In the space of the last minute, Holmes had looked up from the breakfast he was only picking at, opened his mouth as though to speak, shaken his head, and gone back to idly pushing eggs around his plate with a fork a total of three times.

My curiosity as to what he might be having such difficulty putting into words was growing exponentially with time, to say the least.

I had always known him to be possessed of a certain eloquence, an actor's flair for expression, and few qualms about making his opinions known regardless of how they might be received. How came about his present loss for words, then? What could be so delicate a subject that he could not think of a way to discuss it? And why did he seem to feel that he must discuss it with me? Dozens of scenarios had flooded my mind as I searched for an answer.

Had he met a girl?

Did he wish my advice?

Did he have some kind of horrible news which he was reluctant to spoil the morning with?

As unlikely as perhaps a few of these thoughts were, I nonetheless could not rule them out on his waffling alone.

When for a fourth time he looked up and seemed on the verge of saying something, only to affect a lame retreat by reaching for the coffee pot instead, I demanded:

"Speak, Holmes, or you will drive us both mad."

He flashed a quick, vaguely sheepish smile my way as he filled a cup from the coffee pot and proceeded to add to it an obscene amount of sugar. "Sorry, old man. I had a question. I got a bit caught up in debating the merit of actually asking it with myself."

"That is quite enough sugar, I think," I pointed out quickly.

"I think it is not," Holmes shot back, a scowl threatening to knit his brows.

I could only sigh at him disapprovingly. "What was your question?"

"Well..." he considered, taking a sip of the coffee - which had probably acquired the consistency of treacle for all the sugar he'd added to it - "I was wondering if I might have your opinion on something. A matter of morality, if you will."

"I see," I replied, and fairly started in protest as he reached for the sugar bowl again. "Really, Holmes!"

"You may take your coffee how you like it," he snapped, adding a few more lumps to the cup at his elbow. "How I take mine is not your concern."

"I have a question."

"Really."

"How is it that you still have teeth?"

Holmes glared and added still more sugar, undoubtedly out of sheer spite.

"Now, what was your question?" I asked.

Holmes sighed, taking another sip of coffee before setting the cup down to prop his elbows on the table before him and press his fingertips together.

"Well, I've been considering," he said, gazing thoughtfully into space, "the notion of apologizing."

"Apologizing?"

"Mm. Do you think, Watson, that if one has done...something...he should apologize simply because social mores require it of him?"

"It helps if his heart is in it," I offered, a certain uneasiness beginning to creep up on me at the direction the discussion was taking.

"Ah! Yes," cried Holmes, pointing a finger at me excitedly. "You've struck at the very core of the matter. What if he is not sorry?"

"Should he be sorry?" I demanded, and meant it literally, not rhetorically. I was beginning to grow very worried about what he might have done.

"That's beside the point," Holmes said, waving a hand dismissively.

"What could be more to the point?"

"Well, who decides the parameters that govern when I ought to be sorry, Watson? An entirely different question, you'll agree. And in any case, since we have chosen to presume, hypothetically, that I am not sorry, it follows that I would only dispute the conclusions of whoever thinks I ought to be sorry anyways."

"But we agree you should apologize."

"Not at all. The point was that social mores dictate that I should apologize."

"Isn't that -"

"It is hardly the same thing to say what social mores require and to say they are correct in requiring it."

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, a trifle annoyed. "Very well. If we're going to take a completely amoral tack, I would say that it depends whom you've wronged."

Holmes' brows rose slightly and he nodded in consideration. "I see."

"In Mrs. Hudson's case, for instance, you should definitely take preemptive measures to apologize - because we both know how things go when she discovers something you've done and must confront you about it after the fact."

"Good point," said Holmes.

"You should also apologize if it's me, because I'm going to pummel you if you don't."

"Watson -"

"And I may anyways, depending upon what you've done -"

"I didn't say -"

"Is it my umbrella again, Holmes?"

"Did I say we were talking about something I've done? Would you like some facts to go with your conjectures,Watson?"

"You said we were talking about you!"

"I never did!"

