My friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, was a man wholly driven by his impulse, as I have had endless cause to mention – and in great detail – these past years. Benevolent, as the impulse never failed to be, regardless, it rained chaos on our lives to some degree until the mania receded.
On one such day, or week, in early February, of a year I am reluctant to recall, I had made my way home early from my rounds, in both poor temper and a chill. Stomping the snow and ice from off my boots, I stomped the louder up our stairs, and had my hand upon the doorknob of our sitting-room, to hear a crashing and a heavy tread, and the key turn in the lock upon the inside.
"Holmes? Is that you?"
I turned the knob. The door resisted.
"Holmes? Did you just lock this? Let me in. It is absolutely frigid on the landing."
A further scrabbling from within. Something was knocked onto the floor, for I heard a smash and then a curse.
"Wait just a moment," sang Sherlock Holmes, as cheerily he might in view of the glass shards underfoot, "I will be with you, er, um, yes, in a New York minute."
"In a what? Holmes, what are you doing?" I rattled the doorknob once again. I looked down sadly at my feet where a thaw-puddle had appeared. My toes were numb; my fingers number.
The disruption upon the other side continued for some seconds. A thump, a slamming door, and then some footsteps to my rescue.
At long last the door clicked open, and there was my friend, all 6 foot spare of him.
"Good evening, Watson," said he, with a bow. "Do come in." He stepped aside.
"What in blazes do you mean, and what have you done?" I edged into the room, now cautious for the booby-trap. "What was the smash?"
Holmes waved a hand to brush the awkward question far away from him. "I didn't hear a smash," he said. "I was in the middle of a thing. You came home early. You interrupted me. I've moved the... thing... into my bedroom now."
He sounded a little aggrieved.
"There was a smash," I repeated. I looked around in vain. "Can you explain what you mean by 'a thing'?"
"No," said Sherlock Holmes. "I can't."
I frowned, my feelings a little hurt by his reluctance to share his great intrigue. "Well then, is it for a case?"
"Watson, don't be nosey."
I sighed. I shucked my coat, removed my boots, and pulled on my carpet slippers. A fire was blazing in the hearth; I stood in front of it and warmed my bones, peering about me all the while. I applied deductive reasoning to the evidence I found: torn shreds of newsprint on the desk; a white liquid substance on the chair; a forlorn scrap of rubber laying lifeless on the rug.
"You have left a huge mess, Holmes," I said.
My friend huffed, and flushed pinker. He chivvied at the paper, and used his handkerchief to mop up the white residue. He pounced upon the rubber as if it were a twitching mouse. All of these things he thrust into the spacious pocket of his dressing gown.
"Better now?" he enquired.
"Not really," I replied. "For I'm still none the wiser."
However, for explanations, there were none. My friend was mute upon the subject, and we sat beside the fire and smoked our pipes, and discussed the inflated price of sugar pigs, and how we might afford them, or should we switch to peanut brittle.
Dinner was at seven, and Mrs. Hudson was in a state of pique as she slapped the dishes round us.
"Mr. Holmes," said she, "I know that it was you, for the dear doctor here would not dream of sullying my bowls in such a fashion."
Holmes ducked his head. I blinked, confused. "Your bowls were sullied, Mrs. Hudson?"
"Indeed they were, Dr. Watson. By this gentleman here, more's the shame. Five of them, all filled up with flour and water, and then just left to set solid. There's flour all over the kitchen floor, and a puddle on my table top. What will you say for yourself, Mr. Holmes?"
To his dismay my friend discovered that he could duck his head no lower. One eye peeped up, afraid, alone, and quivering in its socket.
"I was in the middle of a thing," explained the owner of the eye.
"Tell that to my bowls," said Mrs. Hudson, sore and miffed.
Holmes was silent as he ate around his steak and kidney pie. He would not take encouragement for a slice of poppy seed cake, and he did not sit for coffee. With a grunt, he disappeared into his room, and – I supposed – recommenced work on his 'thing'.
I was very much alarmed, ten minutes later, by an explosive pop, and Holmes's scream in answer. Then, for a long interval, I heard his peaceful humming, and decided that the disaster had abated.
Three hours passed by, and Holmes emerged, the brightest beam lighting his face.
"You look pleased," I said, stating the very obvious.
"I am," said Holmes. "And now I want cake. Where is it? Give me cake."
So I watched him while he ate his cake, and then I wondered as he smiled behind his pipe exactly what he might be smiling at. The secret would reveal itself in time, I thought, and so resolved to think no more about it.
