"Holmes," I said, in some alarm, "there is a madman coming down the street."
I was standing by our bay window, looking out at the early morning bustle where my attention had been drawn by the tumultuous figure seemingly headed now in the approximate direction of our front door.
"Dressed in Scotland Yard uniform, no doubt," replied my friend. He made no effort to raise his elbows up from the sofa on which he was reclined, engaged in half-hearted perusal of the morning's early edition of The Times.
"No," I shook my head. "He is not in police uniform. My word! Holmes, I really do think that he is heading our way. What should we do? Should we call down to Mrs. Hudson to not allow him entry?"
"Really, Watson, why on earth should we do that?" Holmes enquired, at last rolling his languid frame from its recumbence and joining me at the window. "It may be a client in need of our assistance, and it would scarcely be gentlemanly of us to refuse – My goodness me. You are quite right, my dear fellow, the man is an absolute lunatic."
Out on the street below, the cavorting figure stood back from our doorstep and looked up at the window. Holmes and I jumped to conceal ourselves behind our respective curtain folds. We peered out as best we could from our disadvantaged viewpoint.
"I do hope he doesn't ring the bell," said Holmes. "Perhaps we should call down to Mrs. Hudson to not let him in, what do you think?"
"Holmes -"
The front door bell rang. A second's pause. It rang again. It was most insistent. Holmes and I exchanged agonised glances.
"Do you have your revolver?" hissed my friend. He looked around wildly for a suitable weapon for himself. He snatched up and then cast aside my old walking stick from the corner of the room, before settling upon the buckled steel poker from the fireplace. "Not ideal, but it will have to do," said he.
"Holmes –!"
From the main hall we were able to discern that our landlady had indeed allowed our visitor entry, and the heavy footsteps upon our stair indicated that he was already on his way, despite the faint protestations from Mrs. Hudson that he might prefer to be accompanied? A moment's pause upon the landing, then the loud assail of a knotted fist upon an unassuming panel of our sitting-room door.
"Go away! – er, come in?" called out Holmes, with all of his customary precision.
The visitor behind the door appeared confused, for there was silence.
Holmes looked at me. "What now?" he whispered.
I strode resolutely towards the door. I heard my friend take retreat behind the sofa. I grasped the handle of the door, twisted and drew it wide open.
"Sir," said I, with considerably more vigour than I was in actual possession of, "you had perhaps better come inside. I am Doctor Watson, and this is Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Do you have a trouble which you would wish to share with us?"
The hovering eccentric straightened up, and I noticed that from across his shoulder he had produced a large hemp sack. He stared at me as though I were raving.
"A trouble?" asked he, "Well now, what would that be about? I have a parcel here needs signing for, if you might refer to that as a trouble." And from his hemp sack he produced a long rectangular package. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street," he read aloud. "And that is you, I believe, sir?" he said, addressing my reluctant friend.
"You are our new postman?" asked Holmes querulously, slowly moving out from behind safe cover.
"Aye, that I am," said the man. For at close quarters we were now able to observe that he was indeed in postal uniform, albeit windswept and dishevelled. "This sack is sorely heavy for me, gentlemen; I was scarcely able to carry it down the road, and that blustering tempest was unbalancing me from one side of the street to the other. Relieved so I am to be putting the sack down now, I can tell you."
My friend accepted the proffered parcel, and signed his name upon the postal slip. He nodded a good morning to the fellow, who was then on his way again, picking up his burden and sighing down the stairs and out into the street below, to wrestle the elements once more. Holmes looked to me with a sheepish grin. He waved the package.
"I have a parcel, Watson," he informed me, unnecessarily.
"Then perhaps you had better open it," I replied, crossing to the breakfast table and picking up my abandoned toast and marmalade. I heard a soft grunt, then the crisp tearing and rustling of brown paper. An exhale of barely held excitement told me that the content was something which my friend had been anticipating. I turned around – to be confronted with a fencing sword aimed squarely at my nose.
"What the–!"
"Do you like it?" Holmes's voice was eager. He tickled my chin with the tip of the blade. I took an involuntary step backwards.
"Not at such dashed close quarters," I complained. "Really, Holmes, put that down before you do either or both of us a mischief."
"I intend to take up with fencing as a hobby once more," Holmes explained happily. "It has been years since I last engaged, Watson. Years! I can scarcely tolerate waiting another moment to try out this beauty." He caressed the sword lovingly – as though it were a small kitten, or a test tube containing the bisulphate of baryta – and then smiled up at me. "Would you care for a five minute assault, my dear boy?"
