The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective

Twenty

FROM THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WALKER

It was two nights after the denouement of the Agra Treasure affair. Ihad dined with Mary, and we had talked at great length about our feelings and our possible future together. Of course, Ihad said nothing about my role in the life of Sherlock Holmes or even breathed the name of Professor James Moriarty. It pained me to begin our close relationship while still concealing those important elements of my existence, but Iknew that Icould never share those truths with her. However, the sheer joy of being able to be with this wonderful woman blotted out most of my concerns. After seeing her home, Icalled at The Butcher’s Arms, an inn on Marylebone High Street, for a brandy nightcap. Iassumed that Holmes would be waiting up at Baker Street, and Iwanted to savour a quiet drink on my own and enjoy the happiness Ifelt in loving and being loved by that darling girl.

As Isat in a private compartment, smoking a cigar, watching in quiet contentment the floating tendrils of smoke ease their way towards the ceiling, a rough-looking fellow with rosy cheeks and dark beady eyes put his head round the corner and grinned at me.

“Beggin’ your pardon, but it is Doctor John H. Watson whom I have the pleasure of addressin,’ ain’t it?”

“Why, yes,” I said, with some surprise.

“That’s good,” continued the fellow, sidling up to my table, “‘cause I got a personal note for you here.”

He pulled out a long cream envelope with my name scrawled on the front.

“I was told to pass this on to you, Doctor Watson.” He handed me the envelope. “My pleasure.” He grinned once more, exposing a row of irregular and yellowing teeth, raised an imaginary hat in a parting gesture, and disappeared from view.

A chill ran down my spine. I recognised the type of enveloped and the handwriting. What unnerved me was not the message from Moriarty, but the nature by which it had come to me. Until fifteen minutes earlier, I had no notion myself that I would be taking a drink at this particular inn — and yet one of the Professor’s minions had found me here. How closely was I being watched? Was there any privacy in my life?

With nervous fingers, I tore open the envelope and read the message within:

Dear me, Watson, I knew you had a romantic imagination—but this! It smacks to me of breaking your contract. That will never do. However, I am not an unreasonable man. I shall give this matter some thought and make certain enquiries. I shall contact you in due course. M.

So he knew. Without my telling him, he knew of my affections for Mary Morstan. There was nothing I could do without my actions being reported back to Moriarty. Some nervous instinct made me swing round in my seat, expecting to see the fellow there. I downed the brandy quickly and left, feeling far from the relaxed romantic fellow I had been a short time before.

As I walked back to my Baker Street lodgings, the full implications of Moriarty’s message sank in. “Certain enquiries” could mean only one thing. I cursed myself for ever entertaining the possibility of a happy future with Mary. Through my stupidity, I had drawn this innocent girl into the thrall of Moriarty’s web. However, despite my dark dismay at the way things were turning out, I knew that there was nothing I could do now but wait, hope and pray.

When I returned, Holmes was still up. He was sitting by the fire, poring over a thick volume that had arrived in the afternoon post. It was in French and pertained to the work of Alphonse Bertillon, a French criminologist who had developed a system for the identification of criminals which consisted of a series of anthropometrical measurements of the body, especially the bones. As I took a seat opposite him, he closed the book with a noisy thud.

“It is interesting, and Monsieur Bertillon has been most thorough in his cataloguing of criminal types, but overall I fear he is too prescriptive and makes no allowances for deviations and anomalies. This is a weakness which, in the end, will undermine his system.” He broke off and stared at me. It was clear to me that I had been unable to disguise my troubled emotions with a stoical expression.

“You understand what I refer to?” he said, holding up the book.

“Yes, yes, of course.”

He smiled a smile one might give to a naughty child who has just apologised for his misdemeanours. “I thought as much, but hoped against it.”

I frowned. “Hoped against what?”

“Romance. Love. Affections of the heart. Whatever trite description you wish to use. You have fallen under the spell of Miss Mary Morstan and are in the process of taking on the characteristics of a sentimental mooncalf.”

I was momentarily stunned by the cruelty of Holmes’ outburst.

“I can see it in your eyes, in your manner and in your voice,” he continued. “Saccharine emotions are eating away at your reason.”

“How dare you talk to me like that!” I cried, trembling with anger.

He responded with a wry, condescending smile.

Something snapped within me. I jumped up and grabbed Sherlock Holmes by the lapels of his dressing-gown and shook him.

“Whatever I do or do not feel for Miss Morstan, it is not a topic for you to sneer at, or about which to denigrate my feelings and emotions.”

Holmes was genuinely shocked by the vehemence of my attack. His features paled and he tried to pull away from me.

“I apologise, my dear Watson, unreservedly. I had no idea that you would be so sensitive upon the subject. Please forgive my light-hearted remarks.”

“Light-hearted? Your remarks were unfeeling and pompous and intended to wound,” I snapped, releasing my grip on him. I realised that my ill temper was only partly fuelled by Holmes’ comments. The untenable situation in which I found myself was causing frustrated anger to build up inside me.

