I do not recall that I have yet recounted to my faithful readers the tale of Mathews, and how he came to so affect my dear friend and colleague, Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, that gentleman's name can no longer be spoken aloud within our sitting-room – or any living space for that matter – without a shiver and a shudder from my companion.
If the name 'Mathews' seems to you, in itself, part way familiar, then I tip my hat, for indeed I made brief mention of it in a tale some time long past. And yet the detail was omitted, for which I shall now make some grave effort to redress.
That very day, then: the both of us, Holmes and myself, at Baker Street. I had spent the morning polishing up my boot leather, while my friend had laboured at his cork-board with pins and string.
"Whatever are you doing?" I enquired of him at last.
He chuckled to himself.
"I am proving to myself how brilliant I am," said he, not bothering to turn to address me directly.
Curious, I rose from my chair and moved to where he stood close by his writing desk, all manner of dire detritus spread about it.
"Look!" said Holmes. He pointed at the cork-board upon the wall, by now dotted with the most incomprehensible maze. "Look at this pin!"
"Which pin?"
"This pin." Irritated, he jabbed at the centremost pin with his forefinger. A great many lengths of string led from it and outwards to other pins and scraps of paper.
"Very well," I said. I looked at it. To all intents and purposes, it was an ordinary household pin. "Why am I looking at it?" I asked at length.
Holmes tossed his head, exhaling heavily.
"Watson, you are quite hopeless. This pin is representative of Mathews."
"Oh," I said. Then: "Who is Mathews?"
"Mathews is..."
And here my friend paused while he searched within his capacious brain for a suitable descriptive for the gentleman.
"...A sausagehead?" I suggested helpfully.
He giggled.
"Yes, he is that as well, but it is barely a fraction of it. Mathews is the organiser of half that is terribly naughty and of nearly all that is positively gammy in this great city."
"Gammy?"
Holmes nodded enthusiastically. He pointed then at the connecting strings.
"These pieces of string are the various crimes that I believe Mathews to have committed, which in turn lead to other fellows and other crimes, making a whole and connecting... thing. It is very clever. I am, therefore, brilliant."
He squinted at me in challenge.
"You are brilliant," I agreed. "Intolerably unhinged, but undoubtedly brilliant."
"Thank you," said my friend. He narrowed his eyes further after processing my compliment. "I think."
I peered again at the busy cork-board. Even to my limited observation it seemed apparent that Mathews required urgent apprehending, for his negative influence spread out – via Holmes's ingenious network of strings – to several dozen scribbled names, places, indignities.
"He must be caught," I said, stating the obvious.
"Yes," said Holmes. "Yes, he must. And I shall catch him today."
I watched my friend as he fluttered around the room. He assembled a handful of implements which he apparently deemed should be useful in his quest: a clothes peg, an ink-well, a small pocket-knife, a ball of twine.
"Holmes-" I began.
"Be quiet, Watson," said he. "I know what I'm doing."
Snatching his hat and coat up from the stand, then, he was gone; a high-flung flurried wave indicating that I might expect him when I next saw him. I wondered very briefly about the clothes peg. I resolved to sit and read awhile and await my friend's return.
I had dozed off. A gentle, delightful dream of summer parks and ice-cream, rippling ponds and wooden toy-boats.
The sitting-room door of 221B flung open, rattled at the hinges. I started wide awake, gripping both arms of my chair in alarm.
"Holmes!" I exclaimed – for it was he. "What a start you gave me! Must you always make such a cacophony? Why, my dear fellow, whatever is it?"
Holmes's expression was fierce, furious, cross, discontent. He flung himself over to the mirror upon the mantel, where he gurned for a second or two before releasing the most terrible howl.
"Oh my goodness," I said, rising up from my seat. "Whatever is it?"
He spun around to me.
"That... that... that..." he spluttered, unable to finish his sentence.
"That Mathews?"
"Yes! Yes! That... that... that..."
"Are you harmed?" I enquired anxiously, hurrying across to my friend to check for injury.
He bared his mouth at me and jabbed angrily with a finger.
