*Note from author to any feminists reading this: Mademoiselle has been banned on official French forums because it has been outlawed as sexist. Watson's use of Mlle. (short for Mademoiselle) is due more to ignorance than sexism, though it would be no surprise that he is, by today's standards, a sexist.*
Chapter 11: King Watson's Speech
The dreaded moment arrived on a dull Tuesday afternoon. I had made some progress towards identifying Holmes' condition – though my level of knowledge could have hardly been said to surpass that of even an amateur psychologist or clinical therapist. In the area of prescription drugs, however I dared not apply my hastily-acquired knowledge.
I was sitting in my study chair, mulling over the look in Holmes' eyes whenever he mentioned Vicky, when I decided to take a break that I might be better able to resist the temptation to fall into idle speculation while working. I looked up my own name by means of Google, and there it was, listed as having been put up only a few minutes ago: SHERLOCK HOLMES IMPOSTORS
"Good God!" I gasped. This was the moment I'd dreaded all along. My first impulse was to alert Holme as to the dire nature of our predicament, but surely Vicky would have already done so. No, Holmes would surely have heard of it before me, constant user of Google that he was.
A fresh wave of horror washed over me with that realization. That might have been the final push required to send Holmes past the fatal brink of sanity.
I rushed over to Holmes' home, mind already spinning with schemes to prevent him from using Google. But how could I fool an intellect so obviously greater than mine?
I already knew it was too late when I heard the singing at the door. A black van with a camera stencilled in white on it rounded the corner when I let myself in using the house keys Holmes had entrusted me with. I locked the door and headed upstairs. When Holmes, resplendent in formal evening dress, caught sight of me, he burst into fresh song:
Tell me Watson those horns' weight,
When they rest on your grey crown,
For you're a jolly good fellow,
For you're a jolly good fellow…
"Holmes!" I hissed. The computer screen on his desk displayed the fatal news article that I had seen earlier. The great man turned to me with a glint in his eyes, and held what I presumed was an imaginary cigarette to his lips, inhaled heartily, and flared his nostrils as he exhaled.
"Ah, Watson! My constant companion and loyal follower. I see you have tried living like I have for a week. I am sure you took great pleasure in that experience. And here they are – our servants, come to lay the carpet for our path to fame!"
"Be quiet," I said. Holmes complied mock-seriously. He held his finger between his lips, and by base contortions of his face, so unlike the subtle emotions that he was capable of or the fits of impassioned outrage that he could sometimes display, mimed a child's fear at being discovered.
"They're looking for us, aren't they? The garden snails are looking for us."
Here I was at a loss to reply. Should I agree with him, and so exacerbate his current condition? Surely not. But if I was to disagree, he might disagree in so prominent a manner that the public could not fail to suspect that he was insane.
"Perhaps," I said. "So it would be prudent to behave as you always have, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, yes of course," Holmes nodded frantically. "We must dig, Watson. Dig our way to the London Subway, where we will be safe against the assaults of these wretched creatures."
The doorbell sounded, and my mind scrambled to recall our rights under British common law, but none came to mind.
"Excuse me, is Mr. Holmes in?" Someone shouted from outside the door. Holmes retreated to a corner of the room, where he sat on the floor, drew his knees up to his chin and clasped his arms around them. He stayed perfectly still, like one of the waxwork statues at an exhibit by Madame Tussands.
The phone rang, and I got the urge to throw the cursed thing out of the window. Holmes sniggered to himself, and with a sudden fit of confidence, drew himself back up and looked about him as though he had never been in his own room before.
"Well, I cannot allow this sorry state of affairs to continue."
"For God's sake, Holmes, don't get the door," I pleaded.
"Now, Watson, have a little more faith in me. There, there, and there." He drew the blinds in rapid succession as he spoke, and I was heartened to see that the flimsy blinds had folded sheets of black paper taped to them. The paper had been folded up like an accordion's bellows, thus enabling them to fold and unfold with the blinds. Our privacy was assured.
"Short of breaking and entering, they cannot touch us now. You will have to wait here until they are gone. Why did I draw the blinds instead of retreating to a back room? We must make known to them that this house is occupied, or I suspect they may attempt a forced entry and that with Satan's darkest blessings. Tut, tut – allow me," Holmes took two masterful steps across the room and picked up the ringing phone. He held it to his ear, smiled and replaced it in its holder. "Crank calls, Watson. Vicky now corresponds with me entirely by email."
"That's all very good," I muttered, still dazed by the sudden return of Holmes' sanity.
"And now, we must move quickly. Brightwell –" Holmes stopped moving and stared off into the distance. A brief spasm seized his body. It was over before I could lay a hand on him, and then he was on the floor again, cross-legged this time, staring at his immobile hands which were placed on his ankles.
No entreaty I could think of could convince him to respond, and I decided to take a vigil at the window, waiting for the journalists to retreat. I was of half a mind to apply to the police, but decided against doing so until they were in flagrant violation of the law.
