For my dear Ennui Enigma: sorry it took so long!
This story is based on ACD's original tale, "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier." All of the quotes I've used from his story are in italics, with the usual apologies to Sir Arthur.
A/N: "The Blanched Soldier" is one of the very few Sherlock Holmes adventures which is told by Holmes himself. However, reading through it with the eye of a literature teacher, I realized that although ACD kept Holmes' voice through parts of the story, in the best-written passages he reverts to his more customary "Watson-style" of description. It made me fancy that Watson insisted upon some strenuous editing before allowing Holmes to send the story to The Strand!
000
"No," John said firmly. "Sherlock, just . . . no."
Sherlock stopped his pacing and, whirling like a bird of prey upon his friend with a dramatic swoop, leaned over John's shoulder to peer at the laptop's screen. "'No' to which part?" he demanded, insulted.
"To all of it, for various reasons," John waved his hand vaguely in the air. "I'm taking it down from my blog and putting it in a word document for extensive editing."
"Editing? My grammar is impeccable!" Sherlock growled impatiently as his friend-turned-critic tapped at the keys with excruciating care. The detective was incensed, his black curls shaking with outrage.
"I suppose it is," John shrugged mildly. "But there's more to storytelling than good grammar, Sherlock. And my readers have come to expect a certain standard in my blog posts."
Sherlock frowned and took to pacing again. His blogger obviously did not understand the subtleties of skilful composition. He scoffed, "Standard! Your readers have come to expect lurid, melodramatic drivel rather than scientific method, you mean. And you are the one who challenged me to write an experience of my own."
"After you obnoxiously pointed out how superficial my accounts are and accused me of pandering to popular tastes instead of confining myself rigidly to facts and figures," John retorted cheerfully.
Sherlock now wondered whether his diatribe of yesterday against John's writing style had rankled his friend somewhat. 'Try it yourself, Holmes!' John had snapped at the time, compelling the detective to take up pen in hand just to show him. Or rather, to hack into John's blog and type up a case for himself.
"You have to admit, Sherlock, that the case should be presented in such a way as may interest the reader," John now added with a knowing smile.
"Interest the reader!" The would-be blogger threw himself into his chair with a petulant expression, folding his lithe body into it. "This case can hardly fail to do so, as it is among the strangest happenings in my collection," he groused. "And it can finally be told, now that it has been declassified and is no longer considered a state secret." The case he had chosen as his subject had occurred many years earlier, just after John and Mary had married, but had until recently been an "eyes only" incident.
"It was a fascinating case," John readily agreed. "And it will seem so to the readers as well, once I've finished rewriting it."
"And what makes you the expert in writing?" Sherlock demanded crossly, folding his arms.
John smirked. "Four best-selling novels and several successful collections of short stories, with a publisher on my back demanding more," he said smugly.
This was a sore point with Sherlock, though he was loath for John to know it. The fact was, as much of their income now came from John's literary efforts as it did from casework. "Your historical fiction hasn't done so well," Sherlock shot back. "In fact, the only successful works you've published have been all about yours truly."
Unfazed, John gave his flatmate an amused look. "All right, so only about half of my dozen or so published works have been popular. That's more books than most people have managed to put onto a best-seller list. And how much traffic does my blog average in a day?" he added benignly.
"How would I know?" Sherlock grumbled, refusing to look his friend in the eye.
"How many hits per day?" John persisted, grinning.
Sherlock studied the floor. "About fifty to sixty thousand hits," he muttered, barely audible.
"And how much traffic does your blog garner?" the ruthless John continued.
"Numbers aren't important. It's content that matters," the author of 'The Science of Deduction' hedged.
"How many hits?" His blogger was relentless.
"Maybe . . . fifteen," Sherlock grudgingly admitted.
"My blog is our living, Sherlock; it's advertising for The Work," John reminded him. "And so are my published works. Because I know what people want to read."
It doesn't take a genius to know when one is beaten. "All right. Show me where I went wrong," Sherlock sighed.
John scrolled up in the word document on his laptop's screen. "Well, actually this part of the first paragraph started out rather nicely: 'I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances.'"
"I thought you would like that bit," Sherlock nodded knowingly.
"Yes, it would be quite flattering if you'd only left it at that. But no, you have to go on and ruin the compliment with an insult: 'A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.' What the hell is that, I ask you?" John seemed torn between amusement and annoyance.
"How is that an insult? I said you are an ideal helpmate." Sherlock was bewildered.
"'. . . .to whom the future is always a closed book!' If you're going to damn me with faint praise, you must expect me to take issue." John was trying to look stern, but affectionate laughter danced in his eyes as he spoke.
The consulting detective rolled his eyes eloquently. "You take issue by quoting some obscure poet? Please."
"That 'obscure poet' is Alexander Pope, as you should know. I am deleting that sentence and replacing it with something that doesn't make me look like a credulous imbecile." The tip of John's tongue appeared briefly as he concentrated on his typing. "So much for the first paragraph; on to paragraph two."
