I should have mentioned at the outset that this fic takes place before "No Reason" – so no shooting, no ketamine, etc. Also, lest one think that we must choose between pretending that Holmes is a real person and having him be the subject of books that the House characters might have read, I am following the conceit that Holmes was a real detective, whose exploits were made famous through the stories Watson published.
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Dr. Cameron entered the workroom, just ahead of Chase, to find that Foreman and, surprisingly, Dr. House were already present. Foreman was seated at the table, studying a file, while House poked around the coffee area, as if touching each object on the counter would increase its appeal.
Cameron noticed that the whiteboard on which their current patient's symptoms were written now bore the title, "The Speckled Hand." A few feet away, another whiteboard had been erected, with "The Dying Detective" scrawled across the top. She and Chase reacted simultaneously:
Cameron: "Has Mrs. Stoneham's rash spread to her hands?"
Chase: "We have another case?"
House looked at Cameron and replied, unhelpfully, "Dramatic license." To Chase he said in a put-upon voice, "Dr. Cuddy seems to think that four fully qualified doctors ought to be able to handle two patients simultaneously. I've argued the point before, but she's not budging."
Foreman finally looked up from the file and blurted, "It's Sherlock Holmes. Our new patient is Sherlock Holmes."
That explained the goofy case titles on the whiteboards (The Speckled . . . Band? Was that it?), and the fact that House's demeanor was cheerful, bordering on giddy.
Chase drawled, "Is he really 'Dying'?"
"We're all dying," House replied with mock solemnity, convincing Cameron that the happier her boss was, the less informative he was.
Foreman supplied, "His vitals are pretty good, for a 101-year-old: multi-system deterioration, but fairly stable. He presented complaining of problems with concentration and balance. History of osteoarthritis, migraine, cardiomyopathy, and possible short-term memory loss."
"Medications?" Cameron asked.
"Just OTC pain relievers for the arthritis, Enalapril and aspirin for the heart, and Royal Jelly for everything else," House recited, smirking at the last item.
"I'd say an allergic reaction to bee products," Chase put in, "but it's not clear that there are any symptoms that actually need to be explained."
House responded brightly, "He's a beekeeper. Collects the Royal Jelly himself. If he were allergic to bees he wouldn't be dizzy, he'd be dead."
"Chase has a point," Foreman pursued, "What, exactly, is the mystery here? With the arthritis and general weakness, ambulation is labored and unsteady. Add in the decline in cardiac function, and you've got times when he's not getting enough oxygen to his brain. All this could easily lead to loss of balance. And half of people over 85 have dementia to some degree. Memory loss, then difficulty concentrating – that's a pretty normal progression."
"He came all the way to New Jersey for this?" said Chase.
House pouted, as if Foreman and Chase were deliberately trying to poke holes in his fun.
Cameron smiled sympathetically, but before she could think of something positive to contribute, Dr. Cuddy strode in through the glass doors, saying, "He didn't come to Jersey for a diagnosis. He's been visiting with a family near Trenton for the last month or so, and they finally convinced him to go see a doctor. We just happened to be it. But we're not going to be it much longer if you don't get down there and examine him. He's threatening to leave."
"Fine," House ordered: "Foreman, assess the good detective's cognitive status: memory, attention, whatever else you can think of. Cameron, talk to the family. If he'd taken a spill, at his age, he would have broken something; no fractures means no falls. So, his balance isn't that bad. The other symptoms don't warrant going to a clinic here rather than going to his own doc across the pond when he gets home. Find out why they really brought him in." Looking at Chase, he continued, "You keep Mrs. Speckled Hand from tanking until her test results are back."
"And you'll be . . . ?" Cuddy inquired.
"Brushing up on the history, of course," House grinned, pulling a worn copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes from his bag.
Cuddy gazed heavenward and shook her head, sighing. Was it even worth the effort to argue with him?
"What? It was written by a doctor, you know."
No, definitely not worth the effort . . .
XXXXXXXXXX
Cameron, Chase, and Foreman walked together down the hall, heading off to perform their respective tasks.
"So, House is a Sherlock Holmes fan," Chase chuckled.
