A Study in Categories
by Galaxy1001D
It was a cold gloomy day as the sun beat down on the heat scorched streets of London. In our home at 221B Baker Street, I found my friend Sherlock Holmes, listening to pop music while placing an assortment of nicotine patches on his arm.
"Holmes!" I thundered. "What the devil are you doing? You know very well that sort of 21st century behavior is restricted to stories in the television category!"
"Oh please Watson," Holmes whined. "Benedict Cumberbatch is so lick-the-mirror handsome that I can't help myself. Almost half the stories posted in the Sherlock Holmes book section are based on BBC's Sherlock anyway. One more can't hurt."
"One more can hurt!" I thundered. "I don't want to look like Bilbo Baggins! I want my manly Watson moustache back! I want my luck with women to improve! I want to be able to smoke in my own home and not have the Liberal Party come down on me!"
"Well," my friend snorted. "I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition."
We glanced about the room, alert for danger.
"Phew," I wiped my brow. "We really must watch our step old fellow."
"Come on, let me look like Benedict Cumberbatch," Holmes cajoled. "There's lots of interesting things to watch on the telly..."
"There's too much television in the book category already!" I snapped. "That's the problem with this generation, nobody reads anymore! You can be Ben Cumberbatch all you like in the television category but not here! Not this time, and that's final!"
"Come on, it's not like I'm asking to be Jonny Lee Miller…"
"Holmes don't go there!"
"New York is beautiful in the 21st century I hear…"
"Holmes don't even joke about that!"
"Lucy Liu is quite fetching."
"No one posts Elementary stories in the Sherlock Holmes book section!" I roared. "Don't even go there!"
"You never complain when we're in the Elementary category," he frowned thoughtfully.
"I'm not myself when I'm there," I admitted. "Look if you want to be in a story based on one of your television personas, what about the Jeremy Brett version? The Granada TV series was so close to the books that it hardly matters."
"Phoo!" Holmes groaned. "Brett may have portrayed an accurate interpretation of me, but he's not the looker Ben is. You could at least have suggested the Ronald Howard version from the 1954 program."
"Jeremy Brett was the definitive Sherlock Holmes," I declared. "All of the Holmes fans who actually read the original stories agree with me."
"Very well," Holmes gazed sadly into a hand mirror to see Jeremy Brett's features stare mournfully back at him. "He's not much to look at is he?"
"His voice is mesmerizing my dear fellow."
"Ben Cumberbatch has a delightfully sinister voice," Holmes smiled dreamily. "It gives me goose bumps every time I say anything while wearing his image. And he's so good looking I can act as horrible as I like and people still love me."
"That's hard cheese my dear fellow," I sneered. "We're in the book section and the vast majority of the books' fans have decided that he is the real Sherlock Holmes."
"I am the real Sherlock Holmes!" my friend cried out while jabbing his thumb at his chest. "Whether I'm a citizen of Victorian London or a recovering drug addict in 21st century New York it makes no difference! I am Sherlock Holmes!"
I realized then that I had gone too far. "Of course you are; I only meant that…"
"It doesn't matter whether I'm a short scruffy kung fu Irishman or a blonde youth in the 22nd century!" he shouted. "It doesn't matter whether I'm on the page or flashing on the screens before the eyes of a jaded audience! I am Sherlock Holmes! It doesn't matter what I look like, whether I fancy boys, girls, or none of the above, whether I'm in color or black and white, whether Moriarty exists or not, whether I smoke or use nicotine patches, or whether I've ever worn a deerstalker cap in my life! It doesn't matter what or who I look like! I am Sherlock Holmes! The one! The only!"
"Yes, I agree with you on all those points my dear fellow, but sometimes you risk losing yourself in all those other continuities. It's nice to get back to your original persona from the stories published in Victorian England now and then isn't it?"
"I suppose so," he admitted grudgingly as he fished in his pockets for his cigarettes. "Benedict Cumberbatch certainly has nice eyes doesn't he?"
"Mesmerizing my dear fellow."
"Don't play dumb with me," he snorted. "The only reason you're being so smug is because you can get away with looking like Jude Law whether you're in the book or the movie section. Honestly some of the original illustrations of you by Sidney Paget look exactly the way Law appeared in those films."
"I uh, don't know what you mean old boy," I stammered guiltily as I twirled my manly badass moustache.
"Yes you do," he sneered. "While I have to look like a buzzard wearing a top hat, you get to dash around being called 'Doctor Hotson'."
"Look, Doyle himself claimed that he pictured you looking much uglier than Paget or any of your stage or screen versions have depicted you," I pointed out. "Just be thankful public opinion allows you look as good as you do."