"I beg your pardon?" I countered, weakly. The morning was going downhill at an increasingly rapid rate. "I think I would rather n-"
"Excellent!" my friend interrupted. He spun around, his keen grey eyes roving the room. "We need to set you up with a similar weapon, my dear fellow; you cannot possibly fence me with a teaspoon."
"I am not altogether certain that I would care to fence you at -"
"Here we are, then." Holmes was shaking free a long, slender wooden stick from the large urn in the corner of the room. "I wonder for what purpose this might once have been used? Hum. Well, no matter. It is now your 'sword', Watson."
I took the stick, reluctantly. Compared to my friend's gleaming silver blade it seemed a feeble defence indeed.
"Holmes, I trust you know what you are doing with that... thing," I said. My friend appeared not to be listening, for he was already clearing away a space in the middle of the room, pushing chairs to one side and rolling up the rug. He stood, then, elegant and proud, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, sword held aloft in his right hand. I obeyed his beckoning summons and stepped forward to join my opponent within the circle of death.
"Please be gentle," I said.
Holmes released one of his enigmatic chuckles. "You will be quite all right," said he. "Merely use your stick to parry; I shall not advance too soon. Now then. Onetwothree GO!"
I would have protested my friend's sudden and utterly bizarre method of commencing a duel but for the fact that he had already forgotten his pledge and was advancing upon me with blade thrust out, stabbing experimentally. My sole tactic at present was but to retreat and circle in a series of lurches.
"This is a balestra," said Holmes, demonstrating with a graceful forward hop and lunge.
"Bear with me, Holmes, while I attempt to riposte," I puffed, quietly acknowledging that I was out of condition and not remotely prepared for such exercise at this ridiculous hour.
"Keep up, Watson," trilled Holmes, dancing around me as though en pointe, "you are appallingly turgid."
A second balestra from my friend very almost knocked my stick from my hand. Holmes whooped in triumph.
"That was ungallant of you, Holmes," I complained, still yet dodging and lurching.
"I believe the correct word that you are groping for, Watson, is 'dazzling'." Holmes was concentrating on using his blade to worry at the buttons of my waistcoat. He guffawed in glee as one tiny victim was wrenched free to plummet and bounce away beneath the sideboard.
"Holmes, if you shred my waistcoat then you will be asking for it," I warned. I swung my stick to stress my point. It caught Holmes upon the forearm; he yelped as a scalded pup, and paused to rub fretfully at the sore.
"That stung," said he, scowling. "You are not supposed to whack me with the damned thing, Watson."
"That was a parry," I explained. "Here's another one." I furnished his other arm with a similar manoeuvre. Holmes squealed and dropped his blade.
"OW! Stop that!" He stamped over to the fireplace, rubbing, and glowering at me over his shoulder. "I'm not playing any more."
I feigned surprise. "I thought that you wanted to show me your moves."
"Not if you're going to roughhouse," he grumbled. "Was it because of the button?"
"I was fond of the button," I deadpanned, placing my victorious stick down upon the table and moving the furniture back into position. "And now that is just one more task for poor Mrs. Hudson to add to her neverending list of things to -"
"It was a button!"
"And yet I was sorry to see it leave, Holmes."
"It is still underneath the wretched sideboard!"
"I would be a little happier if you might retrieve it for me, Holmes."
With a huffing sigh my friend flung himself upon his knees, and set to searching, backside in the air. I was glad that from his awkward position he was unable to see my smile or hear my chuckling, for he was intent upon his own mutterings and scuffles. When he finally emerged, the button proudly gripped between right forefinger and thumb, I was reclining in my chair by the fire and drawing on a freshly-lit pipe.
"Thank you, Holmes," I said, "I really do appreciate your taking the trouble."
"It was nothing," said he, dusting off his trouser knees, penitent now. "I am sorry about your button, my dear fellow."
"It will soon be back upon my waistcoat as though it never happened, Holmes. And your bruises will fade."
Holmes picked up his fencing sword, eyeing it cautiously, and moved to the corner of the room, where he placed it delicately inside the urn.
"Yes, well," said he, "I think that in the future I may seek out a less formidable opponent all the same."
And he placed the small, round button to one side, and we proposed to speak no more of it.