Foreman snarked back, "Ya think?"
"It makes sense," Cameron reasoned, "Normal doctors idolize other doctors: Marcus Welby, the ER physician, your own family doctor. Not House. He goes for someone who solves puzzles."
"You had a thing for Marcus Welby?" Chase teased.
Cameron ignored him. "The point is, most of us wanted to be healers. House wants to investigate mysteries. Coldly; analytically – like Sherlock Holmes."
"20 bucks says House goes to talk to Holmes," challenged Foreman.
Cameron shook her head, "Uh uh. The fact that he admires Holmes will make him want to keep his distance – no attachments clouding his judgment. He'll treat him like any other patient."
Foreman countered, "He'll be too curious. He won't be able to resist."
When Chase didn't offer an opinion, Foreman prompted, "What do you think?"
After a moment, Chase frowned slightly and replied, "I think it depends on how much of the old fellow's mind there is left. Which is what you're going to find out."
XXXXXXXXXX
Foreman knocked on the door, then he and Cameron entered the room. Although he would rather not admit it to his colleagues, he was definitely psyched about this case. Sherlock Holmes! It wasn't every day that you got to meet, and treat, one of your childhood heroes. Who said this job didn't have perks?
The last thing he wanted to do, though, was invite further comparisons between himself and Dr. House. Chase and Cameron wouldn't understand that his admiration for Holmes was different than their boss'. Sure, as a kid, he'd enjoyed the mystery element of the detective's adventures. But that was never the main draw for him – the character of Holmes was.
It was hard to say why. Holmes was, by no reasonable adolescent standard, cool: he used prissy language, was whiter than wonder bread, never got the girl, and let his sidekick carry the gun. Yet, somehow, despite all this, Holmes was heroic in ways that Foreman had found appealingly different from what he encountered in his own life. Holmes kicked ass . . . but rarely resorted to literal violence. He bested the bad guys with his brain and his unwavering determination. He was scrupulously moral, yet not especially religious (sorry Dad!). He always outwitted the criminals (and the cops!), but he wasn't merely a tool of "the man": sometimes, just sometimes, he let the perpetrator get away – when that was the right thing to do.
And now, here he was, 10 feet away from the pair of doctors. At retirement Holmes had dropped completely out of the public eye. Naturally, Foreman wouldn't have recognized him from the simple ink drawings in the books or the occasional photograph snapped half a century ago. The man before him was gaunt, nearly skeletal, but he sat upright in a chair, arms folded neatly across his chest. There was a fringe of smoke colored hair at his temples that drifted into lighter wisps across the crown, contrasting with the deeper gray of his eyes. It was the eyes that gave an impression of vitality to the still, faded form: they were beyond alert, scanning incisively, taking in everything yet expressing little.
One thing they were expressing, however, was impatience. Cameron apparently picked up on this and was characteristically apologetic as she made introductions: "Good morning. I'm Dr. Cameron, and this is Dr. Foreman. We're sorry to have kept you waiting. I understand that you came in yesterday afternoon, but the diagnostics department just got the case today."
A woman in her 50s and a younger man, perhaps 25 or 30, sat and stood, respectively, nearby, but it was Holmes who replied in a clear cultured British accent, "It is not that I have another pressing engagement to which I must attend; rather, I am simply afraid that this is a waste of all of our time. There is but one cure, that I know if, for old age."
Foreman smiled, pleased to confirm that there was indeed "somebody home" inside the elderly detective. Then he got down to business: "True, we can't cure everything. But we may be able to help with your current symptoms. I'm a neurologist. I'll assess whether something in your brain is causing your concentration and balance difficulties."
Holmes nodded, seeming to accept this, so Foreman went on, "I need to give you some cognitive tests to see what's what. It would be easier to do that in the neurology department office, if you're feeling up to it."
"I may be ancient, but I'm not an invalid," Holmes grumbled. He looked to his side, where a pair of wooden canes leaned against the wall. Just beyond them sat a metal wheelchair. "How far?" he inquired.
"Three corridors, the length of this one. It's on another floor, but we can take the elevator."
