Written for the line: "…Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to you…"

Dear Watson [crossed out]

It is quite lonely here without you, Watson. I have wished many times for the comfort of your company – and not only because you are a conductor of light. I've since learned that you are only dimmer than I because you wish not to shadow what you call my brilliance. You are indeed a beacon. When my mind is dark with despair, you have only to ask after me for it to brighten.

Now I need it more than ever, and while my memory is as clear as ever I miss even the pawky humour you developed over the years. Sometimes I question the decision to leave you behind, for we would both grieve less were you here with me.

But it is my mission, and mine alone; my sense of justice would be most troubled were I to pick you up and drag you with me. Hum… I suppose I can never post this drivel – never mind this, Watson – simply the puerile ramblings of a weary man. Still, these meagre pages, torn from my poor notebook, are all I have of my faithful Boswell, only unfeeling paper to which I confide my struggles.

I wish I had your eloquence; then, perhaps, I should say how valuable you are to me. Yet I should feel embarrassed to tell you directly – God knows sentiment is far out of my depth – and so I shall include as little of it as I can.

These pages, kept dry by my newly acquired satchel, are all I have, besides my acute memory, of you. In my idle time – of which I have very little, I must say – I uselessly wish for your company. Most of my brain-attic is in order, now, and I only want Sebastian Moran's mistake to make my move and end your grief.

Oh no.

I should not have left.

Can this really be me – Sherlock Holmes – contemplating sentiment? I would laugh at the very thought were I not so wracked with guilt. I owe you a thousand, a hundred thousand, apologies, my dear Watson! I hadn't considered this – which is new for me.

I should be there. I should be there, at least to give you one less thing to mourn. Not for the first time in these two years I wish I was back in England, however useless I know wishing to be.

Oh, how much I regret my decision!

Dear me – are those –

Forgive me, Watson. I suppose you didn't quite expect me to weep suddenly. I did, though – I have no shame in admitting it to you. I might as well admit it all.

Yes, I miss you. Yes, I feel guilty for leaving you there at the Reichenbach Falls calling my name and breaking down when I quelled the urge to call back. Yes, I feel guilty for staying away. Yes, I want to rush back to London as fast as steam, rail, foot, and horse can carry me in order to compensate what my honour has taken from us.

I have never been one for self-loathing, but God, I feel it now.

I'm so sorry. I never thought I would be writing these words while I curl up, shivering and chilled to the bone, in an unseen nook in the corner of a farmer's barn, the only warmth I feel tracing my cheeks in salty tears I never thought to shed.

[Damn it! Why must you make me so sentimental, Watson? I hate it, I hate you – I hate this whole world for all the blasted chill that is marring my usual precise handwriting! (all crossed out)] No – no… forgive me for that… I was in a mood…

How did it come to pass that the brash unapologetic detective says 'Forgive me'?

I am confused. That is new as well. My mind is working as well as usual, but what's all this new sentiment and grief and – feeling? Lord… what is happening to me?

Or rather, who happened to me?

You did. What I would give to be by your side at this very moment, instead of waiting for a tiger! I am humbled, both by the fact that I, of all people, am feeling, and by the fact that you withstood me for years and years and somehow managed to mould me into a better man than I was. Where did you get all your patience, doctor?

This is as good a time as any, I think. Do not expect a stellar performance. I am as unused to expressing emotion as you are to repressing such 'wonderful' ones as joy. Please… allow me this conversation on the flat plane of paper, now worn and crumpled by many journeys and hasty re-packings into my satchel. As I am in the present mood it is apropos that I should empty my soul – if indeed I have one – of these words that I now find time to follow down their fanciful road.

I find that you are now more valuable than ever, now that you are my only representation of home. Did you know, my dear fellow, that sometimes in my travels I would turn to make some remark or other to you – and you would not be there? The pang of disappointment surprised me. I, who lived alone and was never lonely for most of my life, now long for your presence.

I have never loved anyone in this world – in any world – as much as I do you. There, it is all on paper. So I have written. I shall probably burn it once I get near a decent fire where I can rake out the ashes once it dies and ascertain that nothing remains.

So there.

Sentimental drivel that I shall never show you. The words I have written – pooh! What a load of rubbish – and yet such truth. I cannot deny their truthfulness, even though I protest their practicality.

I am going home!

Finally, finally Moran has made his slip and I am going home! Ha! You shall seldom find me so joyful, before or since this moment, my dear Watson, for this joy is confined to me alone. I am at present resisting the urge to wriggle with excitement.

The Park Lane Mystery presents some interesting features, and I shall indeed enjoy telling you of them when I return. Dear me, what a mess I've made! Forgive me and let me clean up a bit.

Much better. As I was saying – oh, yes. How shall I surprise you? I shall enjoy it very much, I perceive; not because you are so gullible as to permit this, but because it is refreshing finding new ways to subvert your admittedly perceptive mind. I taught you by exposure, and you have learned well, my dear doctor.

And, at last, the closing to this bunch of sentimental drivel I wrote during my many travels. All the queer odds and ends I saw during my trip are transcribed in another sheaf of paper, which is also addressed to you. However, I shall never send these few pages from my notebook, should I even allow them to see the light of day again. They are far too emotional for you to see. If I am to leave unscathed, I must leave you untouched by these words.

I sit here in 221B, if you must know, scrawling on this scrap of chicken-scratching (I swear, I have seen more legible specimens of the latter than this) and finishing these memoirs of a lonely man longing for the company of a dear friend.

Dear me, I sound like you now. That's odd – I have not seen you for three years…

At any rate I am off to No. 427, Park Lane, to investigate in my own way. I hope to God that soon enough I shall be able to satisfy my three years' longing, my dear Watson… John.

[Signed]

Sherlock Holmes