Mrs. Hudson gave her squirming patient a look of stern warning, who finally submitted, slumping wearily into the kitchen chair. Witch hazel was her usual remedy for bruises, but the best treatment for a blackened eye was cold compresses, as Dr. Watson would surely agree... were he here to give his opinion.
The landlady sighed. Still shaken herself from her lodger's reappearance, she could well imagine that Dr. Watson had also been less than overjoyed at discovering that his best friend had kept him in the dark all this time. Judging by Mr. Holmes's dismayed expression, however – what she could see of it beneath the wet pad – he had failed to predict the good doctor's precise reaction to the news.
"...I don't understand..." The bewildered murmur broke her heart as much as it filled her with exasperation. "I told him why I had to..."
She was about to reply, when both were startled by a knock at the back door.
"Lestrade," the detective sighed, waving her away. "Tell him everything will be in place for tonight."
But the man smiling shyly when she opened the door was a far more welcome sight, glancing nervously past her towards the kitchen. She nodded, breathing a silent prayer of thankfulness as he entered – some things could be bruised, it seemed, but never wholly broken.