coat and hat, and the general air of being a well-to-do barrister or some such, but I answered it in the same manner as the others; just as Holmes and I always answered news reporters – in a non-controversial, non-committal manner, nothing that could be misconstrued by a well-meaning but inappropriate public account.
"Mr. Holmes surprised me as well; he had very good cause to stay hidden during that time," I replied calmly, scribbling my name on the inside cover of the sharp-eyed fellow's book.
"What cause?"
"Now, you know I can't possibly tell you that, sir."
"Well if you'll pardon my saying so, Doctor, it strikes me as rather rude for him to not have told you of all people that he was alive!"
My pen jerked slightly at this, causing the 'W' in my last name to streak further across the white expanse than I had meant to.
"No ruder than your commenting on the matter without knowing all the facts, my good fellow," I replied pleasantly, handing the book to the man with a slightly warning look.
He apparently was oblivious to this and continued to hang round the table, looking over his spectacles and a ridiculously long nose as I began to sign an elderly woman's book, inscribing it under her direction to her grandson Timothy, etc., etc. When I had done, there was a momentary lull and the infernal scoundrel started up yet again.
"I mean really, Doctor, what kind of a friend is this fellow of yours, if he doesn't even tell you for three years that he's not actually dead?" the man pressed eagerly, his slightly nasal tone rubbing my last nerve to a raw edge.
I sighed and looked up from the table with growing irritation. "Sir, if you've nothing better to do tonight than attempt to impugn the honour of a good man and a dear friend, then I suggest you make yourself scarce from here before I perform that wonderfully appealing task myself."
All this time I had kept the false public smile plastered upon my face, due to the fact that in the course of uttering this in an undertone I had signed a book for a young woman who thanked me far too profusely, but I allowed my eyes to warn the man that he was fast approaching stepping over the line of my temper.
Apparently, the fact remained completely lost to his mind, for he merely grinned and leaned closer over the head of a little boy who was shoving a book in my direction with a grin that was sans two front teeth.
"Is it true that he hates your story-writing?" the man asked in a low hiss, a smirk creasing his oily face.
"There you are, lad," I said with a smile, patting the youngster's head and nodding to acknowledge his mother's thanks before turning to look at the odious fellow who was towering over me as I sat there.
The remark had struck home, for I keenly felt the barb stick in my heart – but I refused to allow that to cause me to lose my control and make a public scene. Gentlemen did not do such things in such a public manner.
"It is true that he believes a different approach would be more appropriate, yes," I replied through clenched teeth. "As we obviously differ on the subject, we have simply agreed to disagree on the matter."
"And yet from your own stories, he constantly brings the matter up time and again," the fellow said slyly, tapping the volume in his hand with a long finger.
"This is a country where men are free to speak their minds, is it not?" I asked tersely, turning back to smile once more at a group of young lads who were all clamoring eagerly to know more about Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars and how they could 'try out' for the ragtag group.
It took me a good ten minutes to get rid of the bunch, but when I turned back from the table the man was still standing there, lounging against the wall behind me with an air of extreme boredom mingled with occasional curious interest. I ignored him, hoping that the insufferable fellow would go away; there was a limit to how rapidly I could think under pressure and the last thing I wanted was to accidentally say something damaging due to not being able to think faster than another – I began to suspect that he was a reporter and not a barrister but not being a great consulting detective I of course was not able to deduce properly.
I glanced at my watch wearily, rubbing my temples as I could feel a headache coming on – only a half-hour left, and I was not at all sure I wanted to do this ever again, publicity and royalties be hanged.
"I'll bet your friend wasn't too happy about this little gathering, now was he?" the man behind me remarked snidely, and I did not have to turn round to hear the smirk in his voice.
I bit my tongue to keep from either telling the man where he could go, or from saying something derogatory about Holmes, irritated though I was with the man at the moment.
I pasted the smile back on my face and signed the inside cover of an elderly man's volume, inscribing it for his grandsons and thanking him for his words of praise and so on. The rain had apparently started up again a few moments ago, and the store was all but deserted after another fifteen minutes, and so when I saw Smythe coming back toward me I capped my pen with a sense of intense relief.
"That's probably the lot of them, Doctor," the lad said cheerfully. "We sold over a hundred twenty copies – more than ever before here, Doctor. Mr. Reiner's going to be thrilled! Thank you for agreeing to do this…oh, sorry, I didn't realise you were talking to someone."
"I am not, Smythe, this gentleman was just leaving," I said calmly, glaring only with my eyes at the insufferable scoundrel standing nearby, smirking. I turned back to the young fellow in front of me. "Thank you for being a more than competent host."
"My pleasure, Doctor," the young man replied eagerly, shaking my hand with effusion. "Do you need any help with anything? Shall I call you a cab?"
"No thank you; and yes, a cab would be very welcomed, if you can locate one in that mess," I said ruefully, watching the water pour down from the eaves onto the windows of the little shop. It had grown dark by this time, and a rumble of thunder being the harbinger of an approaching storm made me wish longingly for Baker Street, irritable Sherlock Holmes and all.