That apparently decided the matter. Holmes reached out a long arm and pulled the wheelchair toward him. He locked the near side of the chair, paused for a moment, then lifted to his feet, and transferred himself to the wheelchair. Foreman noticed that, during the maneuver, the young man moved closer to, but did not touch, the detective. When Holmes was seated, the young man helped him gather up his canes to bring along.
Foreman offered, "You can come with, if you like, Mr. . . ?"
"Oh! Pardon me," Holmes exclaimed, "These are Mrs. Elizabeth Linzer and her son, Matthew Linzer. I have been enjoying their hospitality these past weeks, and came to your clinic at their behest." The last bit was accompanied by a trace of a sardonic smirk in the direction of Mrs. Linzer, who smiled mildly in return.
Foreman reiterated, "You're welcome to come along, Mr. Linzer, though I'll probably send you back after we're settled."
Matthew agreed, and the trio headed toward the door. Foreman felt pleased with his own foresight. If the stories were accurate, Holmes was a proud man. Though he didn't seem to mind using a wheelchair when expedient, Foreman figured that letting him save face by having his friend push him (rather than the doctor he just met) might pay off in terms of cooperation during the long battery of tests ahead. Additionally, it had the benefit of . . .
Holmes interrupted Foreman's self-congratulations by remarking jauntily on the very benefit that the neurologist had in mind: "I suppose it is a coincidence that Elizabeth will be left alone with your, ah," he turned back to face the women, "Dr. Cameron, for a short time, and then joined by Matthew before I return?"
As the three men resumed their progress out the door, Foreman grinned and replied, "Total coincidence. Do you object?"
"Not at all. It's a perfectly reasonable method for interviewing witnesses . . ."
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When the others were gone, Cameron spent a few minutes answering general questions from Mrs. Linzer. Then, broaching the subject she'd come to discuss, she smiled at the older woman and said, "Why don't you tell me when the symptoms began?"
"I don't know, exactly. I hadn't seen much of Uncle Sherlock for the last few years. I've lived in the States since University – my husband is American. We visit cousins near Sussex most summers, and usually we arrange to see Uncle during those trips, but that amounts to just a few hours. Matthew is much closer to him. They write back and forth and Matty goes out to visit him sometimes. He says that Uncle's seemed OK until this trip."
"Why did Mr. Holmes come to visit your family here?"
"A storm damaged his roof and he needed to move out during repairs. Mildred, my cousin, offered – reluctantly, I think – that he could stay with her family. But I'm afraid he finds the lot of them rather . . . 'insipid' was the word he used. Of course he could've just rented a flat, maybe asked the housekeeper to come along, or hired other help. But then we got the idea that he could come here, and I guess that appealed to him – he hadn't been to America in forty years – or maybe he was just humoring my son."
"He must have been feeling pretty healthy to consider embarking on an international airplane trip at his age," Cameron remarked.
"That's just it," the older woman said, looking pensive, "He's never been timid; quite the opposite. But once he arrived at our home, he refused to go outside. At first I thought it might be jet lag, but it was more than that: he was withdrawn, hardly speaking for weeks, refusing to tell us what was wrong. I knew from my father that he was prone to moods, but I was worried that he didn't seem to be snapping out of it . . ."
". . . And then he did."
"Just like that?" Cameron asked.
"My Matthew graduated from law school, and Uncle managed to rouse himself enough to attend the ceremony. He seemed quite unwell that day, but the next day Matty cajoled him into taking a walk around the neighborhood, using the wheelchair. After that, they went out every morning for several days, until Matty's internship started. According to Matthew, he conversed normally while they were out. He also became somewhat better with the rest of us at home, though, honestly, he's never had much use for my husband, and he and I generally just exchange pleasantries."
Cameron felt a surge of warmth for this woman who showed such concern for a cantankerous senior who wasn't even really a family member. "I suppose he didn't deal well with your son's absence, once the internship began?"
"At first he seemed to take it in stride. They'd discovered a small coffee shop on their walks that made a decent cup of tea. He decided he would go there a few mornings a week to read the newspapers and work on his book. I'd drop him off and he'd take a cab home. That worked well for a few days, and I figured the problem was solved: he was used to being independent, when he'd had some space in the morning, he was able to be more sociable in the evening, mostly listening to Matty talk about his new work."
