A Case of Insanity

Chapter Two

We resolved our differences over roast beef and came to a compromise that was amicable to us both: that I would stay in Surrey during the week and return to Baker Street for Saturday evenings. Holmes would keep himself busy and, if he found himself in need of assistance, then I was only ever a telegram away. What he did not know was that I had an ally in Mrs Hudson, who was under the strictest of instructions to inform me without delay should she notice anything unusual in her tenant's behaviour.

How would I define unusual, she had asked. I told her she would know it if she saw it, and we left it at that.

Sunday found me in the charming riverside town of Richmond-upon-Thames at the home of Dr Joseph Tarrant. He had been delighted to see me, perhaps overly so, for he was effusive in his welcome and several times declared most earnestly how grateful he was for my assistance. I believe had I asked it, he would have handed over the title deeds to his house without complaint in reward for my presence.

It was enough that I was able to help in his time of need, for I saw something of my former self reflected in him. To bear witness to the suffering of one's loved ones produces an anguish that knows no bounds, compounded by the knowledge of one's own helplessness in the face of the relentless march of disease.

In the case of Tarrant's wife, the asthma that had driven them from smoggy London to the cleaner air of the upstream Thames appeared not to have improved. Pitifully thin, she stirred little from her chair and the slightest exertion brought on fits of wheezing which drove her husband near to despair. Tarrant, a shadow of the confident, ingenuous young man I remembered, now ground down by care and prematurely grey, implied that this holiday to the south coast was by way of a last resort. Their evident desperation was enough to deepen my guilt at having delayed so long with my reply, and I was heartily glad to see them safely on their way.

The following week was split neatly between the needs of Tarrant's patients, mainly elderly ladies with various aches and pains and the need for companionship, and exploring my new surroundings. Richmond in early summer, when the idle river, winking and gurgling in the flashing sunlight, laps lazily around the hulks of drifting barges and offers up tiddlers to enterprising boys with makeshift fishing rods, has something of the picturesque that leads one into the happy notion of forgetting that the metropolis is only a few miles downstream.

Watching the deer in the park, I could well believe that I was in the midst of a rural idyll or stepped back into the pages of history as I stood before the crumbling Tudor gatehouse under which once passed monarchs and their courtiers. I could have been a thousand miles from Baker Street – and yet my thoughts were never far from home.

As the week drew on, so my certainty deepened that to have left Holmes so for long a period of time in his current frame of mind was a mistake. I began to dread the coming of the post, lest some missive arrive, telling of his worsening condition or of some new development. My concerns, however, proved unfounded. No ill tidings arrived, and I was able to return to our rooms the following Saturday with my conscience at ease.

On my arrival, Mrs Hudson reported that Mr Holmes was much the same, coming and going at all hours, eating frugally, and still littering the place with his papers and the like so that she dared not set foot in the room to do her usual tidying. She had concluded with an unexpected piece of news, by saying that she had heard him singing.

"Singing, Mrs Hudson?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," she replied, her tone suggesting disapproval, "and in the dead of night too, when respectable citizens should be sound asleep. You know I'm not one to complain, Doctor, but I need my sleep even if Mr Holmes doesn't."

"Yes, Mrs Hudson. I'll tell him to confine his singing to the daytime."

"And tell him, if he must sing – and I do not say that his voice is not passable, Doctor – then let it be something cheerful. There's enough misery in the world without listening to dirges in a foreign language."

"This language – it wouldn't be Cornish, would he?"

"I'm sure I couldn't say, sir," she said primly. "All I know is that it's a very mournful thing to hear at two o'clock in the morning and I do wish he wouldn't do it."

I assured her I would do what I could and went in search of my lyrical friend. I must confess that I did not know what to make of this turn of events. I had known him to hum – a trait that I have never found endearing – and sometimes to mutter the words in accompaniment to a piece of music, but to sing in the dead of night and for the simple joy of it? That his repertoire was conducted in Cornish complicated matters still further.

It was to my relief, therefore, that I found Holmes excitable and somewhat distracted but otherwise in good spirits. He claimed to be making progress with his thesis and there was much talk of aspirated mutations and unmutated consonants. I gathered this was all very important, although I would have been hard pressed to say why, but I gave the occasional encouraging nod of agreement, which seemed to please him.

Then came the night, during which I was rudely roused from my sleep in the early hours by a pained lament coming from the floor below and the howling of a dog outside. For the sake of Mrs Hudson and our long-suffering neighbours, I dragged myself from my bed and went to investigate. As expected, I found Holmes seated by the empty grate, a pipe in his hand and a thick halo of blue smoke about his head. He ceased his singing abruptly when I entered and a look of mild surprise took shape on his face. When I stated the reason for my unexpected appearance, he apologised profusely.

