A/N Again, all quotes from ACD's original work are in italics. Sherlock and John's dialogue concerning the blog entry is in brackets.
000
["This seems unnecessarily wordy, John," Sherlock grumbled, growing restless. "And far more dramatic than it needs to be."
"It's a story, Sherlock. Not a report," John reminded him patiently. "The details and the drama are what keep the reader interested."
"I liked my outline better," Sherlock insisted. "It was neat, concise, and all on one page so one could see all the facts at once."
"That's true. But no one would have ever read it, so what good would it be?" John asked mildly. "And I would get this done a lot faster if you would stop interrupting!"
"Hmph," was Sherlock's eloquent reply.]
"Please continue, Mr Dodd," I said after a long pause.
"After that, I often noticed that I was being watched," the young soldier admitted. "It was very disturbing, Mr Holmes. It felt like some big government cover-up—you know, like that one in America, in that Roswell place. Everyone knows something big has happened, but no one lets on."
I nodded as he seemed to be winding down. "But something new has happened—something that has led you to believe that the situation is not as hopeless as you'd been led to think," I prompted him.
"As you say, sir. A few months later, my tour of duty was over and I was sent home. Don't get me wrong, Mr Holmes-it's good to be home; to spend time with my girl; to go out to the farm and see my family. But it felt all wrong! That I should be home, safe and sound, and Godfrey should be God knows where suffering God knows what. It just isn't right.
I went to see his parents, Colonel and Mrs Emsworth. I thought maybe, as he was career military, the Colonel might have been able to find out more than I had been able to. But they were gone! I met the groundskeeper and some of the other staff: they've had no news at all. The Colonel and Mrs Emsworth just packed up and left in a hurry, not long after Godfrey went missing, but never told anyone where they were going or why. Old Major Enderly, the groundskeeper, said he gets texts once a week giving him instructions, but it's all business—no personal news at all."
Dodd rambled on, describing his fruitless visit to the missing soldier's family estate in unnecessary detail. I pulled out my mobile to pass the time as he rattled on.
It was at this point that I missed my friend Watson most acutely. He has a knack for asking questions that helped to gently guide a client from pointless rambling and to come to the point of a matter.
000
["While that is a most astute observation, John," Sherlock interrupted again, "the fact is that I had lost patience with young Dodd long before he reached this part of the conversation."
John smiled at his friend fondly. "Oh, I'm sure you'd inserted a great many impatient exclamations encouraging him to get on with it. But as I told you, I'm trying to make you seem endearing, not obnoxious."
Sherlock had a strange feeling that he should thank John, although he was not quite certain why. He held his tongue.]
000
"Something more specific and more recent has happened, Mr Dodd," I said sternly, trying to keep him on track. "Something that has led you to believe that I can be of service to you. As I have no access to military or government records, I assume an incident has occurred which a civilian detective may investigate. And yet you hesitate to bring up the matter. Perhaps you feel I won't believe your story, or perhaps you feel I will not find it sufficiently interesting to devote my time to it. Please continue. Your problem presents some very unusual features."
The young soldier shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea, Mr Holmes," he said at last. "I was given an appointment to go to St. Pancras Hospital by LVS to be evaluated after I came home-this appointment was for yesterday. A mental health assessment. It's standard procedure, or so they say. I'm not crazy, Mr Holmes! They implied that my so-called obsession with Godfrey's disappearance has unbalanced me in some way. It's true, I have some symptoms of PTSD, but it's nothing more than what so many other soldiers have gone through. It's nothing more!" The young man was now becoming quite agitated. I again missed my friend Watson, who is such a calming presence in any tense situation.
I leant forward and reassured him, "I believe you. In fact, it's my opinion that many of the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are actually quite logical responses to the unusual and violent experiences to which military personnel are exposed. It is simply a matter of retraining the mind to respond differently to stress under the different, less lethal circumstances of civilian life."
[Sherlock looked sidelong at John as his friend read this. He was quite certain that he had said no such thing to young James Dodd. He was sure, in fact, that he had said something more like, "Yes, yes, so you're sane. Go on!"
"Put me up on your soapbox, I see, John," he remarked.
John's lips pulled into a grim smile. "Did I?" he asked wryly.
Sherlock considered that standing beside John Watson, whether on his soapbox or at a crime scene, in Buckingham Palace or in a dark alley, was a far better place to be than anywhere else on earth. But he had no words to express this sentiment. "Go on," he said instead. "It's, ah, good, what you wrote."
John raised an eyebrow and nodded. He understood what Sherlock meant to say even if Sherlock did not.]
"Well, I kept my appointment at St. Pancras Hospital, and it was excruciating, to say the least," Dodd continued, emboldened by my encouragement. "It was hours of questions and filling in forms and going from one office to another and talking to all manner of people about all sorts of personal things. I was frantic to leave, I can tell you! So when I finally was allowed to go, I bolted out the nearest exit only to find it was drizzling rain and I was on the wrong side of the building to the street where I left my car. Well, the mood I was in, walking in the rain around the entire hospital seemed more pleasant than going back inside and trying to find my way through it.
"It was getting late, near to dusk, and overcast so it seemed even later. The streetlights were just coming on, and as I passed under one of them, I happened to look up to the first storey of the hospital. And there I saw a face in the window."
My client had paused as one in deep emotion. I waited for him to collect himself and continue.
"He was just inside the window, Mr Holmes, with his face pressed against the glass. The curtains were partly opened and he was framed in the gap. He was deadly pale-never have I seen a man so white. I reckon ghosts may look like that, but his eyes met mine and they were the eyes of a living man. He could see me, standing in the pool of light made by the streetlamp, and I could see him by that same light, plain as day. I couldn't hear him, of course, but I could see by the way his mouth moved that he was calling to me: 'James! James!' he was saying, his hands held up against the glass.
"I was too shocked to move at first. It wasn't merely that ghastly face glimmering as white as cheese in the darkness that left a feeling of horror in my mind. It was how frightened he was, how desperate to reach out to me, so different from the demeanour of the fearless soldier I had known.
"Because I did know him, Mr Holmes. It was my friend Godfrey. It was Godfrey Emsworth standing before me in that window. He was there, and then suddenly he was gone."