There was a certain period of time whilst the new century was still in its infancy, when the capital was gripped by an atmosphere of stunned melancholy. Nation, Empire and populace tried to adapt to a world deprived of its revered monarch, now no longer looking down upon and protecting it. We all felt as if we had suffered a parental bereavement and only that long and bloody conflict in Southern Africa diverted us from our sense of loss and confusion.
When I say all were affected, I do so while making one qualified exception, that of my friend and colleague, Sherlock Holmes. Had our new head of state been announced as Attila the Hun, as opposed to King Edward VII, Holmes would have suffered the succession with similar indifference, for as long as he was continually fed on a diet of new and intriguing cases, these were his sole driving force and motivation. Without these he felt as if his intricately engineered mind would surely stagnate and destroy itself.
The fact that the past few months had seen Holmes plagued by the longest dearth of work he had experienced throughout our entire association, made his customary melancholy all the deeper and darker.
Deprived of the solace that his now conquered addiction to cocaine had once provided him with, Holmes’s frustrations became all the more obvious and disturbing. He had even added to the bullet holes already adorning our drawing room wall, a use I had never expected my old army revolver to be put to, and was causing both Mrs Hudson and myself great concern.
With a view to alleviating my friend’s condition, when not in attendance at my surgery, I tirelessly scanned all the morning and evening newspapers in the hope of catching Holmes’s attention with stories of unusual crime and mystery. Holmes’s reaction was to snatch each and every journal from my grasp, crush them into a ball and hurl them on to the fire.
‘Really Holmes!’ I protested on one such occasion. ‘Your recent behaviour has become most insufferable. I understand and sympathize with your frustration at not being gainfully employed, but it simply does not excuse your mistreatment of those around you. Indeed, you almost reduced Mrs Hudson to tears the other morning, simply for her insisting you eat your breakfast! Judging by your pale, gaunt features, it was advice with which I heartily concur.’
I was glaring angrily at my friend in anticipation of an aggressive response, but there was none. It was almost as if the fight, even the very life in him, was being slowly drained away. Attired in his purple robe, Holmes was seated in his favourite chair, legs crossed with his feet tucked under him, in a forlorn, meditative pose. His face, unshaven for three days, was impassive, and he merely nodded slowly without raising his eyes to look at me.
I was unable to contemplate my friend in such condition for another instant and decided to take myself for a refreshing walk. Despite my entreaties, Holmes would not be moved so I struck out, briskly, alone.
The climate and the time of year seemed to fit the prevailing mood perfectly. It was as dark and misty an evening as one would expect for late October, and the few remaining leaves were losing their battle to remain attached to the trees with which Baker Street was adorned. Thankfully, for the purposes of my constitutional, it was dry and relatively mild and each step that I took hardened my resolve to help Holmes in any way that I might.
I paused briefly outside Baker Street Metropolitan station, to see if any of the late editions held anything to assist me in my purpose, and there on the headline board were four words that I was certain would rekindle Holmes’s interest and might just save him from his despair.
Without waiting for my change, I snatched an edition from the startled vendor, and sprinted back to 221b, only narrowly avoiding collisions with the homeward-bound travellers.
To my consternation neither the clattering sound of my racing feet upon the stairs, nor the sight of this dramatic headline succeeded in stirring Holmes from his malaise. Crestfallen, but not defeated, I lit my pipe, sat by the fire and was determined to find something in the report that might have the desired effect.
My regular readers may recall a passing reference to several of our less successful cases during the narrative of
I resolved there and then to be at the doors of Cox & Co. as they opened the following morning, and to confront Holmes with my old notes, together with any further information with which the morning papers might have provided us.
I was somewhat delayed in the morning by Cox’s chaotic storage system and the vast number of notes in my chest that I had to sift through. I was astonished, therefore, to discover that Holmes was still to leave his bed when I arrived at Baker Street at a little after midday! At once I barged my way into his room, and pulled back his curtains. The room was flooded with bright daylight which highlighted the grey pallor of my ailing friend’s sunken face.
‘Holmes!’ I called, ‘I insist you rise at once and then join me for lunch. I shall simply not allow you to just fade away.’
Holmes slowly raised himself on his elbows and began rubbing his bloodshot eyes.
‘So you are going to save me from myself, once again, eh Watson?’ He asked wearily.
‘That is certainly my intention,’ I replied. ‘I was hoping that the opportunity of closing one of your old files would be of sufficient interest to rouse you from your melancholy. This morning’s papers and my own resurrected notes certainly seem to make that a possibility.’
‘May I see those now, please?’ Holmes asked somewhat sheepishly.
‘Not until you have taken some lunch,’ I insisted with mock indignation.
‘I fancy a shave would also not go amiss.’ He smiled, the first I had seen on his face in a long time.
He emerged from his room, clean-shaven and suited, just as Mrs Hudson arrived with our lunch tray.
‘So, Lazarus has risen at last,’ she remarked.
‘No less than I deserve, Mrs Hudson, I owe you a thousand apologies for my recent boorish behaviour. Now what lurks enticingly beneath those lids? I am absolutely ravenous!’ Holmes rubbed his hands together excitedly.
Holmes devoured his rack of lamb with great gusto; not until the last morsel had been consumed and Mrs Hudson had removed the tray did we settle into our chairs with our cognacs and cigars, to discuss the disappearance of James Phillimore.
I passed the newspapers to Holmes, but he declined these, though in a less dramatic manner than had been his custom of late.
‘No, no, Watson, I would much rather reacquaint myself with the case through your old notes than digest any new information the papers might contain.’
Therefore, I began to read from my notes instead.
‘There was a particularly stormy October morning when the equinoctial elements seemed to be throwing down the gauntlet against our civilized world of brick, though thankfully in vain, that will long live in my memory. The branches of the leafless trees were being bent backwards and forwards into unnatural contortions and the few brave passers-by were engaged in a constant battle to keep their coat collars up and their umbrellas pointed in the right direction.’
I paused when I observed Holmes showing signs of impatience and agitation. He was crossing, and recrossing his legs whilst drawing on his cigar as if it was a cigarette. Then he held up his hand as a gesture of remonstrance.
‘Watson, Watson! I beseech you to edit your narrative,’ he exclaimed.
‘I do not understand,’ I replied. ‘I have barely begun to read.’
‘Whilst I appreciate your undoubted skill with words, I am not one of your beguiled readers hanging on every one of them. To me your fine prose acts as nothing more than hindrance and obfuscation. They hinder the skilled detective from obtaining the relevant facts that will, eventually, lead us to a solution. Though they present a fine