Sherlock Holmes sat moodily in his chair for a while before sitting up abruptly with a look of surprise on his face. "Wait! Watson! I think I've devised a way we can both win."
"How so old boy?"
"By placing this story early in the timeline," he replied. "In the story His Last Bow, that takes place in May of 1914, I am described as a man of sixty."
"You're in disguise at the time but it sounds about right."
"In the story The Speckled Band, you note that it takes place in April of 1883. That means that we've known each other for over thirty years. By that logic, I'm twenty-nine at the time of The Speckled Band. Don't you get it; I could be young and sexy at that time. I could look just like Benedict Cumberbatch does now."
"Benedict Cumberbatch is in his thirties Holmes," I pointed out.
"Well he doesn't look it," my friend shrugged. "Don't you see? In our 1880's adventures I can look like Cumberbatch all I like. I can save the Jeremy Brett look for the 1890's. Ah," He sighed lazily as leaned back in his chair and picked up a newspaper with the date of January of 1882. When he looked up from his newspaper he was in the spitting image of Ben Cumberbatch. "As long as this tale takes place between A Study in Scarlet and The Adventure of the Second Stain I can look as pretty as I like. We can assume the illness I suffered before The Reigate Puzzle is responsible for my more mature Jeremy Brett look."
"If you say so Holmes," I shrugged as I resigned myself to the inevitable.
"Now we both get what we want my dear Watson," Holmes smiled as he preened himself in the mirror. "I get to look like Benedict Cumberbatch and you get to live in Victorian London and wear your manly Watson 'stache."
"Quite," I muttered before I plucked the mirror out of his hand and glanced into it to see for myself. "What the devil!" I ejaculated. "Holmes! I look like a hobbit! The waistcoat and jacket make me look like a hobbit!"
"Well you have to be quite young yourself my dear fellow," Holmes shrugged. "Even in Victorian times, if I look like Benedict Cumberbatch people are bound to imagine you with a passing resemblance to Martin Freeman. Don't worry about looking like Jude Law. I'm sure you'll grow into it."
"Martin Freeman is a year older than Jude Law!"
"Yes but he hardly looks it," Holmes shrugged. "Don't worry about it. The birds love Martin Freeman."
"I thought I looked like Jude Law!"
"And you do," he assured me. "He does?" he asked you. "Doesn't he?" By this point, we had knocked so many holes in the fourth wall that we were getting a draft.
"Holmes I look like Martin Freeman wearing Jude Law's moustache!"
"No you don't," my smug Benedict Cumberbatch faced companion assured me. "The lighting's just bad in here. The electric light bulb hasn't spread to the Marlybone district yet. We're still on gaslights and oil lamps."
"I don't want to look like Bilbo Baggins," I whined.
"Not to worry my dear Watson, you don't have to," my friend assured me as he rose from his chair. "I think all you need for our readers to imagine you looking like your 2009 movie persona is the right article of clothing, specifically your chapou." He opened the door to the closet and went in to rummage on the shelf above the coat rack.
"Dash it all, Holmes, you come out of the closet right now!" I ordered. "You know damn well that in the 1800's we should have a wardrobe to keep our clothes in, not a closet!"
"Relax my dear Watson, I have come out of the closet," he smiled with false innocence before smiling wickedly at you. "Here, put on this bowler," he added as he tossed my hat to me. "Then take off your jacket and sit down and read the newspaper while assuming a 'Sundance Kid' pose. Our readers should imagine you as Jude Law's 'Hotson' at any moment."
"I feel ridiculous Holmes," I snorted as I doffed my hat and removed my jacket.
"No-no it will work," he assured me. "To avoid turning into Robert Downy Junior I shall have to don my Gryffindor scarf and say curt and insulting things in the most sinister voice I can muster. By looking up from your newspaper and making snide comments, you should pass as Jude Law's Watson easily."
We spent the rest of the day going through more changes in our physical appearances than a blindfolded Time Lord navigating a minefield but our shenanigans were halted when Inspector Lestrade burst through our door at ten in the evening, his face livid with anger.
"What the devil have you two idiots been doing all day?" he demanded. "While you two nimrods have been playing Victoria and Albert the murderer framed an innocent man and got clean away! I only just figured it out myself but it's too late, the bad guy has fled the country! If you two idiots would have just gone outside and gotten on with this story Holmes would have solved it before the murderer left the building! Instead you two have wasted the whole story sitting at home and making faces at each other!"
Holmes turned to me with Basil Rathbone's face and whispered: "I blame you for this Watson."
END