Watson had lain Holmes back on the sofa, taking his pulse (normal), checking his breathing (even and regular), and testing him for responsiveness (none). Regardless of the natural pulse and breathing rates, Holmes looked, for all of Watson's medical expertise, to be slipping into a comatose state.
Desperate to wake his friend, Watson employed a technique that he had learned during his army training. He rubbed his knuckles roughly across Holmes' sternum, hoping that the definite pain it would cause would wake Holmes before he slipped away too deeply.
To Watson's relief, it did work, and Holmes cried out in protest, trying to push Watson's hand away from his chest.
"Holmes," Watson said. "Are you with me? Say something, dear boy."
"Ohh…wharr…" Holmes' speech was garbled and he blinked around confused.
Watson carefully checked Holmes for signs of wellness. "Pupils look all right…pulse rate has increased…" Watson verbally catalogued the procedure before speaking to Holmes directly again. "Holmes, how are you feeling?"
Holmes sighed and struggled to right himself on the sofa. A hand from Watson halted his endeavor. "I am tired," came the reply. "My head hurts."
Watson ran a hand through his hair, absent-mindedly. "Goodness, Holmes, you gave me such a fright," he whispered. "Perhaps we did too much for your fallow legs to handle. Perhaps you we just overwrought…" This didn't seem at all plausible to Watson. Persons just did not slip into comas because of fatigue. However, it was the best solution he could think of at the moment.
"I'm tired," Holmes repeated.
"Let's get you up to bed," Watson agreed. "But no more walking today. You'll let someone carry you up the stairs."
Holmes nodded, listlessly.
/
Once he was lying in bed, Holmes fell asleep almost immediately. Watson was concerned, but the former detective responded well to physical stimuli this time, and Watson decided to allow him to rest.
With the plan to look in on Holmes periodically, Watson went downstairs into his study. Again he was back at his books on brain trauma, which had been read at least twice, bookmarked and stained with various types of tea from late night reading. He thumbed through his bookmarks trying to find a cross-reference on spontaneous comatose states following brain injury. He found a few things of interest over the next couple of hours, writing in detail the comparison between the literature and his new findings on Holmes' case.
He neglected to remember his intentions of checking on Holmes, and lost track of time without meaning to. Unfortunately, Holmes had found new methods to get himself into harm's way while Watson was preoccupied.
/
Holmes woke up in his bed. He felt hungry and so he looked to his table. Normally when he woke up there was a muffin or some toast sitting there, but this time there was nothing but an empty saucer. He considered calling for the house girl, but remembered that his cast was gone and that he could walk.
He rolled over and ended up tumbling out of bed. Slowly he used the bed to lever himself to his feet. His legs felt wobbly under the weight of his body. Holmes managed to get himself out of the room by holding onto the furniture and walls.
After going through the next room, he found the door to the staircase. He had never gone down a flight of stairs on his own, but he had seen Watson and Mary do it. He grasped the railing, not knowing how difficult this task might be. One foot reached out toward a lower step and the resulting change in height nearly threw him down the rest of the way. But, he held on to the wooden rails and caught himself, his legs falling out from beneath him causing him to land on his backside.
He decided that it would be best to go down them while sitting, instead of standing. So, one at a time, he scooted his way down to the first floor of the house. Once safely at the bottom of the staircase, he was faced with a dark wooden door, which he cautiously approached. Feeling a little steadier on his feet, Holmes opened the door (the ability to do this task had remained intact) and felt the brightness of outside all around him.
Throwing a hand up over his face, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember being outside in the sun like this before. He knew, he knew that he had been outside before. There were flashes of walking, running, sitting, and talking outside, but he couldn't remember it ever being quite so bright and blinding. He opened his eyes but kept his hand up to block out some of the brightness. The sun wasn't even out, he realized. There were just extremely bright, gray clouds.
There were more stairs.
Something, some feeling made him reluctant to sit down and crawl down the steps like he had inside the house. It was similar to the feeling, but not as bad. There weren't as many steps either, so he decided that he could handle them.
Holmes carefully put one foot after the other down the granite stoop. A carriage rolled by and he smelled the horses and had a thought about where they had been. There was grass growing up all alongside the small staircase and a small statue of a man in stone. He spotted an animal from his picture book and recognized its name. "Bird," he whispered to himself as the little creature perched on the ground and stared up at him.
Now he was on the flat ground and he could see a lot of activity. There were people, carriages, horses, birds, and other houses all around. Across the street there was a store with a picture of bread painted on a sign. That's what he wanted. So, he began to walk toward the store.
Suddenly there was shouting, and a shrill noise from a horse. His headache came back with great cruelty and his vision darkened almost instantly. He felt himself begin to sway on his unsteady legs. All the noise around him was muted as if cotton had been stuffed in his ears. He felt his fingertips and feet tingle uncomfortably.
Holmes fainted in the middle of the busy street.