The next Thursday morning, early, Holmes hailed me on the landing.
"Watson!" he said. "Watson!" He beckoned wildly. "Come into the sitting-room!"
He did not give me time to hesitate. Launching himself upon my arm, we hurtled through the doorway to be greeted by a who-knows-what.
"What?" I said, confused. "What, what?"
My eye was fixed upon the... something... that was dangling from the ceiling in the centre of the room.
"My dear Watson," said Sherlock Holmes, "a Happy Valentine's Day to you."
"What?" I said, again. My brain had both contracted and expanded, performed a tilter-whirl and cartwheel, all inside of several seconds. "What?"
"Happy Valentine's," my friend repeated slowly. "Are you deaf?"
"But Holmes," I said, quite dizzily, "what in god's name is that thing?"
The mobile that was dangling – from the chandelier, I noticed – did now reveal itself to be, at close inspection, a piñata.
"It is a piñata," said my friend. "It is home-made! Isn't it lovely?"
There were many adjectives I might have used, but the word 'lovely' was unlikely to be one of them.
"It is in the shape of a moustache," said Holmes, eager now to clarify. He stood back, anticipating my approval.
"A piñata in the shape of a moustache?"
I had to wonder if I'd been plucked out from this world into a strange, forbidding universe that was quite parallel to our usual.
"Yes," my friend replied. "Oh, Watson, you're really very slow, on today of all days." He lunged, and snatched a singlestick from a rack upon the wall. He proffered it to me. "Here you are. Go on. Have a whack."
"Holmes," I said, hesitating, disbelieving, "am I given to understand that you have made me a... a piñata... in the shape of a moustache... for Valentine's Day, and now you are expecting me to..." – and here I paused a fraction longer – "... to play with it?"
"Yes," said Sherlock Holmes, with a patient, long-suffering sigh. "That is correct." He lovingly ogled the piñata. "It took ages to build. It was messy, too. Papier-mâché is a horrible medium. And I found out that I'm scared of balloons." He winced at the memory.
"Aha!" I exclaimed, as the light dawned at last. "Holmes, do you really want me to hit this, when you spent such a long time on its construction?"
Holmes raised his chin bravely. "For St. Valentine!" he piped. If he saluted, then I did not see, for I had lifted up my singlestick and had dealt the moustache a sound thwack.
The piñata jiggled stoically.
"Again!" said Holmes.
"Again?"
I hit it again.
"Is anything supposed to happen, Holmes?"
"Yes," said he. His tone was peeved. "You're not hitting it hard enough."
"I assure you that I am," I said. I offered him the stick. "You have a go."
Holmes's own effort yielded no different result.
"Oh blast it," said my friend. "I appear to have constructed the equivalent of Sing Sing."
We took turns in assaulting the swinging moustache with a keenness that increased with each deft blow. If Mrs. Hudson had chanced to check on us, she would have run for the police, such was our grim determination to destroy, to desecrate the paper beast.
It may have taken minutes, although in fact it felt like hours, but at length the piñata buckled, split, tore asunder, and gave way. All of these things at once, in fact, for its contents sprang to freedom like fifty cross jack-in-the-boxes. We cowered to deflect the mighty onslaught of our prize. Eventually, the tumult came to its climax, and we stood up straight again.
"Hell's bells," said Holmes.
I gaped around me at the mess. There were peppermint humbugs by the dozen, a hundred pennies, and a wild array of hairpins, and then somehow, for insane reason, one whole round fruit cake, bashed and dented.
"Holmes," I said, "thank you. Thank you, for... this." I paused and looked around again. "I think."
"You're welcome," said my friend.
"But why?" I felt I had to enquire further. "I mean to say, it's very kind. But why?"
Holmes's face dropped just a little. "Because you are my friend," he said. "And I read in a newspaper somewhere that one is supposed to do something nice for the person one cares about on Valentine's Day." He flushed a brighter shade of pink. "I don't know very much about it. Did I do it all wrong? I know you don't use hairpins, but I ran out of ideas."
I felt a small lump in my throat.
"No, Holmes," I said, touched beyond foolish words. "You did nothing wrong. It was immensely thoughtful, and such a lovely surprise. Thank you, my dear fellow, thank you again."
And we smiled at each other, and we could not stop smiling, and in the days that followed, every time we found a humbug, or a penny, or a hairpin, that had escaped our search and strayed beneath the sofa or a rug or sideboard table, then we smiled afresh, anew. Happy Valentine's, indeed – to friendship! Yes, to friendship.