Holmes once said to Watson, "You will realize that among your many talents dissimulation finds no place." But what if it had been Mary Watson, not John, who answered Mrs. Hudson's desperate plea for help when Sherlock fell ill in ACD's classic "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"? Mary never lies, but she's not above deceit. Here's what I believe would have happened.

All the best lines in this story belong to Sir Arthur, with my gratitude and apologies, and I have italicized them.

000

He huffed a breath of impatient relief as he heard the street door burst open and Mrs. Hudson's fussy bustle to greet the visitor. He threw himself into his bed and began to artfully disarray the bedclothes.

"About time," he muttered to himself. But then he froze in disbelief. The person at the door was not John. "Mary," he sighed, frustrated. He had a sinking feeling that all of his careful plans were about to be for naught.

"Thank goodness you're here, dear." Mrs. Hudson, he realized with a shock, was sobbing. His landlady was a long-suffering woman, he reflected. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters, but Sherlock knew his eccentric and irregular lifestyle must have sorely tried her patience. He was aware that his incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments were princely. He liked to think that this made up for much. It always surprised him, however, that she also seemed to be quite fond of him. Apparently, she was upset over his imminent demise. How tedious. But also, perhaps, how heart-warming.

"He's dying, Mary," she was quavering with a catch in her voice. "He's so thin and pale and won't eat a bite. He hasn't stirred from his bed in three days."

"Now, Mrs. Hudson," he could hear Mary say soothingly. "He's always thin and pale, and he often goes days without eating or getting out of bed. That passes as normal for him, you know that."

"I keep bringing him his tea, and there it sits, untouched," the motherly older woman went on. This brought a gasp in response.

"Won't drink his tea? For three days?" Mary mused, now sounding concerned.

"And he's feverish, too. I know a feverish eye when I see one!" his landlady persisted. "And the feverish spots on his cheeks. And then he rants on and on about oysters."

"Oysters?" Mary inquired with worry in her tone. He could tell Mrs. Hudson was beginning to convince her of his illness. "What do you mean, oysters?"

"He's delirious, raving in his fever. 'I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters,' he says. 'Shall the world be overrun by oysters?' he says. Oh, it's been horrible, dear, horrible, this whole week with you and John in Dublin," Mrs. Hudson lamented, sniffling. "He's just been deteriorating more and more each day. Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable."

Sherlock astonished himself by feeling touched by her words and castigated himself for it. "Sentiment," he murmured, trying to be scathing. He almost succeeded.

"Why on earth have you not called an ambulance?" Mary was crying out in alarm, her voice growing louder as she approached the stairs. "He should be in hospital!"

Mrs. Hudson was now weeping in earnest. "You know what he's like, Mary. He wouldn't hear of it. Shouted at me, and even threw a bolster at me when I pressed him on it."

"Oh, I'd better run on up and see to him myself, then," Mary said in her most professional, doctor-voice. Her light, quick footsteps could be heard on the stair, and soon she appeared in his doorway. It was do or die in earnest now, he knew. Mary did not suffer fools gladly, nor did she suffer being fooled. Still, if he could pull off this act with Mary, he could certainly convince anyone.

"Sherlock?" she whispered gently. "Are you awake, Sweetheart?"

"Mary? Is that you?" he rasped in the weak, trembling voice he had perfected over the past week. "I seem to have fallen upon evil days."

"There, there, I'm here now. We'll get you back to health before you know it," she assured him, entering the room.

"I didn't call for you. I called for John," Sherlock fussed peevishly. "Go away and bring John to me. He's my physician and I want him here. You've both been gone for an age. I thought the oysters might have. . . . Ah, my mind wanders . . . . Have they no natural enemies which might limit the increase of the creatures?"

"John stayed in Dublin to get Harry sorted and back into rehab. His phone is off—I haven't been able to reach him," Mary told him regretfully. "I've left him a voice mail. I'm sure he'll be here as soon as he can. But I'm a doctor, too, you know dear. I came as soon as Mrs. Hudson called me. I can look after you as well as John can."

"Don't come near!" he commanded sharply. "Stay back! Stand well back! If you don't I'll order you out of the house!" He had practiced on Mrs. Hudson the knack of speaking with both the fragility of illness and the imperiousness of one who is master of his own fate for three days. He thought he had it down. Mary was having none of it.

"Don't be an ass, Sweetheart," she told him and came in anyway.

Imperiousness never worked with Mary. At best, she found it amusing. He would have to try a difference tactic. "Please, Mary. It's for your own sake, I beg of you," he pleaded pitifully.

She paused. "What do you mean, for my sake?"

"I know what is the matter with me," he croaked hoarsely. It was hard on his throat, but if he could make her keep her distance it would be worth it. "It's a rare and little known tropical disease. I was working on a case among some dock-workers who had just arrived from Sumatra and came into contact with it. It is infallibly deadly and it is horribly contagious."

''Good heavens, Sweetheart! Do you supposed that such a consideration weighs with me for an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from helping my dearest friend?" Mary sounded both exasperated and desperately fearful now. Dearest friend? Sherlock frowned. This was becoming an annoyingly emotional encounter. Couldn't people just do what he asked without all this fuss? He could see that he needed to use Mary's greatest weakness against her in order to have his way. She could forgive him later—she always forgave him, didn't she?