My Dear Watson (31 page)

Bright and warm, a fire still burning, smoke in the air as if someone had just left. Holmes went straight to Milverton’s tall safe, still pulling Watson with him. He passed one hand over the safe as the other roamed up Watson’s arm and grasped his neck in excitement. Regardless of the way he was being squeezed, Watson inspected their escape route and noticed it was unlocked. Pointing this out to Holmes, he got the thrill of his life: Holmes’s lips wet against his ear: “I don’t like it,” he said about the door being curiously unlocked, unbolted. “I can’t quite make it out. Anyhow we have no time to lose.” But he spared the barest second to kiss Watson’s face, the tiny space of skin between his ear and the mask. And Watson asked him if he could do anything? Because of course he would do anything in the world.

He was not required, however, to do anything but stand watch. As he waited, the atmosphere around Holmes finally got to him, and Holmes’s exhilaration infected Watson’s brain as well: “My first feeling of fear had passed away, and I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers.” A terrible influence, Sherlock Holmes, like a virus with no cure. “Far from feeling guilty,” Watson wrote, “I rejoiced and exulted in our dangers.”

Watson stood guard and watched Holmes with the sort of admiration he could only dream of deserving. For half an hour Holmes worked quietly to open the safe, a trick he had practiced before then, for interest’s sake. And yet as soon as he had it open and had a parcel of letters in his hand, Holmes heard a sound approaching the room. He closed back up the safe (not perfectly though), tucked himself in the curtains, and gestured for Watson to do the same. Milverton entered moments later, using his very modern electric light to see, pacing and smoking like an agitated man. Watson and Holmes observed the back of his head from a slit in the curtains. Holmes had his silent, spidery hands all over Watson in that precarious situation. He grasped his fingers to reassure him, held their shoulders tight together, pressed his lips to Watson’s face for a long interval. It was less like a kiss and more like being branded. This state Holmes was in was quite unique. He had never so forcefully broken the rules before, and he was in an ecstasy of rebellion.

But then a woman entered. Watson saw how beautiful and resolute she was, how vengeful. And even Holmes would later admit admiration for her. Next to Irene Adler, she was an exquisite soul only accidently placed into a female body, for she had the flint and daring of a man, and had them in greater quantity than most men you will find in the street.

The woman revealed her face. She had come to Milverton under false pretenses to avenge her husband, who had broken his heart when he read some letters that were never meant for his eyes. She was righteous and resolute in her purpose. The lady told Milverton that he would ruin no more lives, and she shot him to death before fleeing into the night.

Watson insists, to me, to this very day, that there was never a thing they could have done to save Milverton. The woman was too quick, the situation so unexpected, but still he made a move to leap out, my man of action. He wrote: “As the woman poured bullet after bullet into Milverton’s shrinking body I was about to spring out, when I felt Holmes’s cold, strong grasp upon my wrist. I understood the whole argument of that firm, restraining grip—that it was no affair of ours; that justice had overtaken a villain.” When Sherlock Holmes broke the law, it did not heal afterwards.

Holmes kept his icy head all the while. As soon as the assassin left, he locked the door to the rest of the household, dumped the safe’s evil contents into the fire, and led the way to their escape. Watson was almost caught as he flung himself over the garden wall, but once on the other side, Holmes picked him up and they ran until the trail behind them was silent. They had escaped. Holmes was dizzy with the thrill of it. Milverton dead, and himself escaped and free! He kissed Watson fiercely while their faces were still covered, then tore off and threw away their disguises. He rushed Watson back to Baker Street to take him to bed. Finally, finally, here it was! He could feel life rushing through him.

Lestrade came by the next morning. He walked in on a breakfast that was nearly numb with the buzzing thrill of the previous night. Watson let Holmes’s intoxicated mood get the better of him. He was having fun.