My mind wandered to Mary, and I recalled that she was with her lady friends today. Again, how fortunate that Providence has seen fit to endow my wife with friends, even in this day and age! I promised myself that I would be introduced to her benefactor by the end of this week, even as I swore in the same breath to make myself a thorn in Brightwell's side.
Who could I confide in? Doctor Hopkins? Vicky? Surely not. I was even more alone and an outcast than David was when Absalom had turned on him. I had none to plead my cause with save the cool, level-headed magistrates of English justice – and they could do me no good against Brightwell's freedom of speech.
I sighed and resigned myself to seeing to the convalescence of my new patient. I reached for my notebook, where I had stored the phone number of Mary's friend. Fortunately, they were in, and I wondered if they would be so kind as to allow me to impose upon them by begging them to take Mary on as their impromptu guest, at least until this media frenzy wore off. They would have their Sherlock Holmes and his doggedly faithful companion, but never Mary Watson.
I expected to be politely rebuffed, perhaps even railed at, for who knew what was possible in these modern times, where everyone rushed to and fro so that no one had time for anyone or anything but their work?
Much to my surprise, Jaquelin Roux, her friend from across the canal whom Mary had introduced to me as one of the members of her beloved book club, was as kindly and as generous as a well-loved Lady from our times, and made out my encumbering them with my wife as a godsend and a favour. Mme. Roux wished me all the best, and I terminated our connection with many thanks, marvelling at how some things had changed very little, if at all.
The question of protecting my beloved settled, I turned to Holmes, who was at this moment, squatting in the corner of the room with a compass and sketching some heathen design into the wall.
"And thus the flying cow will be unable to meet the terminus of Heaven's pillar, and all the chocolate in the world will turn into gold. Furthermore, one is an imaginary number, for if you divide it by itself, you get one again, which is also the case with all imaginary numbers. No, no, Holmes, that won't do! You have fallen into a logical fallacy. One is not an imaginary number."
His babbling disturbed me and nagged at me even after I had put him to bed with a stout dose of whiskey. The reporters had besieged both our residences, Holmes' and mine, and I had no choice but to step outside and meet them.
"Mr. Watson! Mr. Watson! Do you really think you are from the past?"
I recollected all of Vicky's advice and distilled it all into one sentence: "I apologize, but I can offer no comment whatsoever on that subject."
"Mr. Watson, is it true that Holmes is having an affair with your wife?"
I was deeply offended. I put my hand into jacket's pocket and raised my chin, scowling angrily.
"Again, I can offer no comment." I opened the front gate and looked the pack of hyenas in their eyes. "Kindly do not intrude onto my friend's lawn. Though he might no longer have the right to bear arms as a subject of the Crown, I seem to recall that our rights to have our property held inviolable from intrusion by unwelcome guests still stand. By God, leave or I will send for the Police!" I said.
The wall of idiots continued their nonsensical babbling, growing more impertinent by the second.
"Is it true that you and Holmes are gay?"
"Any comment about Holmes's dating his lawyer?"
"Have you ever been on a plane before?"
"Enough!" I said, "Let me pass, or I shall charge you all for unlawful obstruction upon private property! And harassment too, if you all have the gall to go on like a gang of street curs!"
I said a silent prayer that my threat would work, and it did, though the effect was somewhat less than I had hoped for. The army of reporters murmured and took a step back, clearing a narrow corridor for me to pass through back to my home. I straightened my coat and walked through the gauntlet, feeling the weight of the world upon my shoulders.
"Sir, if you'd just care to speak to us for a minute –"
"Excuse me, but could you at least tell us about your relationship with Holmes –"
"Would you be interested in giving us an exclusive interview?"
I reached the entrance to my garden and unlocked the gate. I stepped through and closed it before turning to face them.
"You there." I pointed to a man holding one of their plastic-metal boxes. "Is this being televised?" The man beside him stopped mid-speech, and I said quickly, "if it is, own up and don't make yourself and your employer out to be liars before the world."
"We're on air, yeah." The brute said. He was large, gristly, and youthful, but I knew from his soft complexion and straight nose, so unlike the pictures of the thugs Holmes had shown me in his online forays, that he had not been in a real scrape before.
I was tempted to berate them, appeal to their sense of decency and humanity, and lash out at them in a fit of anger all at once, but something that had been building in me finally stood up, and off came the dust sheets and scaffolding that had been obscuring it. This speech had been days, weeks, perhaps even years in the making, and my phlegmatic constitution was roused to roar like the bygone imperial lion of England. I looked upon them, and knew they were not men, much less gentlemen. They were boys, and deserved to be chided and belittled. Right royal contempt, not anger, was the order of the day.
"Everything I say henceforth until I state otherwise is strictly my private opinion, and should not be recorded." I said. They ignored the armor on my dreadnought and foolishly chose not to retreat, instead falling silent to let my voice reach their vile electro-mechanical receptors. In fact, they extended their arms so that their devices were past my hedge and well into the bounds of my garden. So be it.