"Right, Doctor. I'll find you one right this instant!" Smythe said eagerly, turning and rushing off toward the door without even bothering to put on his coat.
My resultant smile dissipated as a derisive snort sounded behind me. "Do you not have a family or friends to get home to, sir?" I asked irritably, now that I no longer had to keep up a pretense of amicability to everyone who passed through the signing line.
"Bosh," he declared rudely. "It is my opinion that a man is better off without any such attachments – the daily melodrama can grow to be deucedly annoying. Thank heaven I had not had the misfortune."
"You obviously have missed the entire point of having either family or friends, and so I am glad to hear you declare that no one has been unfortunate enough to have landed you as either," I snapped, buttoning my coat.
"But think on it, Doctor," the man pressed onward as I rammed my hand into my glove, trying to get my fingers into the proper holes. "You yourself admitted tonight that your friend of whom you write cares nothing for your writing ability or for your personal feelings – would it not be simpler to drop the entire thing than to deal with that sort of pettiness?"
I clenched my hand, feeling the leather of my glove creak in protest, and turned from where I was walking to the door to stand facing this infernal scoundrel.
"What is your game?" I demanded angrily. "You obviously believe you know more than you actually do about my private life and that of the man you are so high-handedly criticizing. What is your real game?"
"Simple enough, Doctor," the fellow returned, completely unruffled by my indignation. "I am a scholar, a studier of mankind, and through these stories of yours I have found your apparent devotion to an undeserving fellow like this Mr. Holmes to be one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Why exactly do you stand up for the man, as you have done to me tonight, when he obviously makes no motion to do the same for you?"
"If a man waited to be recompensed for his devotion before giving it again, that in itself would destroy the very meaning of friendship," I said quietly. "There are certain things in life that no amount of logic can explain, and that happens to be one of them. For all your knowledge and studies, sir, you have missed that elemental truth."
I saw the animosity fade in some surprise from the man's face for a moment before it reverted back to the cynical expression he had held all the night. "That kind of stuff is all well and good in a story, Doctor, but really now – what is your legitimate reason?"
It took every ounce of my self-control to not plant my fist in that sneering mouth. "I believe you have monopolized my time enough this evening, sir," I said through clenched teeth. "I have answered your questions and signed your purchase – I am not going to waste time debating matters of the heart with a man who is out for argument rather than enlightenment. I have the honour to wish you a very good evening."
I expected to hear a skeptical snort or some sneering jibe as I walked toward the front of the store, where a happily dripping Cyril Smythe was indicating the cab he had waiting for me. After thanking the fellow and holding onto my hat to prevent its blowing down the road, I clambered up into the vehicle and then slumped back in the seat as we moved; I was so very weary in mind and body over such a trying night.
So bad was the storm that it took me nearly a half-hour to traverse the short distance from the bookstore to 221B, for the rain was lashing about the cab and the wind driving it at an almost horizontal angle into the thing. I was dripping wet, freezing cold, and in a rather bad temper by the time I reached the sitting room. And to make matters worse, Sherlock Holmes was still up, sitting cozily by the fire with a steaming cup of tea. He glanced up and raised an sardonic eyebrow.
"So they didn't give the debuting author a covered vehicle to travel in?" he asked sarcastically, sipping at his tea.
I ignored him, biting my tongue for the second time that night; two insufferably rude scoundrels in six hours was more than my mentality could stand at the moment. I poured myself a cup of tea, drank it gingerly – it was boiling hot – and then realised I had left my fountain pen in my wet coat pocket downstairs; not a good climate for a metal instrument.
I stumbled wearily down the steps to retrieve it, lighting the dim hall lamp so as to see the article of clothing clearly. As I reached into my pocket to recover the pen, my eyes fell upon Sherlock Holmes's coat, also equally soaked, hanging on the next peg along with a sopping black hat. Both looked entirely too familiar…he had told me before I left he was staying in all night…that tea had been boiling hot, as if it had only just been brought up that instant…
Oh, surely not.
I shoved my hand into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a pair of spectacles and a wad of false hair.
He had.
A sudden boiling anger surged through my frozen veins, warming me momentarily more quickly than the tea had, and I more stormed than stepped up the stairs and re-entered the sitting room.
"Holmes, what in blazes were you thinking, playing a trick like that upon me?" I demanded furiously.
He jumped visibly, completely startled by my outburst, and opened his mouth to deny whatever I was accusing him of – until I flung the glasses and hair down on the hearthrug in front of him and folded my arms, trying to quell my shivering as it was highly undignified and not in the least conducive to intimidation.
"I…" he began helplessly, pleading with his eyes for me to understand. I was too angry to overlook this last affront, however.
