My Dearest Holmes (13 page)

This account, however, has in no way been romanticised. It is the most painfully honest account that I have ever written; and it is my sincere hope that you, gentle reader of a century hence, will judge it kindly, and it will be seen to cast light rather than shadow upon the celebrated friendship between myself and Mr Sherlock Holmes.

It is always difficult--indeed, almost impossible--to set down an accurate record of the more painful events of one's life. The temptation is either to overdramatise in retrospect, or to record merely the bare bones of experience, avoiding the emotions involved.

When I wrote and published 'The Adventure of the Final Problem', and later 'The Adventure of the Empty House', I deliberately adopted the latter policy. But then I had no intention of presenting an accurate record; merely one that would satisfy the public. Even as it was, there were glaring loopholes which I had great difficulty in explaining.

Now that I come to tie up the loose ends, as it were, I will have to guide against overdoing the pathos. I hope that my future readers will forgive me; it has been a long time, in an inhospitable social climate.

John H. Watson, M.D
London, 1907

The Final Problem

--I--

W
E SAT AT the breakfast table, my wife and I, on the morning of the 23rd of April, 1891, discussing the morning's post. Mary had received a letter from her former employer, Mrs Cecil Forrester, which had engrossed her for a full quarter of an hour; much to my relief, for I had some private correspondence of my own to peruse.

'Well, James,' she said, when she had set down her letter with a smile, 'can I help you to more coffee?'

I looked at her in some alarm. 'James?' I said.

She gestured with the coffee pot towards my letter. 'You have been using your pseudonym again,' she said. 'Dr James Watson. I am apt at reading upside down; it is a useful trick, I would advise you to cultivate it.'

'Oh, that.' I gave a nervous laugh.

'Yes, that. I wish you would tell me when you do it. It could be very awkward. Supposing the gentleman came to call on you, and I in my innocence were to disillusion him?'

I felt myself blushing, and sighed to cover my embarrassment. 'I do not think that is very likely.'

'Ah, but you should guard against all eventualities. I wonder what the maid thought when she read the envelope?'

I smiled, and sipped at my coffee. 'He asked my name. I hardly knew him. I did not give any surname at all, I don't know how he found it out.'

'He probably read "Dr J. Watson" on your hatband, or something. Did you give him our address?'

'Of course not!'

'Then how . .?' she gestured towards the letter.

'He must have found it out...'I trailed off nervously, wondering how.

Mary leaned back in the chair and surveyed me anxiously.

'He is not asking you for money?'

'No, he is trying to arrange another meeting.'

'A gentleman?' She raised her eyebrows.

'Well, a soldier.'

'Ah, I see. Do be careful, John.'

'Don't worry, I will decline the invitation. There's no danger there.'

Mary picked up her own letter, and we smiled at one another.

We had an easy, affectionate relationship, free from the expectations, and hence from the pitfalls, usually incumbent upon husband and wife. We liked one another, had much in common, and could guarantee one another complete freedom and discreet cover for the pursuance of our own tastes in companionship.

My published account of our wooing, in 'The Sign of Four', was accurate in one respect; it was, as has I think been remarked, a rather rapid business. But why make it otherwise? We each had nothing to lose, and much to gain from a public alliance. Mary had the blessing of her employer Mrs Forrester, whose young son was in any case fast approaching school age and no longer in need of a governess. I had wanted a similar blessing from Mr Sherlock Holmes, of course; but this I absolutely failed to procure.

'I have an invitation also,' said Mary, carefully folding her correspondence and replacing it in the envelope. 'And if it's all the same to you, I would like to accept. Isobel has invited me to spend a week at Hastings, now that the school term has started, and Valentine is out of the way.'

'That is an unkind way to speak of such a sweet little boy.'

Mary narrowed her eyes at me, and poured herself a third cup of coffee. 'I should like to leave tomorrow,' was all she said.

Isobel, of course, was none other than Mrs Cecil Forrester who had some eighteen months ago made her deceased brother's house in Hastings her permanent residence. Mary was in the habit of visiting her there regularly, and naturally I never made any demur. I lit a cigarette and smiled graciously.

'You have my permission, Mrs Watson.'

Her reply was fortunately delayed by the appearance of the maid to clear away the breakfast things. In the interval it was, I believe, somewhat modified.

'I expect you will have a visit,' she said.

I tried to look nonplussed. 'I hope not, if I refuse this invitation.'

'You know perfectly well who I mean,' she said severely, pursing her lips. 'And I will tell you in advance that I thank him for his kind enquiries and send my regards.'

'How civilised, to be sure. But I do not expect to see him, Mary. I believe he is still in France.'

'If he knows I am away, he will turn up as sure as day follows night. John, do try to make him understand that I would never stand on my position--that I would always be pleased to see him. Good heavens, I owe him enough. And he knows--he
knows
he has no reason to resent me.'

I sighed. 'Ah, my dear,' I said, 'there is nothing I can say to make him change his attitude, because he would never admit to resentment in the first place. Sometimes I suspect that the circumstances make no difference to him. I have left him, and he sees no further than that. Even though he admitted with his own lips that he could give me no reason to stay. I had hoped it would be different, but there is nothing to be done.'

Mary sighed also and rose from the table. As she passed me she reached for my hand and clasped it sympathetically.

'I am so sorry, John,' she said. 'It seems that you have not done so well out of this arrangement as I have.'

'Oh, I do pretty well, on the whole,' I said nonchalantly, giving a reassuring squeeze to her hand. 'After all, I am a rising star in the medical profession, with my own establishment, an unusually harmonious marriage, and some extremely interesting and talented friends. I sometimes rub shoulders with the rich and famous, did you know?'

