Beginning

It was rare that they quarreled. Indeed, it was highly uncommon that they disagreed on anything at all. Of course, naturally, it was not unusual for any friend or client to stand in the hall just outside the sitting room door and hear the livid protests about this bullet hole here or that poisoned tea there, followed always by the curiously charismatic and highly entertained-sounding justifications of patriotism or experimentation. Such spontaneous disputes were the regularities of the day, often occurring repetitively on those days during which there was no case to pull them out of doors.

Even so, all one had to do was set eyes upon the two of them together, to see the effortless attachment and mutual admiration, and it became immediately obvious that, never mind how many times the doctor threatened to find new, non-bullet-riddled lodgings, it was quite impossible to imagine any force on earth capable of separating them.