Familiar Faces
I made it to the courtroom with several minutes to spare, and so after taking a peep inside and not seeing Watson anywhere, I determined my disguise was good enough to stand outside and I leaned casually against one of the railings to wait for him.
I was in the garb of a withered old bookseller – and my aching back was beginning to remind me that I was a little out of practice with these remote disguises. Under such a head of white hair and my visor, with a device in my teeth that made them deformed in a most repellent manner, I doubted if even Mycroft would have recognized me.
My attention was arrested by a cab pulling up outside the courtroom. And, as I had hoped, the familiar figure of the one man in London I actually was waiting with anticipation to see emerged.
But I was so shocked at Watson's appearance that my staring nearly drew attention to me. He looked so much older than I had remembered.
True, I had not seen him in three years, since that day at the Falls, but still I did not realize what a change time and sorrow had brought to my dearest friend. Mycroft was right – Watson had changed.
I wondered with a good deal of remorse how much of that change I had been responsible for. But what else could I have done? Had Moran thought that Watson knew I was alive, he would have taken evil pleasure in following through with the fate Moriarty had planned for Watson three years ago.
Shaking the thoroughly unpleasant thoughts from my head, I followed a few other people into the courtroom and took a seat in the public section, placing myself at a vantage point where I could see Watson.
I paused for a moment to consider the strangeness of the feelings swirling within my mind at the moment – I, the isolated brain, actually wanting to be close to someone? Was I really the same person now of whom Watson had written in those early days of our association (quoting me, but still) that I was a "brain without a heart"? And here I was, wanting so badly to hear the man's voice that I was merely content with just sitting so I could watch him?
I tried to tell myself I was merely concerned for his safety – that I wanted to make sure Moran did not try to get close to him or some such rot. But the curse of having a great intellect is that one cannot convince one's self of something one knows to be false.
My strange thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Lestrade. He at least did not look in the least changed - as lean and ferret-faced as ever.
A pang of jealousy so sharp and poignant that it almost frightened me shot through my heart when I saw a smile break across Watson's sombre face as the Scotland Yarder shook his hand and sat down beside him. Had they actually become friends in the three years of my absence? I sternly reined in my rampant emotions, tamping down hard on that irksome one of jealousy.
Mycroft was right. The people I loved had changed. I wondered how much more so than I knew?
I pulled myself together as the inquest commenced. Across the room I spotted Colonel Sebastian Moran, exactly as I remembered him from that fateful day in '91. Aside from a long look that he gave Watson, which the latter was blissfully unaware of, I saw no indication that he meant him any harm. Perhaps three years had changed Moran, as well.
Or perhaps he was merely as good as I was at hiding his true feelings. Which was far more likely.
I was, as Mycroft had said, very proud of my dear Watson. His testimony was lucid and his deduction about the type of gun used was quite sound. That type of revolver would have indeed been the only possibility other than VonHerder's air-gun, of which Watson was completely in ignorance. I bristled at the judge's curt and rude dismissal of Watson's opinions, but I noticed with some discomfiture that Watson merely took it without a sound. The Watson I knew, or thought I knew, would have been annoyed at the very least.
That disturbed me almost more than the evil look I caught Moran sending toward Watson's back as he left the stand. I sat up straighter on my bench and kept a close watch on the proceedings.
Did I really remember things accurately? Perhaps Watson had just always been that uncaring about his opinions and time had merely distorted my memories.
No, impossible. I am Sherlock Holmes. I do not remember things incorrectly. Time and grief have done some serious harm to my friend's vibrant personality, and I shall make it my goal, once this whole mess is straightened out, to restore the sparkle to his eyes and the spring in his steps that I remember so well.
To Be Continued - Next up: the chapter everybody's been waiting for! The climactic confrontation!