To think that just the night before he imagined not only Lestrade, but Gregson, MacDonald, and Hopkins storming in here to haul them both to prison. How ridiculous! Here was Lestrade, perfectly unsuspecting, asking Holmes to consult on a murder that he himself had witnessed. In fact, he probably thought that Holmes would really enjoy the case, not just because the murder was so brazen, but because the men seen fleeing from the scene (presumed to be the killers) had burned all of Milverton’s incriminating papers.

“It is probable that the criminals were men of good position, whose sole object was to prevent social exposure,” Lestrade said. He was not ignorant, after all those years, of just what bound Watson to Baker Street, or Holmes to Watson. He thought that Holmes might be able to understand the couple of men who were surely being blackmailed by Milverton together. He would understand them and bring them to justice.

Holmes pretended to be surprised by all this, not very well, but Watson was amused by how little Lestrade noticed it. This must be how Holmes felt all the time, knowing full well all the details of the crimes before his eyes, and marveling at how everyone else could miss the obvious. Lestrade described the man who was nearly caught as he scaled the wall around Milverton’s property. Holmes could not resist being smart:

“That’s rather vague. Why, it might be a description of Watson!”

He burst out laughing at Watson, and Lestrade, who was used to this sort of treatment by now, only tolerated it and tried to take the joke in good sport.

“It’s true,” he said smiling tolerantly. “It might be a description of Watson.”

Watson suppressed a chill that wanted to creep up his spine, and he made himself laugh along with the others. In the end, Holmes refused the case. Obviously.

“I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.” He looked Lestrade in the eyes as he made this excuse, and Lestrade nodded grimly. “I have made up my mind,” Holmes concluded. “My sympathies are with the criminals rather than with the victim.”

“I thought they might be,” said Lestrade fairly. You cannot expect a man to betray his own kind, after all.

Once the inspector left, the room lapsed into silence. Watson wondered if it was the gravity of death that weighed on Holmes’s forehead, but at last Holmes sprang up and led Watson outside, down Baker Street and along Oxford until he found the picture of the woman they had seen transform into a murderess. Watson was shocked to know her avenged husband’s identity (though he still will not tell me who it was), and Holmes’s eyes sparkled as he saw the knowledge spring brightly into Watson’s as well. He put a hushing finger over his lips and took Watson back home again.

They passed the rest of the winter quite happily, but certainly that could not last. Holmes would need to either escalate or relapse, because he lacked the ability to be still or content. I suppose he is like a shark in that respect; Holmes must move always or die.

1898: The Retired Colourman

I must ask that my irregular spelling be forgiven. There is more than distance separating England and America; Oscar Wilde once said that they were two peoples divided by a common language. Anyone spotting inconsistencies may attribute them to my dual citizenship and my uneven education which took place in both countries over many years and was never standardized.

Summer 1898 found Sherlock Holmes back in his usual mood, sort of despondent and sharp-edged, treating Watson like the furniture. Watson could not even pleasantly discuss the events of the day with him, everything had to be a production.

For example: a man had just left
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as Watson was returning. Watson thought he looked rather pathetic and futile. Holmes seized upon this.

“But is not all life pathetic and futile?” Holmes asked. “We reach. We grasp. And what is left in our hands at the end? A shadow. Or worse than a shadow—misery.”

“Is he one of your clients?” Watson asked brightly. He had learned at last not to indulge every one of Holmes’s moods, for the man would only take advantage of the attention. It is the same when a toddler is at a whiny bent, you’ll do yourself no favors to encourage them by reacting.

But Holmes knew how to prod his own bad tempers—he started by assuming Scotland Yard had sent this client along “just as medical men occasionally send their incurables to a quack.” Then it was all, “life is a ceaseless grind,” and so forth, until Watson asked Holmes what he was going to do about it. He planned to do nothing. He was just complaining to hear the sound of his own voice. He sent Watson out in his stead.

Watson was such a constant, comfortable creature that he did what he was told without feeling the slightest inconvenience. Even when he was giving his report to Holmes and getting picked at for the poetic way he had learned to talk since he took up the pen, he was not upset. He only stared at Holmes’s sharp eyes, “bright and keen as rapiers,” and forgave him for his foul little turn. This was not the slow sinking into the mire of depression, this was only the usual impatience of his temperament, and Watson withstood it firmly.