Now Sherlock felt suddenly nervous. It was just possible that John might not appreciate the contents of this paragraph either.
"This first sentence is not too bad, of course. You even manage a bit of description: 'I find from my notebook that it was in May of 2014 that had my visit from Lance Corporal James M. Dodd, a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton.' Not sure what you mean by 'fresh,'" John mused. "I'll change that to 'young', I think." He quickly did so, leaving Sherlock to fret as he waited for the next sentence to be critiqued.
"It's meant to be amusing!" he burst out at last, before John could say anything.
To the detective's relief, his friend chuckled warmly, his eyes on the screen. "'The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association.'" John looked up fondly at his friend. "It is amusing. I rather like it, actually. Mary would certainly have laughed. She loved your sense of humour," he added, a tender look in his eyes. "You always could make her laugh. I miss that sound, Mary's laughter."
So did Sherlock. Mary had been gone for many years now, but not a day went by that he and John did not speak of her. She had been such a part of their lives that it was as if they could not entirely let her go—her vibrant, loving memory lived with them like a warm, tangible presence in the room.
"You and Mary were on your honeymoon during this case. I felt I should mention why you weren't working on it with me. And it felt . . . wrong . . . to leave all mention of her out of it," Sherlock tried to explain.
John nodded. "I know. And it would be fine if all of my readers understood your relationship with Mary. But remember: many of them objected to my getting married at the time. There were many comments left on my blog back then from angry readers who resented her—they thought she was coming between us somehow. This joke of yours would seem to confirm their opinion. They wouldn't understand that you aren't serious."
"Then they would be idiots!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"Nevertheless. That's a can of worms I'd prefer not to reopen after all these years," John sighed.
Sherlock gruffly agreed. John had received as many expressions of relief and even joy from his readers when his wife died as he had condolences, which had as greatly dismayed Mary's friend as it had her husband. Sherlock had no desire to put John and himself through such an experience again. "It was thoughtless of me. I was thinking of how she would enjoy the joke. Delete it, of course."
"Sentiment!" John smiled fondly and made the correction. "Now this next bit," the old soldier forged on. "You gave a decent description here: 'It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place my visitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them.' But then you go on to show yourself to be an insufferable dickhead. I've gone to a lot of trouble over the years to present you to the public as a loveable if eccentric genius, and you undo all my careful work in a few paragraphs of showing off like a pompous arse." The laughter in his voice took all sting from the words.
Sherlock was perplexed. "You constantly call me an insufferable dickhead," he reminded his friend. "And 'Pompous Arse' is almost my nickname."
"True," John agreed, chuckling. "But I mean it affectionately, you know. Listen: 'I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions.' Meaning, you dissected him within an inch of his life just for the hell of it."
"It's what I do!" Sherlock insisted. "It's how I work!"
"I know! I know that better than anyone!" John exclaimed. "But how many people have you endeared to yourself with your pompous arsery?"
"You!" the consulting detective pointed out.
John smirked. "And?"
"Mary."
"True, she adored you. And?"
"Mrs Hudson. Molly. George."
"Greg. And?"
No one else came to mind. "All right, reword it as you like to make me seem more. . . . what did you call it?. . endearing," Sherlock spat this last word out sarcastically.
"'Lovably eccentric,'" John grinned broadly and set to typing again. Sherlock began to pace once more, driven to motion by the painfully slow clicking of keys by his friend's fingers.
"There," his blogger said at last. "Now on to the body of your client's story. Except you didn't write his story, did you? You merely outlined its most salient points. A literal outline." John gazed at his flatmate with a look of incredulity. "It's a very concise, proper outline, of course; Roman numerals all in place, points and sub-points lined up perfectly. But, Sherlock, no one wants to read an outline of a case. They want to read a story."
"It's more efficient," Sherlock explained. "No unnecessary details cluttering up the data."
John snorted with amusement. "It's the details that make it interesting. Look, instead of listing facts, we should let James Dodd tell the story himself. It was obviously an emotional, even frightening, time for him. The readers want to feel what he felt; see what he saw. This part should be a dialogue between Dodd and you as he tells you what happened."
Sherlock frowned. "I don't have a recording of what he actually said—just notes that I jotted down at the time. We've no way of reproducing his story as he told it to me."
"Sure we do!" John exclaimed. "We know all the facts of what happened. We know the young man—his personality and such. We know the places he talked about and can describe them. We can piece together a very convincing dialogue based on what we know."
Sherlock was intrigued. "John, I've always thought of you as the most honest man on earth. I had no idea you would be open to prevarication on this scale."
"You have no idea," John grinned wickedly, "what a writer is capable of doing in order to make a good story. Get me your notes and we'll get started."
000
Many thanks to my dear Brit Picker, Mrspencil; and to my lovely beta, Wynsom. You both keep me right!