Sherlock Holmes had been engaged in a particularly annoying (and painful) violin composition for the better part of the afternoon, an improvisation that was faintly reminiscent of rusty nails being raked across a wet window-pane and then driven into my skull.
Having only just finished a case last weekend, the world's only private consulting detective was completely disgruntled to find that Fate had apparently decided that single case was his ration for the week, and he subsequently fell into that irascible bad temper than invariably catapulted him into his blackest depressions.
The weather had taken a turn to rain the last three days, both imprisoning me indoors with a borderline-manic consulting detective and seeing fit to force the ever-present pain dormant in my body to an intense flare-up that put me in no better a temper than my companion.
When, after I evidently had unconsciously added a low gasp or exclamation to my silent grimacing as the throbbing ache flared into a sharp stabbing pain, the violin abruptly ceased its caterwauling and Holmes inquired snidely whether I wouldn't mind taking myself elsewhere if I was going to be "moaning and groaning like that all the evening," my already-stretched patience snapped. I snatched my hat and stick and strode (or rather limped) toward the door, intent on escaping the Bedlam for a few minutes, drizzle or no.
Stung by my friend's cold apathy to all but his own difficulties, my irritation dissipated somewhat when I saw the violin fall unheeded onto the table and his face suddenly twist in an expression of what any other man would admit to being remorse.
His nerves were in even worse shape than mine, I well knew, and therefore I swallowed my resentment and agreed when he timorously asked if I would mind company. He began discoursing eagerly on some opera he had seen advertised in the West End, prattling onward as we exited the flat about the singers, dates and times, and would I like to go with him, etc.
It was not his oblique method of apologising that finally dissolved my annoyance with him; but rather that, as we reached the pavement and started down Baker Street, I saw his eyes flit sharply from my uneven stride to the heavy dinner-time traffic. He then suddenly darted round me to walk on my right side rather than my left, between me and the street – all this without breaking stride or speech.
I smiled finally, for the first time in several hours. It was a mere detail – but there is nothing so telling of character as details, according to a certain wise gentleman I was strolling beside.