Holmes knew how to reign himself in too, however. There was only so long he could insult Watson before he would offend him, and Holmes had learned the limit. He told Watson that his research was insufficient, but he caught himself being unkind, and made room for Watson’s feelings.

“Don’t be hurt, my dear fellow. You know that I am quite impersonal. No one else would have done better,” he shrugged, offering the observation up as a consolation prize. He was better at saving Watson’s opinion of him now than he was in earlier years, but only barely. He had learned to lay it on quite a bit too thick.

“With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice. What about the girl at the post-office, or the wife of the green-grocer?” Holmes asked, starting to tease Watson, though it was against his best interests in an apology. “I can picture you whispering soft nothings with the young lady at the Blue Anchor, and receiving hard somethings in exchange.” He nudged Watson with the toe of his shoe until he could see Watson forgive him for being so short, and then he returned to criticizing him. “All this you have left undone.”

It turned out that Watson needn’t have bothered anyway, since Holmes had gotten the information he wanted on his own, and once again was only complaining to pass the time. As the case became more interesting, and another detective arrived trying to rival Holmes, he got into better spirits. The teasing of Watson continued when Holmes sent him on a false clue to take the client out of the way. He fooled Watson, sending him out to Little Purlington knowing that both he and client Amberley would be stuck there.

“I much fear, my dear Watson, that there is no return train tonight. I have unwittingly condemned you to the horrors of a country inn,” he lied. “However,” Holmes added rakishly over the telephone, “there is always Nature, Watson—Nature and Josiah Amberley—you can be in close commune with both.” Watson could hear him laughing even over the bad connection. He took it in stride, with the patience of his profession.

While they were gone, Holmes took up his recent side-hobby once more: burglary. He confessed it himself to Inspector MacKinnon, who was assigned to the case, “Burglary has always been an alternative profession had I cared to adopt it, and I have little doubt that I should have come to the front.” He was apprehended on his way out of the house by the other detective, a man named Barker, and after having a laugh together they decided to surprise Amberley with the question of where he had hidden the bodies. It is unwise to bring a lie to Sherlock Holmes and present it as the truth; this man’s wife did not run away with her lover. He was a cruel husband and a cold man, and he had murdered them both. The evidence bore it out.

Holmes was in a better mood at the end of this case, even tweaking MacKinnon a bit while letting him take all the credit. It was just like Watson remembered things, back before the drug, the Falls, back when things were easy. He often remembers things quite a bit rosier than they actually were, my dear husband, but he was right in thinking that this was one of Holmes’s better periods. He had his little ups and downs, and right then he was in an elevated place.

It wouldn’t last a month.

1898: The Dancing Men

I believe that one of the great sympathetic relationships of Holmes’s life was with a man he had never met. Something was so suggestive about Oscar Wilde’s life, almost as if it was the life that Holmes could have but never did live out himself. Seeing his name in the paper was, to Holmes, like seeing the name of an illegitimate brother; sure you did not share the same title nor the same fate, but you were, at least in part, the same blood. Wilde probably said it best in his only novel: “He felt that he had known them all, those strange, terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvelous and evil so full of subtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had been his own.” It was a question of influence, of conscious influence, and Sherlock Holmes felt a very strong kinship to this man, though the whole world thought them so different. Wilde was like a benevolent Moriarty; one of a few great man among a rabble of simpletons.

In 1898 there was published a long poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” by a prisoner identified only by his cell number: C.3.3. Holmes made it a habit to consume all information relating to crime or criminals, and he was not curious, like most everyone else, as to who the author really was. He might not have been an overly literary man, but he knew two similar fingerprints when he saw them. This was Wilde’s hand at work or he would eat his own hat. He pointed it out to Watson in the early spring of that year when he finally got around to reading the poem and sniffing out its source. He asked Watson if he could disagree about the origins.