"Do forgive me, I was thinking aloud," said he.

"Yes, I heard you," said I, opening the window to release the fumes. "Less thinking, Holmes, more singing, to be strictly accurate."

"Ah, yes, a sad tale of unrequited love that ends on the scaffold. A song not heard since the death of the last Cornish speaker in 1777. What did you make of it?"

"Not much at three o'clock in the morning."

"Is that the time?" said he, unconcernedly. "I thought it was later. All the same, I do apologise for disturbing you. I didn't realise my voice was quite so loud that it carried all the way to Surrey."

I paused in pouring myself a drink. "Surrey, Holmes? I returned yesterday."

"Did you?" He appeared confused and had some difficulty concealing it. "Yes, of course you did, my dear fellow."

This concerned me more than his impromptu rendition of an old Cornish ballad. "You don't remember, do you?"

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "I fear, Watson, you have lost your sense of humour. It was a mere jest on my part, nothing more."

"A poor one," I chided, not altogether convinced by his explanation.

"Well, well, no doubt hunger has dulled your mood," said he, pushing himself up from his chair decisively. "Shall we break our fast at the Café Royal? I understand they glaze their bacon with honey and offer quails' eggs as an alternative to that of the humble chicken."

"Holmes," I said, exasperated, "it's three in the morning!"

"Is it?"

"Yes. I told you so not a minute ago."

"Most certainly you did not. I may be a little tired, Watson, but there is nothing wrong with my hearing."

"It's not your hearing I'm worried about," I said with concern.

"Are you quite sure? Well, if you say so. I could have sworn it was later. The night-time does drag. What a hindrance to busy people. In the future, someone will come up with the idea of doing away with night altogether, then we shall live in perpetual day, like the inhabitants of the far north. How much more productive we shall be. It shall certainly be the end of crime."

My brain had yet to shift the stupefying effects of sleep and I struggled to keep up with his rambling train of reasoning. "I'm sorry, Holmes, I don't follow you," I said wearily, sinking down onto the nearest chair.

"Have you forgotten your Book of Common Prayer?" said he, pacing uneasily and clasping and unclasping his hands in that restless manner of his. "'Thou shalt not be afraid of any terror by night'. Mark you, Watson, that phrase – 'by night'. What faceless terror can survive the light of day? Yes, perhaps that is the answer. That we should sleep by day and defy the demons of night by our wakefulness."

I fancied that I began dimly to see where this was leading. "Demons of the night? Do you mean to say that you are having nightmares? Is that why you can't sleep?"

"To sleep," he murmured, pausing to gingerly rub his temples with his fingers. "Perchance to dream. But what dreams, Watson, what lunatic ruminations of the mind!" He released a heartfelt sigh that seemed to echo with near despair. "It is not that I cannot sleep. Rather it is that I fear that one night I shall close my eyes and not be able to re-awake. What then? Dreams are said to be the insanity of each day's sanity. Are dreamers then insane? Are the asylums peopled by those who know perpetual sleep? Can no one wake them?"

His manner was such that I was quite taken aback. Ever one to cultivate the greatest of control, now his voice was several pitches higher, his eyes staring and his whole frame atremble. If I had not intervened to stop him, I was seized by the certainty that he would have collapsed in a state of nervous agitation.

"Holmes, calm yourself," I said firmly, taking him by his shaking shoulders and forcing him to look at me. "This is wild talk, most unlike you. Take a deep breath and sit down. Now, let us examine the situation rationally."

"I fear rationality deserted me long ago," said he, though meekly obeying my instruction.

"Nonsense," I chided. "I have found that some relief may be obtained by telling others of one's nightmares."

"Bringing them into the light of sanity thus robs of them of their power, you mean?" Holmes gave me a dubious look but consented. "At this juncture, I am quite prepared to try anything. Well, there is not much to tell. It is always the same. I am paralysed by some freezing horror. There's a mist, dark, impenetrable, all around me. I know something is within it that speaks of menace and the most unutterable evil. I try to call out; I cannot. It comes for me and I cannot escape it." He swallowed hard. "And then I wake up. Now, Watson, tell me I am not completely mad."

"Not mad, Holmes…" Something he had said had struck a chord at the back of my mind and had awakened unpleasant memories of a comparable experience. A frightening possibility now occurred to me. "How long have you had these nightmares?" I asked.