"You've lost a tooth," I informed him.
This only served to render my friend the more apoplectic.
"Well, of course I've lost a tooth, Watson, you blithering, flaming idiot, that's what I've been trying to tell you. Mathews. In the waiting-room at Charing Cross. Drat the man."
I hastened to the sideboard and poured out a glass of water. I returned to Holmes, by now sitting, legs tucked defensively under him on his chair.
"Drink this," I said.
He accepted the glass, still scowling.
"My mouth hurts," he said. "I am not remotely happy about this, Watson."
"I do not imagine that you are," I replied consolingly. "I deeply regret that your meeting with Mathews should have to culminate with a fist-fight. Did he escape out of it at the end?"
"No," said Holmes. "The stupid oaf is behind bars now. At the expense of my tooth," he added peevishly. He worried at the gap again with his index finger. "Tooth," he whined.
"You will have the most awful bruise by the morning," I informed him. He winced.
"It is not so much the bruise," said he, "as to what on earth can possibly be done about the gap itself."
I nodded in sympathy. "A canine tooth," I said. "Most difficult to conceal. Will you pay a visit to the dentist?"
My friend flinched.
"He would be able to provide a -" and here I gestured vaguely in the air "- so that it might not appear so apparent."
Holmes contemplated the idea of this for several moments.
"It would hurt," said he, already wounded psychologically beyond salvation.
"Not necessarily," I lied. I gestured again. "Your dentist would fit a, um, bridge gadget that would conceal itself very ably between your remaining teeth."
"But-"
"The canine itself might be made out of ivory, or indeed, fashioned from animal tooth, or even human. They are so very clever with these things these days."
Holmes looked at me in horror.
"Dead humans!" said he, aghast. "Dead animals!"
"Their tooth," I said. "Which I feel is quite different."
"I don't want someone else's confounded tooth in my jaw," said my friend. "It is a preposterous notion."
"Then do nothing," I said, by now tiring of the to-and-fro, "and be known as 'Gappy' Holmes, for the remainder of your career."
"The gap would only show if I smiled," said Holmes. "Which to clients, would be never."
I chuckled.
"That is true. All the same, I should have thought that your sense of aesthetic would prompt you to pay a visit to Mr. Abrahams."
Holmes clutched his jaw, frowned greatly, and pondered much. He refused the fine dinner of roast beef that Mrs. Hudson placed before us later that evening. He would not sup a brandy, nor smoke a cigar with me before the blazing hearth. He sulked and frowned and pondered, and rubbed at his jaw.
The next morning, my friend vanished into town without a word. Returning shortly before midday, he was remarkably transformed to cheer and bluster.
"I saw Mr. Abrahams," said he. "What a very lovely fellow. I sat with him a great while, and we discussed the matter over and he put my mind to rest."
"That is very good," I said, relieved. "What did he say?"
"Well," said Holmes, "I told him that I was much averse to any old tooth inside my mouth. I was quite stern in this regard. So then, Watson, you should never guess what Mr. Abrahams proposed."
"I am all ears."
"He showed me the most beautiful specimen, that he promised he might reserve for me, at a price. And do you know, Watson, he declared that it was a tooth from George Washington himself. Imagine that! Watson, imagine it. A President's tooth!"
"Um, yes, Holmes, but-"
" A President, Watson!"
"Yes, but George Washington didn't have-"
"Oh, Watson, do be quiet. You always wish to rain upon my snowdrops. I have made an appointment with Mr. Abrahams for the tooth to be installed next week." Holmes leaned back in his chair and raised his chin towards the ceiling. "And then I shall be pretty again."
I considered it very remarkable that my friend had made it thus far in his career with only the loss of his left canine; all limbs and bones and follicle remaining otherwise intact. His vanity declared immediate reparation, while at the same time filing the name Mathews under: "Of Questionable Memory". He would never forget; he would not forgive.
I nodded, understandingly. I did not remotely wish to rain upon my friend's snowdrops. I held my tongue, and let him smile and enjoy his fancy, and mused upon the gammy ways of dentists who held forth in this great city.