"I believe you are like prurient boys trying to sneak a glance into a woman's dressing room, not caring how crass your deeds are. You and your viewers think yourselves men and women? You are merely voyeurs; petty, vile busybodies who pride yourselves on peeking into others' lives, and that not simply because you have a job to do. You do so because you enjoy it, don't you? Does it in some way please your baser desires and lusts of the flesh to look at our Royals in a state of undress, or people at their most vulnerable?"
The beefy youth who I had pointed to earlier turned redder than a bleeding beetroot. I gave the assembly of rouges my most obnoxious smile and went on. The rest of them were seasoned brigands, and did not bat an eyelid, but the youth seemed particularly vulnerable to his own anger. I decided to continue in the same vein and see if I could not at least cause a scandalous outburst on his part.
"All of you, you and your faithful viewers, are pathetic children. You skulk in your homes and offices, not wanting to admit the fact that our lives are all mundane and dull, and only want for hard work and a decent night at the theatre afterwards to spruce them up. And how you do skulk, until someone makes a mistake! Then you are all pounding pulses and sweaty fingers, and off you race, eager to see how much some poor fellow's misfortune is greater than yours and how fair the world is, happy that your own vile boredom be assuaged by delighting in someone else's suffering. Pitiable, sadistic children! Only children behave this way. Watcher and camera-operator, if you take pleasure in this, however large a sum you make a year, you are all spiteful, detestable insects who simply appear to be able to read, write, count to ten, and fill out tax forms. You are flies, all of you, swarming in to feast upon carrion and raise their maggot spawn on the same diet, that they might perpetuate the cycle forevermore."
A few of the people holding the micro-phones exchange worried glances. The one at whom I had pointed suddenly threw down his micro-phone and let out a great yell.
"Who the hell do you think you are? No one talks to me that way."
"I don't think I am anyone in particular, but I do think you a child," I replied. "And I doubt you managed to understand half the contents of my speech."
"Fuck you!" He roared, and sprang over the hedge at me!
Though taken by surprise, I had been in more than my fair share of scrapes, and knew how to handle myself. I lashed out with a straight right to his jaw. He was coming on too fast to stop, and his momentum added to that of my fist.
Down he went, and the reporters who were already scrambling forward to break up what they thought would be a protracted scuffle paused uncertainly. I grabbed the man by his collar and glanced at his name tag, which bore the name 'Wallace E. White'. I opened the gate, and as my captive moaned as his consciousness began returning. I warned the assembled reporters in no uncertain terms that I forbade them to step across the threshold and exercised my rights to exclude whomsoever I wished from my home, by force if necessary. They wisely chose to listen this time, and accepted their still-limp ally.
"I believe some notice is in order to the employer of a certain Wallace E. White that I intend to sue his lad for trespass, assault, and intimidation. True, I knocked him out, but he was the one who entered my property in a fit of violence with the clear intention of proving his heroic nature, only to find that he was still a boy - and a fairly villainous one at that. Are we still 'on air', as our young gentleman has so succinctly put it, or have you shut off your marvelous devices? Are you trying to spare yourselves the embarrassment? Have you lost the use of your tongues as well?"
My words goaded one of them into saying, "We're on air, you psychotic piece of shite, and I'm sure the public is lovin' every moment of this."
"That is hardly the case, my dear boy. That label, in my opinion, would be more accurately applied to persons who go around shouting daft questions and expecting to be greeted with fear and trembling as though they were officers of the law, such persons who forcefully enter another's property, such persons who believe it all right to expose their victims to the public without so much as an apology for the discomfort they are causing, and such persons who are greedily watching this in anticipation of their daily helpings of lives laid bare and destroyed. You and your subscribers readily fit such unflattering descriptions. What wrong have I done besides exercising my right to free speech, exactly as your employers are doing? And what law of the country forbids me from defending myself? What right have you to slander me in public by making such scandalous assertions? Remember what I said earlier: everything I say is my private opinion, which should not, by rights, be recorded, and should remain as such until I have said so. I do not remember saying otherwise throughout the course of my little monologue. And yet here you are, pushing your devices clear over my hedge, and into my garden! If you wish to use my opinion against me, recorded despite my objections and my being within the bounds of my private property, I would, I believe, manage to extract a tidy sum from your employer for breaching my privacy, and for malicious slander. As I said: Children. Run along, now."
The last part was all bluster and bluff, but the man who had spoken, a narrow, intense man, turned pale with anger and mortification and looked as though he too, was considering a spring over the hedge. He checked himself and took a step back, signalling for his camera operator to turn his evil device off.
"Stuck-up little prick," he muttered, but his threats had all the force of a mild spring breeze.
The rest of the reporters filed away, stealing dark looks at me, and I put up the best front I could, not showing them my back until they had all driven away or returned to their cars to whisper and snarl into their mobile phones. This exercise in etiquette concluded, I turned and entered the fastness of my home.