"A few months."

"Since Poldhu Bay? Since the experiment with Devil's-foot root?"

He nodded bleakly. "So, now you know. The worst of it is I have no one to blame but myself. I am condemned by my own folly."

"Dear heavens," I murmured. "Why did you not tell me sooner?"

He sprang from his chair and turned his back on me, head bowed, his hand clutching at the mantle for support. "What would you have done? What can you do now I have told you? Despite the faith I have in your medical skills, my dear fellow, I fear this is out of your hands."

He had voiced my own concerns. In dealing with a poison unlisted in any work of toxicology and the only man who understood its workings buried deep in central Africa, I did not hold out much hope for a simple remedy to Holmes's problem.

"Perhaps Dr Agar might be able to suggest something," I ventured.

Holmes snorted. "It was because of Dr Agar's advice that I was thrust into this absurd situation in the first place. I was forced to go on pain of breakdown and yet I find that the precipice yawns before me. No, Watson, I have little faith in your Dr Agar."

I was tempted to remind him that the Harley Street specialist had warned him to avoid taking cases and surrender himself to complete rest, something that Holmes had chosen wilfully to ignore. If blame lay anywhere in the matter, it was with him, and, I admit, with myself for having failed to prevent his worse excesses whilst in Cornwall.

"Besides," Holmes went on, "what could he tell me that I have not already discerned for myself? He would say that I needed rest, yet that lies at the heart of my problem. These are uncharted waters and I find myself paddling my small raft alone."

"No, not alone."

"I appreciate your concern," said he, offering me a faint smile, "however I cannot expect you to understand something of which you have no knowledge."

"Perhaps I do. I suffered some lingering effects."

"You did?"

"For a week or so, yes, but that was three months ago."

Holmes accepted this with equanimity. "There, then my experience is not so unusual, except in the length of time. Perhaps my exposure was greater than yours. You did pluck me from the jaws of despair, after all."

"Not quickly enough, it seems. There has to be something we can do."

"There is," he said determinedly. He selected his clay pipe from the rack and recharged it from the Persian slipper. "We must wait and place our faith in – what is it you doctors call it? Ah, yes, expectant medicine. The problem will resolve itself one way or another, either in my complete recovery or descent into insanity. My one consolation is that I have yet to suffer the same fate as the unfortunate Tregennis brothers. As you say, the event was several months ago. If it has not driven me mad yet, then I would say there is an even chance that the symptoms will vanish in their own time."

"Yes, but—"

"Not another word," he interjected. "This is an inconvenience, nothing more. I have decided on my course and must remain fast. Now more than ever it is vital that I have work. Go back to bed, Watson. I have my Proverbs and Rhymes in Cornish to keep me amused until the coming of dawn." [1]

"Do you imagine that I can sleep after what you have told me?" I protested. "To know that you are down here, in turmoil – I can find no peace after that."

Holmes sighed. "I should not have mentioned it. Now we shall both watch night turn to day. Really, my dear fellow, you worry needlessly. I shall be right again soon enough."

"Until you are, I cannot return to Surrey."

"You must. Duty demands it."

"Then come with me."

He shook his head. "The offer is kind but misguided. When you speak of wooded towpaths and trim-kept riverside villas with your customary enthusiasm, I must confess that the attraction quite escapes me. I place my faith in the healing properties of routine and familiar surroundings. No, I am quite comfortable here, as I am sure you would be in your own bed rather than on the sofa."

I took it that he regarded our conversation at an end, for he had settled himself in his chair and his gaze was directed at the volume that lay open on his knee. Long experience had taught me that if Holmes had decided that that was an end of the matter, then no prompting on my part was liable to draw him out. Under such circumstances, there was little to be gained in remaining, especially as I had been effectively dismissed from the room. It was obvious to me that he was desirous of his own company, the equal of my desire to know more of his condition.

In a battle of wills, Holmes's was always destined to be the stronger. I gave up the struggle. At the door, however, I paused and looked back.

"Why were you singing?"

Holmes spared me a look of amused languor. "I had the misfortune to break a string on my violin some nights ago and have yet to purchase a replacement. Until then, when the mood takes me, and the night is too quiet, I must shift for myself as best I can. You will make nothing sinister of that, I hope. Good night, Watson, and, I trust, pleasant dreams."

Continued in Chapter Three

[1] Written in 1866 by William Borlase. The Cornish language was the subject of considerable scholarly interest in the 19th century, and saw a revival in the 20th century.