"Then one day it got to be noon and he hadn't come home yet. I was just about to go check on him, when the cab pulled up. A waitress from the coffee shop was with Uncle. He looked terrible – pale, shaking, unfocussed. The young lady explained that he'd called for a cab, as usual, and then went outside to wait for it. He must have wandered off. She saw the cab come and go, through the window, and started to worry. She knew that he couldn't have walked far, so she went looking, and found him around the block. He was confused and upset, couldn't tell her where he was going or even his name. Fortunately, the cab company had a record . . . "
Matthew arrived back in the room while his mother was speaking. He nodded at the women, and sat down quietly to wait his turn. With his curly brown hair, shy smile, and baby-face, he struck Cameron as way too innocent to be a lawyer – a characteristic which, Cameron mused, was probably quite advantageous for a lawyer to have.
Addressing the son, Cameron asked, "Have you noticed him being forgetful or losing track of things?"
"No. Not really," Matthew replied, then grinned at his mother, "Mom looses stuff all the time; Uncle almost never does."
"It's true," Mrs. Linzer admitted, laughing softly, "He found my car keys for me yesterday morning."
Thinking it over, Matthew added, "It does sometimes take him a while to remember things, or maybe he just can't say what he remembers. For instance, he'll want me to get him something, but he can't tell me where it is. Then he'll get it himself, with no problems."
"Has this started recently?"
"No, I don't think so. It's maybe worse now, but he's also not in his own house."
"Think back to when you first met him, and compare that to now," Cameron instructed.
"Well, I guess I met him when I was a little kid, but I don't remember much of him until around the time my grandfather died – I was about fourteen then – we went to stay in Sussex for the summer."
Mrs. Linzer clarified, "Father's health had been declining, when Mother suddenly became ill and passed away before him. Uncle Sherlock convinced Father to move in with him at his farm. That's where Father spent the last year of his life."
With a self-effacing smile, Matthew began, "I used to kind of think he was omniscient . . ."
----- ----- -----
Overnight at the farm while Mom and Dad went back to the cousins. Waking up before dawn to sounds in the hall: the night nurse's voice, colored with regret more than alarm. Creaking floorboards as Grandfather's friend, Holmes, went down the hall to Grandfather's room.
Standing outside the sickroom, I couldn't see Grandfather's face; the tall old man was in the way. Hadn't made a sound, but Holmes heard anyway, turned around. Now Grandfather was in view – cheeks puffy and flushed, gaze held enthralled by something near the ceiling. Something that wasn't there.
Knowing, suddenly, what was happening, but couldn't let myself think it. Gray eyes unavoidable – flicking toward the man on the bed, then back to me, confirming the truth. Holmes speaking, voice less sharp than usual: "Come say good morning to your Grandfather, Matthew."
Going up to the bed, hugging Grandfather, though I was a bit too old for that, whispering, "Good morning." Grandfather's eyes moving down to my face, no less enthralled, filled with wordless delight for a long moment before starting to dim.
Holmes ushering me out of the room, "Miss Simpson will call your parents presently. I want you to go downstairs and wait with her. Go on now, there's a good lad."
Lingering in the doorway, watching as alarm crept into Grandfather's expression. Holmes turning back to the bed. A weak hand reaching up to clasp the bony wrist. Holmes sitting down on the edge of the bed, speaking quietly, confidently, words I couldn't make out. Serenity washing over Grandfather's features . . .
----- ----- -----
". . . now I know better. But I think that's more a matter of me growing up than him deteriorating."
After a short pause, he continued, "Really, the biggest difference I've noticed is that now he can't focus on anything for long. A couple of years ago, I told him about an obscure legal loophole I'd discovered and asked him if he knew of any precedents in the British system. He researched it obsessively for seven hours straight. The housekeeper was cross with me for getting him riled up. Even last summer, he was still doing complicated chemical experiments, and trying to learn how to use a computer. Now, I've got the draft of his latest monograph all scanned in, and paper copies for him to edit, but he can't concentrate for more than a few minutes – not long enough to make progress, which frustrates him a lot."