"You said 'I'! You said 'social mores dictate I should apologize'!"

Holmes threw up his hands with a snarl of frustration "I was speaking hypothetically, Watson. 'I' there was meant to indicate 'I' in the general sense, not 'I' as in 'me, Holmes.'"

I felt my face screw up into a look of incredulity at what I felt to be a complete load of bollocks. "'I' in the general sense?" I repeated.

Holmes sighed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.

"Holmes. How is referring to oneself, the individual, general? There is no general sense of -"

"Alright, 'he,' then! He, the unspecified, unidentified everyman. Just go back and edit everything I've said so far, replacing 'I' with 'he.'"

"I still think you've done something," I grumbled.

Holmes leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table, smacking his head into his hands petulantly. "This is ridiculous. I try and engage you in a philosophical discussion -"

"Perhaps if the discussion had not begun upon a fallacy."

"What are you talking about?"

"Perhaps, if you'd started with: 'Watson, I have committed such and such a misdeed, and in light of this have been lead to question -"

"That would have been a fallacy, as I have done nothing."

"Oh," I said with mock reassurance, waving a hand blithely, "well, that settles things, then. Because you have never lied before."

Holmes folded his arms on the table and glared at me stonily. "If I am ever so foolish as to engage you in conversation over a question of this nature again," he snapped, "would you do me the courtesy of dispensing with some of your preconceived notions and considering facts objectively?"

"The fact is that the question of your moral polarity, or whether you can really be said to carry the charge at all, somewhat eclipses other considerations in my mind when we begin discussing ethics."

"I noted," Holmes said icily, and dumped another healthy spoonful of sugar into his coffee. I frowned at him and briefly considered the irony of the operative adjective, given the circumstances.

We sat in silence a few moments, I finishing my toast unassumingly while Holmes clanked his spoon around within his coffee cup in frustration, attempting to stir the sugar he'd added to it into the already saturated solution. At length, he smacked the spoon onto the table and determinedly took a sip, only to grimace and plunk the mug down dejectedly beside it. He sighed resignedly and propped his chin in one hand, regarding the ruined coffee with an air of disappointment.

"You know," I thought at last to remark, "It would be a wise maneuver, and also convenient, to apologize to Mrs. Hudson when she comes to collect these dishes..."

Holmes' eyes snapped up from the coffee cup to scowl at me contemptuously. "Watson," he said sternly, "I have no reason to apologize to Mrs. Hudson."

"Because you're not sorry, or because -"

"Because I haven't done anything, for the last time!"

I considered this for an instant, since he insisted upon it with such vehemence, glancing down at my plate and fiddling with my discarded silverware briefly.

"Are you sure?" I pressed, looking back up at him.

"Yes!" he cried. "Look, if I had really done something, don't you think someone would have noticed something amiss by now? And yet, but for the suggestion of some action for which I might be sorry, nothing out of order has happened this morning, at all!"

I frowned at him, taking his point, but still unsure as to its sincerity.

"Have you discovered anything wrong?" Holmes asked, gesturing at me forcefully.

"No," I admitted, "nothing yet -"

"And you've been up and about the house, and have even gone so far as to shave, dress, and ready your medical bag before breakfast as you have an early appointment with a patient today."

"Yes," I conceded further, attempting briefly to piece together how he knew. "How did -"

"Never mind. Really, Watson, don't you think that if any catastrophe had occurred, whether I were to blame or no, you'd have come across some indication of it, for all that? By the way, you'll note, when you go downstairs, that your umbrella is leaning beside the front door as you left it."

I considered this further, fingering my mustache thoughtfully, and at last indicated my agreement with a cautious nod. "I suppose all of that's true - and I suppose, since it's so easily verified, I can trust you about the umbrella..."

"Thank you," Holmes muttered with the barest hint of sarcasm.

I still was not satisfied, however, as to his innocence where Mrs. Hudson was concerned.

So, when she did arrive to clear up breakfast, I took the opportunity to engage in a little detective work of my own.

