Eagerly, and yet still disbelieving, I pulled the door open and asked, “Mrs. Hudson? Is that you?”
There she stood.
Her only concession to the idea of “going out” had been to don a little hat. Other than that, she stood in her usual dress—a battered pink dressing gown and house slippers. Oh, how happy she looked, that I had chosen to answer my door in person. After all, she was holding on to a message designed to hurt my feelings. Its force might be lessened if delivered secondhand, mightn’t it? And certainly she would miss her chance to enjoy the moment. Eyes twinkling with delight and malice, she released her arrow.
“He’s dying.”
* * *
What a strange journey it was to Baker Street. Strangely… hopeful. Yes, Mrs. Hudson was of the opinion that Holmes had only hours left upon this world. She gleefully opined that he must be in terrible pain and wondered what her life would be like when she was at last free of her burdensome lodger. She was glad Holmes had summoned me. Not because I could help, of course, but because I would be able to see the fruits of a life misspent in that peculiar fashion Holmes and I had pioneered.
I believed her for not one second. Because—well, you’ve read something of my adventures—what could possibly kill Holmes? The idea had become preposterous to me. How many times had I seen him drink mercury, strychnine, cyanide, lye or bleach? I’d seen him clawed by a demon. Dropped from a great height. Impaled through both legs. Grogsson-punched. Burned by demonic flame. Why, I myself had shot him twice through the heart, and what was the result?
No, something else was occurring. I wasn’t sure what, but I was eager to discover it. Why, with an implicit invitation from Holmes and the accompaniment of Mrs. Hudson, I had every expectation of finally making it back into the mystically shrouded confines of 221B. By God, why hadn’t I thought of it before? The only times I had ever known Holmes’s magical defenses to be breached, the culprit had been in Hudson’s company. I should have lured her out before now and used her to effect an infiltration.
But never mind. I was there now. Oh, how my heart raced when we turned the corner on to Baker Street and I realized I could see my own familiar door! The moment the cab stopped, I sprang out with a cry of triumph and ran to the stoop. Mrs. Hudson seemed a bit taken aback by my eagerness to see my old friend die, but nevertheless came and opened the door and invited me in.
There were the stairs I knew so well. “Sqeee-er-kareeek!” went the third step from the top, as I bounded up. The door to my old rooms yielded as I turned the knob and the familiar smell of my old domicile greeted my nose.
Well…
Almost. It seems Holmes—who had never been fastidious as I in his personal habits—had left no small number of half-empty pots of soup about for a bit longer than he ought. If I was of a mind to quaff a cup of truly unappetizing, half-congealed broth, it seemed I would have no shortage of choices. But never mind that; I was home!
I think the sound of the opening door must have alerted Holmes, for from the depths of his room came an eager, “Watson, is that you?” followed by a plaintive and overly theatrical, “Ohhhh… aahhhhgh… fever! The fever!”
I was not three steps in and already I could tell Holmes was up to something. Squinting with skepticism, I stepped through the sitting room into the hallway, and looked into Holmes’s room. The first sign I was right lay just beneath his nose; Holmes had once again donned his “brilliant disguise” moustache—the grand two-footer he used whenever he was trying to pass himself off as a common Irish something-ing man. As was his habit whenever he adopted this ruse, he’d knocked three of his teeth out and placed them at the corner of his alchemical workstation, so he would not forget to put them back in later. I could see them sitting right there—in plain view—along with the bloodstained ink blotter, which was the tool he favored for such purpose. He had the gas light turned down very low so the tiniest little tongue of flame was all that lit his chamber. Nevertheless, I could see he had added a number of lumps to his face using modeling clay and had slicked himself with bacon grease to simulate great quantities of sweat.
Well…
I could smell he’d slicked himself with bacon grease to simulate great quantities of sweat.
I ventured a tentative, “Good morning, Warlock.”
“Oh! Ohhhh! Ah! Watson, is it you? I cannot see, because… the fever! Oh, the fever! And also these spots, and this sweat, and probably a sore throat or something. Plus, I am blabbering on about oysters, so you know my mind’s not right.”
“Oh? Blabbering on about oysters, are you?”
“Sure. Watch this: ‘Indeed, I cannot think why the entire bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. And yet, if anyone asks you to name the most seductive, alluring animal you could think of, how unlikely I find it that you would reply, “The oyster, by all means! By god, the lithe and sexy oyster!”’”
“Well, I can certainly state your mind