Mrs. Linzer put in, "I suppose we should have warned your colleague: when Uncle gets frustrated, he can be . . . difficult."
Cameron smirked, wanting to tell them that Foreman had plenty of experience dealing with "difficult" geniuses. Instead, she reassured them, "Dr. Foreman is a professional. I'm sure he and Mr. Holmes will get along just fine."
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"This appears to be a positively useless task."
"It's not," Foreman explained patiently, "As I said, the tests in this section measure your ability to retrieve words."
"By naming animals that begin with the letter "R"? That's just silly," Holmes complained.
Time to play dirty, Foreman decided. "Retrieval speed often declines with age, so you may not be able to name many in the allotted time. Two or three would be fine. If you don't think you can do that, we can move on to the next part."
Clearly annoyed, though probably not fooled by Foreman's ploy, the old man sighed, "Very well . . ."
"Wait," Foreman interjected, "We've messed up the time parameters by discussing it. So, switch to animals beginning with the letter 'C'."
"Very well . . . carp, centipede, cheetah, chameleon, chimpanzee . . ."
Two minutes and twenty-two animal species later, Foreman realized that the animals were listed in alphabetic order. He grinned. A well known limitation of tests designed to measure cognitive decline was that, having been normed on average abilities, they were less informative when applied to individuals of low, or, in this case, very high baseline intelligence.
Still, Foreman had gleaned some information from the tests he'd administered so far. Holmes excelled at tasks that could be completed quickly. The more challenging the task, the better (to find something suitably challenging, Foreman supplemented the test materials with a wicked hard Sudoku). The detective's reasoning skills, vocabulary, and long-term memory would be outstanding even for someone half his age. However, in all areas, his performance deteriorated rapidly after five to eight minutes, usually resulting in him refusing to continue the task. Frequent breaks helped; additionally, they gave Foreman opportunities to assess the older man's balance while walking and to perform other physical exams.
Short-term memory was proving tricky to assess. Holmes was relentlessly oriented to what was going on at any given moment, never appearing confused about what he was doing. He did well on questions about actions he'd witnessed in the recent past, but there was some hesitancy there, which contrasted with his speed and fluency on long-term memory tasks. As for his ability to memorize lists of words or numbers, the bread and butter of short-term memory evaluation, Foreman had no data; Holmes flatly refused to participate in any such tests.
One more try can't hurt. Goading hadn't worked before. Perhaps pleading would. For all his crankiness, the old man had a good sense of humor and seemed positively inclined toward Foreman. So, Foreman whipped out a list of words and cajoled, "Come on – last test. Humor me?"
Holmes kept a poker face, just quirking an eyebrow.
Foreman continued, "I can winnow it down to three lists: one of words, one of numbers, and one of nonsense syllables. You'll be out of here in twenty minutes."
"I'm not sure why you think I find your company so disagreeable that I would be desperate to leave. But, regardless, I have no interest in cluttering my mind with trivia."
"The test items may be trivial, but their purpose isn't," Foreman said.
"Nevertheless, I have always made it a point not to learn useless information – information which might rob storage space that could be used for more important matters."
"You know, neurologically speaking, there really isn't any data to support that position," Foreman argued, "Human brains don't fill up. Not even if you live to be a hundred . . . and ten."
Holmes cracked a slight smile at the end of that sentence, but stubbornly maintained, "It is a method that has served me well. I do not intend to abandon it."
Foreman sighed. Irrational people weren't all that hard to deal with: you try to figure out the causes of their behavior, and act in their best interest. And reasonable people? Well, you can reason with them. But highly rational people with pockets of irrationality – how can you deal with that?
XXXXXXXXXX
Wilson ducked in through House's office door, smiling broadly, and said, "I hear the game is afoot."
Apparently a propos of nothing House responded, "What could a canary trainer do to make himself notorious?" As he spoke, he attempted to spin his red ball on the top of his cane. His eyes were on the ball, rather than on Wilson.