“I may be thoughtless and I may at times be pompous,” said Holmes evenly, “but I never say things intended to wound you, my dear Watson. I hold you in too high a regard for that.”

“I apologise also. I behaved like a schoolyard bully,” I responded, sinking back in my chair.

“Let’s mend fences with a nightcap. Allow me.”

He poured us a brandy and soda apiece, and we clinked glasses, each of us bearing a wary smile.

“I have sublimated all such emotions as love in order to pursue my detective career, and I forget how powerful and overwhelming an emotion it can be. I assume that I was right and that you are in love with Miss Mary Morstan?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I feared as much. Now, Watson, before you grab me by the throat again, hear me out. The inevitable result of love is matrimony, which would in turn mean that I would lose a most companionable lodger, my investigating associate and the keeper of my casebook. I have never taken it upon myself to make friends. Indeed, our relationship fell out so easily that I cannot say I made any effort with you, either. It just came about naturally. And now you are going to up sticks and leave me for domestic bliss in the suburbs. Is it any wonder I said I feared as much?”

“Put like that...”

“If the truth be known, Watson, I do not really approve of love. It is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgement.”

“I trust my judgement may survive the ordeal.”

Holmes chuckled. “I fear it will.”

“But you pre-empt issues. Miss Morstan and I have only just started walking out. As yet she does not know the depth of my passion for her,” I lied. “And I have no notion how she will react when I pluck up the courage to tell her.”

“Ah, so I will have you around for a few months yet.”

I thought of Moriarty. “A few months at least.”

“Ah, well, that is some comfort.”

I looked across at my friend, his lean features dappled by the firelight. He looked content and at peace with himself. How I envied him.

“Have you never loved?” I found myself asking him.

“What is the definition of love, I wonder? A palpitating heart and the sense of total self-sacrifice to another party? If so, no, I don’t think I have. I loved my parents. And I loved the rough little terrier we had when I was a lad, but that’s not the sort of thing you refer to, is it? Romantic love: closeness, passion, sex.”

I was shocked by this base definition.

Sherlock Holmes read my expression and his eyes twinkled. “What? You don’t think sex is part of love?”

“It’s not that... but you use the word as though it were a commodity to be added to the list.”

“Well, to a person like me, it is. I tried sex once, as an experiment. I needed to know what it was like. The scientist in me overcame my reticence.” He shrugged his shoulders and extracted his pipe from his dressing-gown pocket. “It wasn’t for me. It encourages you to expose more of your inner feelings than is appropriate, to give too much of your own self away. I am too private a person to feel comfortable with that.”

“But sexual congress must be arrived at through a loving relationship.”

“I’m sorry to say, Watson, old chap, that I find that sentiment a nonsense. Ask the prostitutes down in the East End if they agree. It is a bodily function that is quite separate from the feelings of the heart. Man and woman can perform and enjoy this human activity, if it is to their taste, without any reparation to love.”

“That sentiment is crude and despicable.”

“Possibly, but true. As soon as I had experienced the full horrors of sexual intercourse, I determined to channel all my energies, subvert the sexual ones, into my work. How much more satisfying it is to realise that my mind is capable of governing my body and deterring any unwanted appetites.”

I stamped my drink down on the table by my chair, appalled at my companion’s assertions. “You spurn all the finer feelings of the human heart in this so-called aesthetic rejection of human love.”

“The words of a writer and a romanticist. There are thousands of poor wretches in this city of ours who do not have the luxury to indulge in these ‘finer feelings’, as you call them. They react to the animal instinct of procreation and satisfaction. Love is abstract and ethereal. A heady potion, no doubt, but give me cocaine every time.”

I rose, lost for words and more angry than I could express. I made my way to the door, but was halted by Holmes’ cry.

“Oh, Watson,” he said, rising from his chair, “do not take what I say to heart. My words are no reflection on the nobility of your feelings or the genuine nature of your affection. They are the thoughts of a very odd and repressed individual who is so entrenched in his views of the world that he often forgets the hurt he may administer by expressing them. You are the normal, hearty and well-adjusted fellow in this partnership; I am the cold, calculating... and damaged other half. Forgive me if I have upset you.”

I glared at that pale, cadaverous face with contempt.

“Goodnight” I said, closing the door with some force.

I slept little that night. My mind was a whirlpool of thoughts. At first I was angry with Holmes for the contemptuous way he had dismissed the importance and quality of love; and I was also angry with myself for being goaded by his icy observations. I should have acknowledged that such was the nature of this man that his ideas and beliefs were ingrained and had nothing to do with my particular circumstances, and I cursed myself for not realising this at the time. Of course, I was also plagued by worry regarding Moriarty’s hold on me. After surviving the hurdle of the Agra Treasure and its threat to keep Mary from me, I was aware that that problem was a mere bagatelle compared to the danger that he posed to our relationship. With a snap of his fingers he could, if he so wished, have Mary eliminated. And it was all my fault.

I tossed and turned for most of the night as my brain sought a solution to my dilemmas. The grey light of dawn was creeping into the room before exhaustion allowed a shallow sleep to overtake me, my problems still intact and apparently insurmountable.