"It was wonderful, Mrs, Hudson, thank you," I smiled in appreciation as I handed her my empty plate. She received only an assenting twitch of the shoulders from the uncommunicative Holmes, but stated pleasantly that she was glad we'd enjoyed things anyways as she gathered the remaining dishes onto the tray.

"Your morning is going well, I trust?" I asked her as she was about to go. I had attempted to do so casually, but she still paused halfway to the door with a look of surprise, before casting a suspicious glance at Holmes.

"Why," she asked slowly, "might it have gone otherwise...?"

The conclusion she had jumped to was by no means lost on my companion, and he slumped in his chair with an exasperated cry of "Oh, bloody hell on a bike."

"Mr. Holmes!" Mrs. Hudson scolded. Before she could lecture him any further on the language he chose to employ, however, I interjected pleasantly:

"It's nothing like that, Mrs. Hudson. I was merely making conversation. But since you bring it up...?"

She glanced back at me questioningly.

"Well, you haven't noticed anything amiss," I clarified, "have you?"

"No, doctor," she replied, shaking her head. Then, with a final reproving glance at Holmes, "But I'll keep an eye out, in case I should!"

Holmes, for his part, smiled facetiously and bid her a glibly bright "Good morning, Mrs. Hudson!" as she swished from the room.

"Now are you convinced?" he scowled at me once she'd gone.

Truth be told, I was still a bit reluctant to do so, but having, I felt, no more ground to stand on, I merely shrugged in acquiescence. "Very well, Holmes, I am sorry I impugned your character. It was a wholly philosophical question you asked and your dilemma finds no expression in reality."

Holmes sighed as though relieved, waving a hand in an at last sort of gesture. "Thank you Watson. Apology accepted."

This would have been an end of matters if Mrs. Hudson had not burst back into the room an instant later.

I jumped, startled by her sudden entrance, whirling around in my chair. "What is it?" I asked.

I confess I had half expected to find her a vision of outrage, a charred and mangled sofa pillow, cleverly wrested from its hiding place, or some such, in her grasp. Instead she strode quickly to the table, a telegram in her hand. It was by no means lost on me, however, that Holmes observed all this with the look of a patient who expects to receive a condemning diagnosis.

"This just came for you, sir," said Mrs. Hudson, laying the telegram before him. "The boy who delivered it said it was very urgent."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," Holmes replied tightly as she took her leave. He did not open the telegram immediately, however, but merely frowned down at it, tapping a long, white finger on the envelope as though gathering his resolve.

"It's postmarked from Whitehall," I noted with some fascination and suspense.

"Yes," groaned Holmes.

"Well, aren't you going to open it? Mrs. Hudson indicated it was urgent."

He frowned at it a moment longer, before heaving a sigh and tearing the envelope open with the same air of getting-it-over-with with which one removes a plaster from a wound.

He glanced over it quickly, his face falling as though some unhappy suspicion of his had been confirmed, before rising from the table with a dogged roll of his eyes and striding off towards his room without a word.

"Holmes!" I protested before he could get very far.

"What?" he muttered with a glance back over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?"

"Well," he said, "if we take the same amoral tack you suggested in our philosophical conversation of earlier, you could say I am fleeing the country."

I narrowed my eyes, staring at him in surprise and perplexity. "Why? What was in the telegram?"

"It's from my brother. He wires to say that he'll be dropping by shortly."

I blinked at him a moment further before suddenly, like the switch being thrown on an electrical circuit, all the ideas we had discussed that morning fit together in my mind. My eyes widened as the inevitable conclusion emerged, as obvious as a blinking light bulb.

"Oh," I said slowly. "You've decided not to apologize."

Holmes, in spite of himself, grinned. "My dear Watson, your inferential skills are coming along brilliantly. Now, if Mycroft asks, you haven't seen me in days."

With that, he took himself off to his room, and undoubtedly employed his window and the fire escape as means of an exit, for he seemed to all but vanish.

I was left to smoke alone in a brown study, contemplating the moral dilemma of whether or not one could be justified in lying to cover the fact that he'd failed to bring a question of a similar type to a satisfactory conclusion earlier that morning.