Unphased by the odd question, Wilson shot back, "Train evil canaries?"
"Evil how? They're canaries, not pit bulls. What are they gonna do? Crap on your car?" The ball spun off onto the desk.
Wilson picked up the ball and tossed it to House. "Maybe he trains them to wait until you've just washed your car . . ."
Catching the ball, House overlapped with, "Or maybe they hold their breath and let the miners die."
"Or . . . they carry little canary-sized bombs and . . . blow up Sylvester?" Wilson threw out, running out of ideas. "Uh, am I supposed to know what the hell we're talking about?"
"You should – he's an ancestor of yours."
"Oooh-kay . . ."
"'Wilson the Notorious Canary Trainer' – Watson mentions the case in passing, but never wrote the story."
"Well, maybe there is no case. Maybe it was a joke."
House's eyes bugged out in a show of stunned betrayal. "No. It couldn't be!" he gasped.
"I don't know," said Wilson, "But – Hey! Guess what? I bet if we looked real hard – and by 'looked real hard' I mean 'asked your team for the room number' – we could find somebody who might know."
"You're grumpy because I didn't call you for a consult. Sorry Jimmy, but I'm afraid the patient doesn't have cancer."
"He's a hundred years old. There's got to be at least a few cancerous cells lurking in there somewhere. But that's not the point. The point is that you have Sherlock Holmes downstairs and you're up here quibbling over canaries."
"You want to know why I haven't gone to visit him?"
Wilson nodded, "Uh huh."
"Does nobody in this hospital have anything better to do than psychoanalyze me?"
Wilson shook his head and smirked, "Nope."
"Since when do I need a reason not to see a patient? It's really kind of my default setting."
"Fine. If you won't tell me, I'll just make up some answers for myself," Wilson threatened, then went on in a vaguely Cameron-ish voice, "You're afraid you'll get attached and lose your objectivity. You don't want to be around someone who might be smarter than you. You have daddy-issues and want to distance yourself from someone you see as an older version of you. Stop me if I hit a nerve."
"Oh, we're way past that," House growled.
Wilson could tell that House had reached his saturation point: he would either give in to Wilson's prying, or he wouldn't, and they'd talk about something else. The oncologist waited curiously to see which way it would go.
House rolled the ball between the heel of his hand and his forehead. After a long moment, he said, "He's going to be boring."
Wilson teased, "Ah, so, you get countless hours of enjoyment from reading about the guy's adventures, and you're miffed that he couldn't also come up with an interesting disease for you to diagnose?"
"I knew his case would be boring when I took it," House muttered.
House didn't sound bored or petulant, just kind of sad. Wilson wasn't quite sure what to make of this.
House went on, "Have you ever met an interesting baby? They're cute, maybe amusing, but they're not interesting. Most adults aren't interesting either, though a few, maybe one in a million or billion, are. Then they get old, and the things that set them apart, made them special, fade away."
"Old people can't be interesting?"
House shrugged, but didn't answer.
"He's not a drooling incompetent, you know," Wilson put in, "Cameron said he's lucid and intelligent; cognition is very well-preserved for his age."
"His mind used to be a perfect analytic machine. That's what made him unique. It's a big step down from 'freakin' genius' to 'well-preserved for his age'."
House's tone was a peculiar mixture of sympathy and disgust. Wilson was torn between being touched that House actually seemed distressed about another human being's plight and wanting to reach out and shove House's skewed world-view into alignment with reality. How could he make his friend see that this was not a tragedy? A big percentage of House's cases, and a bigger percentage of Wilson's, were, indeed, tragic. Catching a bizarre illness that no one can diagnose, having the cells of your own body become the enemy and having to resort to poisoning yourself to stop their spread – these things were truly awful. Slowing down a bit on the high side of a hundred? Not so much.
Faced with the futility of changing House's mind about . . . well . . . anything, Wilson offered, "You know, maybe the notoriety is separate from the canary training. Like, he's a serial killer . . . who also happens to train canaries. The desire to make small birds do your bidding has got to be a symptom of some kind of social pathology."
"Or," House suggested, grinning, "It's like The Birds, but with canaries . . ."
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