"You what? As if it were not bad enough that the one person in the world whose opinion actually matters to me despises my work, you then have to add mockery to insult and indulge in such a farcical stunt as you did tonight?" I asked, wishing my teeth were not chattering and in consequence causing my voice to vibrate with the emotions he so abhorred with every atom of his icy soul. "You could not just allow me to enjoy the evening, without ruining it with that horrible impersonation?"
"Watson, I had no intention of –"
"Of what?" I asked quietly. "Of my ever finding out it was you? No, you never do, do you? You never intend me to discover things unless it is under the time and circumstances you choose, and no matter how much the truth hurts when I do realise."
"That is not true –"
"It is true!" I whispered miserably, shivering as a chill ran over me.
"No!" he cried desperately, rising from his chair to face me, his hands nervously twisting his unlit pipe. "I'd no intention of carrying the thing so far – you can ask the cabbie I had waiting in the alley; I was going to change into three or four different and outrageous disguises and hopefully bring you a bit of amusement in repayment for my hastiness of earlier!"
I stared at him in some astonishment, for that was as open an apology as I had ever, and probably would ever, hear from his lips over this particular matter.
"Then…why didn't you?" I asked, slightly more calm now.
"Because…because…" he rubbed his eyes wearily before turning them back to meet mine, full of something I could not identify. "Because I was quite surprised at your answers to my questions and…I confess I wanted to see how far you would go to defend me. That is all, Watson, I swear it."
"So it is a case of manipulation, not mockery," I said bitterly, shivering again as water dripped down my back from my soaked collar. "I hope you were satisfied with the answers you sought regarding my defense of you, Holmes. Good night."
I turned to leave the room, intending to change into dry clothing and go to bed after a dreadful evening, when his impulsive, almost desperate voice stopped me as my hand reached the door-knob.
"That wasn't the only reason!"
"Oh? What then?" I demanded, angrily dashing water from the side of my head as it trickled down from my hair.
Sherlock Holmes was standing before the fireplace with his hands dejectedly in his pockets, his entire manner that of a forlorn child receiving punishment from a respected adult.
"I…legitimately wanted to know, Watson," he said in a low tone, so low that I had to step closer to hear the words. "My last questions were not borne out of malice but rather in a genuine search for the truth."
I looked at him in some surprise, both that he was actually serious about not knowing why I would follow him off the side of a cliff if he so bade and also that he would be so open just now as to admit the fact.
"And you had to don that infernal disguise to ask, instead of just posing the question to me some night over a pipe and a brandy?" I demanded.
"As if I would be able to do that, Watson!" he snapped.
He did have a point there, I was forced to admit; the man never would have asked in person, it was simply not in his nature nor ever would be. I rested my elbow in my hand, tapping a finger thoughtfully against my lips, for a long moment. Finally the detective's shoulders slumped in the closest thing to regret he would ever show to me or anyone else, and he moved to leave the room, offering me the fire with a gesture and indicating that he would leave me alone to enjoy it.
"Holmes."
He paused and looked back over his shoulder at me.
"I haven't had dinner yet, and since you have been a busy little detective tonight I doubt you have either. Ring for Mrs. Hudson while I go change," I directed sternly, and I was pleased to see a faint smile cross his pale face as he moved to (for once) obey my order.
"Is my opinion truly the only one you really care about, or was that merely being used to induce guilt on my part?" he asked interestedly over our apricot tart.
I blushed darker than the beef we had just consumed. But after a long night of deceptions, I supposed honesty was still the best policy. "Yes," I mumbled, hastily taking another bite to negate having to elaborate on my rash sentiment.
He gulped his own mouthful hastily and the lines in his forehead grew more pronounced. "That is not an advantageous thing, as we never will come to an agreement on the matter," he said in apparent deep thought, absently tapping his fork against his lips.
"That's because you insist on judging my work as a technicality, not as the art it is," I said seriously. "One artist has no right to critique another man's interpretation of the same subject matter; you should know that already, given your heritage and the fact that you are a patron of the arts yourself. Do I compare your violin playing to Paganini's in terms of interpretation? Technicality, yes, but interpretation of the mood?"
He was forced to shake his head.
"There you have it – instead of comparing my stories to how you would write them as technical lectures, criticise them in comparison to what they are and were always meant to be – romantic fiction," I said earnestly.
He pulled a face, as I knew he would, and we both smirked at each other over our coffees.
"I make no promises, save to never again use a disguise to wrest information from you, my dear Watson," he warned.
"Fair enough," I replied with a smile, and a comfortable silence fell over the table for a while as we finished our dessert. Then a sudden thought struck me.
"By the way, Holmes."
"Hmmpght?" he asked round his last mouthful of tart.
"Would you like me to inscribe that book you spent two pounds on in more personal terms than Best wishes, John Watson?"
I spent the next five minutes in attempting to dislodge a piece of apricot from my friend's windpipe, ending in a near-panic attack and a mess all over Mrs. Hudson's white tablecloth, moments before the woman herself entered to announce an illustrious visitor.
But that is another story.