I wrote the letter in only one draft.

You might think this is common, but considering the weight of the situation, I very much wanted an hour to form a few lines to really put to Watson what I was going through, to explain to him how wonderful the last couple of weeks had been even to one who faced death.

But instead of writing something like that, I waffled on about his wife and luck and the blasted case, hardly able to bear scribbling a sentence about my friend,

who would read it blurry eyed,

who would keep it in his pocket then in a drawer,

who would memorize it

who would never throw it away no matter how distant and trite the words came…

and frame the criminal evidence so it haunted me three years later.

After I came back he took it off the wall, but I knew he'd hidden it.