'Yes, so you keep telling me. But you have not yet produced one invitation to a first night.'

'Be patient, Mrs Watson, be patient.'

She laughed and left the room. I knew that she was going to pack.

My smile faded when she had gone, and I lit a second cigarette. Against hope, I wondered whether I might indeed expect a visit from Sherlock Holmes. I had received two notes from him over the last three months, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered that his stay in France was likely to be a long one; though he did not tell me more than what I had read for myself in the newspapers, namely that he had been engaged by the French government upon a matter of supreme importance.

Still, he had not forgotten me. He had written, twice. He wanted me to know where he was, what he was doing.

In the early days of my marriage, several times I had tried to invite him to dinner. Only once had I succeeded, and the occasion had not been a success. He was very cordial to Mary, a civilised guest in every way; but when left alone with me at the dinner table, he fell into a sulk and refused to relax. I see now that it was insensitive of me to attempt to patronise him with these invitations, and I can understand his rejection of them. Knowing as I did the insecurity that lay behind the precise, logical facade, it was unfair of me to flaunt my new security. Knowing as he did the real reasons for my flight into marriage, it was unfair of him to be so resentful.

And yet the passage of three years had not made any difference to his attitude. He would visit me, as Mary said, uninvited and at odd hours, either when she was from home, or when the hour was so late that he knew she had in all probability retired to bed. He would smoke my tobacco, make comments upon my appearance and amuse himself by deducing how I had spent my day, whether I had had any other visitors lately, the state of my health, etc. He would then ask casually whether 'Mrs Watson' were in, and upon receiving the expected reply, would invariably request that I abandon my practice for the next few days and accompany him upon whichever investigation was currently in hand.

I had, as I have mentioned elsewhere, an 'accommodating neighbour' in Dr Anstruther, who could usually be prevailed upon to cover for me on these occasions; but I think that I would have followed Holmes at a moment's notice, even if it had meant losing my practice altogether. Time and marriage had not altered my feelings for him; and I, grasping at straws, was pleased to read in his minute observations of me, his constant reminders that he 'knew my habits', the confidence and alacrity with which he summoned me from my home and work, and even in his unreasonable jealousy of poor Mary, a sign of that affection for me which he had never allowed himself to express.

Sometimes, if he knew that Mary were at home, he would summon me by telegram to his side. I always went, however inconvenient the time. Mary understood.

I dropped in at Baker Street a few times, uninvited. He was pleased to see me, I think, but it was painful for both of us to find ourselves alone together on the old shared territory; and he could never resist rubbing salt in the wound by remarking how wedlock suited me, how much weight I had put on, how thriving was my appearance, and so on.

As time passed, we saw one another less and less frequently. He engrossed himself in his work; since my published accounts of his cases had made him well known, he was much sought after. I knew that his cocaine habit had an increased hold over him, and that there was nothing I could do or say to dissuade him from it. At the conclusion of the Sholto affair, I had made a rather tasteless remark to the effect that I had done better out of the case than he, since I had gained a wife, and he not even the proper recognition for all his work, as the credit was likely to go to Athelney Jones.

'There still remains the cocaine bottle,' was all that Holmes had said.

I understand now what I could not then perceive, that he used the drug to deaden the turmoil within him, and that my marriage increased that turmoil. But my instinct at the time was one of self-preservation, and since my love for him made life at Baker Street a torment to me, I grasped the lucky chance that had come my way, and left him to the tender mercies of the drug.

I was startled out of my reverie by the entrance of the maid announcing that the first patient of the day had arrived. I had not even heard the doorbell. Hastily I removed my dressing gown, donned my frock-coat, and made my way to my consulting room. For the next few hours at least, I must put Sherlock Holmes out of my mind.

∗ ∗ ∗

'Well, here is the train already,' said Mary as we approached the platform. 'I might as well get on and find myself a good seat. You don't have to wait.'

'I would like to wave you off,'I said.

I missed her when she was away, and it always surprised me. Sometimes I wondered whether she missed me when I disappeared in answer to a summons from Holmes. If she did, she never showed it.

We approached the ladies' carriage, and she was pleased to find it uncrowded.

'I shall probably travel back on the Sunday,' she said. 'It will be quieter. Unless you hear otherwise, you may expect me in time for dinner.'

I nodded. 'Do give my regards to Mrs Forrester. I hope you find her well.'

'So do I. Do you know, it has been three months ... a long time. I feel unaccountably nervous.'

I laughed. Nervousness was not a quality that I could ever associate with Mary. 'Will there ... be other guests?'

'Not at first, I hope. But if I should encounter Anne D'Arcy, I will be sure to remember you to her.'

'Please do.' I was aware that a mutual wariness existed between my wife and Miss D'Arcy, and that Mrs Forrester was the cause of it; but I never enquired too deeply into the complications of their circle. To be honest, even after three years of mutual domesticity, I found Mary's private life somewhat disturbing to contemplate; which was unreasonable in me, as she was perfectly sanguine about mine.

Mary boarded the train, and I assisted her with her portmanteaux. She settled herself at a window seat, and we continued our conversation through the open window.

'Anyway, John, James, or whatever you call yourself, be sure to keep well, and be discreet, there's a good boy.'

'I am always discreet,' I said, somewhat huffily.

'My dear husband, you are not. But far be it from me to lecture you. Just don't shock the servants; and if you should by any chance be whisked away, do just pause to send me a wire. If I return to an empty house and find that I could have prolonged my visit, I shall be most annoyed.'