Author's Note:

Be patient, my loves. I know there are three or four different threads, as Holmes would say, floating around untied, I will get to them, I promise.

My new computer is delivered tomorrow and then I will go on a typo-spotting spree, and all shall be sorted out to your liking. ;) I hope. :-D

Chapter Five: Found and Lost

I got a decently priced hotel room in town, and settled myself in, realizing that I should hav eto return to Baker Street to gather my possessions, something that no doubt would be found to bequite anticlimactic. Rather than return immediately, I spent some time perusing the papers in the comfort of my bed.

There appeared to have been a murder quite close to home in the middle of the day, so that I was surprised that Holmes and I had not been knocked up in the middle of our quarrel. A certain Mr. Andrew Parrish, who himself was an inhabitant of Baker Street, had been murdered the previous night by an ingenious act, leaving no signs or traces of either how the murder was committed, or of the person who perpetrated the crime. It struck me as very similar to our own diamond burglary, but with more tragic results.

I was morosely confidant that Holmes had already solved the jewelry theft, and so was quite sure that the authorities needed not to be concerned with catching the murderer. Already on his track as he was, it would not be long before the great Sherlock Holmes would baffle them all once more with his great feats of deduction. And Doctor Watson, for lack of another more profitable pastime, would sleep on his grievances. I allowed myself the brief thrill of self-confidance that perhaps Holmes would find his sleuthing more difficult without such a devoted companion to order around at his leisure. And yet, no doubt if he had needed me, I would be there still.

I was lying languidly on the bed, limbs splayed out in my complete dejected lethargy, when there was a knock on the door of my room. I glanced up at it, thinking to ignore it and to roll over in sleep, but the knock came again, more hurriedly, and perhaps out of sheer force of habit, I got up and answered it.

It did not surprise me this late in the game that Sherlock Holmes had the means of discovering my whereabouts so quickly. I had taken no precautions to hide myself away from him, and even if I had, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have made it his business to thwart my attempts. He stood bareheaded in the doorway, giving the inside of my room a distasteful look. "Really, Watson," he said, with a little shrug, "Why you would leave your comfortable long-time lodgings for such dumpy quarters is quite beyond even my faculties of reasoning. May I come in?"

It occured to me to say no, but again, long habit and reflex prevented me. He walked inside, and perched himself in the single chair that my room contained. "Well," he said, long fingers fidgeting in his nervous fashion with the edge of his sleeve, "You have managed to surprise me after all. I believe you deserve some sort of commendation, you may be one of the few men of your time to claim such an honor." I said nothing, and Holmes continued nonchalantly. "I believe, Doctor, that I may owe you a bit of an apology."

"Whatever for?" I asked, in a tone which declared exactly how much I agreed with his interpretation of the situation. Holmes kept his sad little smile, and patted the side of the bed beside him, beckoning me to join him. I did so slowly, attempting to exhibit reluctance, although my heart had already begun to soften in the face of his quiet and deferential demeanor.

"You see, Doctor," my friend began, "I have committed a serious error. My intentions, however, were of the very best kind."

It was an awkward situation that I was in. I had enough pride to not wish to pour out my grievances in a childish tirade. I was unable, therefore, to say anything at all, but was forced to stand there with a cross between sympathy and consternation on my face. Holmes, taking in my indecision at a glance, continued without any response from me, seemingly unperturbed.

"When you received Mrs. Cecil Forrester a few days back," he began, "I knew at once that no good could come from such a visitor, and indeed from such a present as she had brought you. I noticed the letters at once, and I have seen how you have avoided them, and yet how you have been loathe to get rid of them. The sad reminiscences of your late wife have indeed so confounded and depressed you that I became exceedingly concerned for your sake, and thought that I should head the problem off early on, so that you needn't' dwell on misfortune and sorrow."

Holmes glanced at me to look for any appreciation of his deductions, but I shrugged. It was quite an obvious thing, and I had not taken pains to hide it from him. With a little rueful sigh, Holmes continued, laying a hand on my shoulder for a moment before he jumped down from the bed, and began to pace around me in thoughtful circles.

"With the desire to assuage your grief in mind, I went to my brother Mycroft and beseeched his aid. It was then that he and I decided that we should hide away a little present which he had bought for Miss Fairchild, and that we should make ourselves a mystery out of it, so that, caught up as you and I would be in our attemts to find the criminal, you would no longer have a moment to think of poor Mrs. Watson and your own misfortunes.

