Mrs. Watson was, as a general rule, the most long-suffering of women.
Even a saint is said to have limits, however; and when the lady returned to find the maid cowering in the dining-room, it was with well-deserved wariness that she entered the apparent battle-field.
A great cloud of noxious smoke swirled past as she opened the door. When it cleared, she perceived both a twinned look of guilt and that the kitchen was, in short, the worst mess she had ever seen. Not with the art of cookery, but with a poisonous-looking assortment of chemicals. A sickly greenish-blue appeared to be the prevailing colour choice, having been spattered all over her husband's rolled-up shirtsleeves and dripped over the side of a saucepan upon the stove.
"He told me I could use the kitchen, I swear!" Mr. Holmes immediately declared, high-pitchedly frantic. Thin blaming fingers pointed at her husband, who merely snorted and then sent his wife that familiar pleading look no woman would have had the heart to resist.
She merely sighed and retreated, wondering if Mrs. Hudson would like company for the rest of the evening. If Mr. Holmes was wreaking havoc in her house and not his own, the logical deduction would be that he had pushed the poor landlady one too many times with his eccentric behaviour.