At this point, he chuckled darkly to himself, and shook his head. "It was a very childish pursuit, my dear Watson, it was really quite terribly infantile, and I should have seen it to be so from the start. But to be honest," and now his gaze met mine, and he stopped in his tracks, "you may have discovered in the past that I find it very difficult to cope with genuine grief." He paused for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the wall across from my bed. "It is very simple to calm those who do not know you, but to those who understand you, or who look to you for real comfort, well, in such cases I am at something of a loss, and so I felt that the best thing for me to do would be to act as I have. I am afraid, Doctor, that I played a rather poor game, quite contrary to my usual skill, because I was too closely attached to the subject. And so you not only found me out quickly, but you took an entirely erroneous interpretation of the matter, and in your rage and indignation at my treatment of you, you slammed from the house."

He sat himself down again on the edge of the bed in a decisive final gesture, and looked to me expectantly, with a very kindly and deeply apologetic plea in his eyes. I was forced to laugh, at first harshly, with the knowledge that I had been so easily duped. After a moment, though, I shook my head, and chuckled, taking a deep breath and rolling my eyes.

"Well," I announced. "I do feel rather foolish."

"Not nearly as foolish as I do, my dear Doctor, not nearly," grinned my friend. "Had I had any inkling of how you would take it, I should never have embarked on it in the first place. Perhaps my idea of a country holiday was a much better one, and I should very much like you to consider it afresh."

My heart filled almost immediately with warmth and relief , as all of my suspicions about how obselete I had become in my friend's eyes came to naught. Clumsy as it had all been, there was something endearingly brilliant in Holmes' attempt to cure me of my melanchonly. He had always had his own unique way of handling things, and I should have been more careful in my own analysis. And yet, there was still something that bothered me about all of it, something that I felt I could ask about now, since the two of us were in such a sympathetic rapport.

I had just opened my mouth to speak, when a tall and pompous looking representative of the official police tramped in through the still open door. Sherlock Holmes looked up at him in a questioning way, and the man cleared his throat with a nervous cough. He was a recent addition to the force, as I coudl tell, since in my associations with the great consulting detective I felt that I knew every regular of the police, and that anyone who I did not immediately recognize must be a recent addition.

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" The man asked.

My companion raised an eyebrow. "Surely you recognize me, Johnson, from the little matter on which I assisted you with Mr. Colwell's cravate?"

Johnson did not meet Holmes' eyes at all, but instead stared resolutely just beyond my friend's ear. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he continued in an official drone, "It is my job to inform you than anything you say will be used against you. I arrest you as having been involved in the murder of Mr. Andrew Parrish."

The room was completely still as Sherlock Holmes and I stared incredulously at Johnson, who coughed slightly, and then straightened himself up in a very official and professional manner. I glanced at Holmes, who was now shaking his head with amusement and confusion in his eye.

"My dear sir," he began, "this is hardly a very good joke, nor the time for such things. I find myself rather indisposed to your humor at the moment. Perhaps you would be so good as to tell me why it is that you have tracked me down at my friend's hotel room, and to get as briefly to the point as you can?"

"I will ask you to come quietly," Johnson continued inexorably, bracing himself as if he was well aware of the strength and physical prowess of his quarry. "I should not like to start anything here, and I am sure that you will see reason and recognize that the game is up, and that you had best come with me without any scene."

To my horror, I recognized that this Johnson was in complete earnest. Holmes began to laugh, but I shook my head and advanced on the policeman with my hands outstretched. "This is absolutely preposterous," I cried, "this is absolutely the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard! Don't you know Sherlock Holmes, man? Why, he is the greatest criminal agent there ever was! You cannot possibly think that-!"
"When a great mind turns to crime," said Johnson coldly, "he is the worst of criminals. I believe it was yourself, Mr. Holmes, who first told me that."

Holmes had stopped laughing, and was staring at Johnson in some shock and consternation. "I believe I did at that," he murmured. "I believe it still and would say it again. I tell you, sir, that you are quite mistaken in your arrest. I have nothing to do with the matter."

"I'm sure." Johnson rolled his eyes. "Come along, then, Mr. Holmes."

My friend turned to me with a little sigh, a deep worry behind his eyes as he contineud to smile. "I suppose, Watson, that I shall have to go. There does appear to have been some very amusing mistake. I should like very much if you would return to Baker Street at once and keep track of my consulting for the short time that I am away."

"I would not count on it being such a short time," Johnson announced.

Holmes slowly joined the policeman, and, without another word, Johnson turned around and took my friend roughly by the arm, drawing him from the room in a curt march. I could hear Holmes saying, as he left, "I would like to speak to Inspector Lestrade immediately." Just before he disappeared around the frame of the door, he turned, and called to me over his shoulder.
"Never fear, Watson," he said with a nonchalance that I could not for a moment share, "I shall be back for lunch tomorrow."

Then he and Johnson were gone, and I was left even more confused and horrified than I had been when I had left Baker Street.