Sherlock Holmes. That is his name. I never knew it until today, nor did I ever expect to see him again, but providence (or the Devil) seems to have a cruel sense of irony. It must be five years now since that evil weekend that I strayed from London and infiltrated a university for the sake of anonymous, unnatural fornication. After all this time, after my service in India and Afghanistan, after my wound and my illness, and after these listless and lonely weeks spent in London, my past finally comes back to shatter my complacence.
I should have had a premonition of it when I ran into Stamford at the Criterion. He was a dresser under me at Bart's, around the same time as my encounter with Holmes. Yet who would ever think that two men from such disparate parts of my life would come to meet eventually, or that I should happen upon those same two men on the same fateful day?
Over lunch at the Holborn, Stamford had suggested Holmes to me as someone with whom I might share affordable lodgings, and I had no reason of course to recognise the name. Stamford described the man's eccentric character and his puzzling studies as we made our way to the hospital, but he had never spoken of his appearance. I don't suppose I should have recognised Holmes by physical description, anyway, not after five years. So it came as a shock to me to suddenly see him there, flesh and blood, looking scarcely older than he had at our previous meeting.
Stamford brought me down to the chemical laboratory where the fellow was working. From the view of his back, he looked to me like any diligent student bent over his retorts, test-tubes, and Bunsen lamps. So far, nothing disturbing about this Sherlock Holmes.
As he heard our approach, however, he turned around to us, and now I caught my breath. There was no mistaking those grey eyes, that angular face, and those stained hands--he was the same student I had encountered in a different laboratory five years ago. I felt frozen and guilty, as if that episode in the closet had occurred only yesterday.
Sherlock Holmes did not really see me at first, his attention focused solely upon the results of his chemical experiment. He sprang up from his seat and came toward Stamford, wielding a test-tube in his hand. "I've found it! I've found it!" he cried out with a boyish delight. "I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else."
Raising a restraining hand, Stamford stopped him from continuing with his excited announcement. "Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he introduced us.
Now Holmes took a good look at me, glancing at me from head to toe, and by the change in his eyes, I saw that he recognised me too. He did not look as horrified as I felt.
He extended his hand to me. "How--" But no, "how do you do" was too cool a greeting for someone he knew intimately already. I could see the thought in his smile. "How are you?" he said instead. He shook my hand and watched my face for my reaction. "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."
I was taken aback. "How on earth did you know that?" A horrifying idea struck me that he had followed me from his university back to London, that he had somehow been following me ever since.
"Never mind," he said, chuckling softly. Holmes pointed out his test-tube again. "The question now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?"
I wrenched my mind onto the subject of his experiment, searching for merely conversational words to dispel my anxiety and distress. I shrugged. "It is interesting, chemically, no doubt, but practically--"
He seemed put out, and insisted that I share his enthusiasm. "Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over here now!" He seized me by the coat-sleeve and drew me over to the table at which he had been working, whereupon he put away his test-tube into a nearby rack and reached for a bodkin. "Let us have some fresh blood."
At that remark, Stamford smiled and winked at me, as if to comment upon the difficulty in diverting Holmes, when once he had launched upon a subject that stimulated him. Stamford watched us with amusement, little knowing that my discomfort did not lie with Holmes's monopoly on the conversation.
Holmes pricked one of his fingers and mixed a drop of the resulting blood into a litre of water. He then added various ingredients to the solution, all the while talking incessantly about his remarkable test for haemoglobin. The result was an instantaneous colour change, and the precipitation of a brownish dust to the bottom of the glass jar.
"Ha! ha!" He clapped with renewed delight at his success. "What do you think of that?"
I acknowledged that it was indeed a very delicate test.
He went on again about the exquisite beauty of the test and its superiority to both the guaiacum test and the method of detecting blood corpuscles under a microscope. He spoke of criminal cases which would rely on such a blood test to either confirm or rule out the origin of suspicious stains. The garrulous flow of his words left me flustered.
Stamford finally interrupted him with a laugh. "You seem to be a walking calendar of crime. You might start a paper on those lines. Call it 'Police News of the Past.'"
"Very interesting reading it might be made, too." Holmes finally remembered his pricked finger and placed a small piece of plaster over it, remarking that he must take care, for he dabbled in poisons a good deal.
Stamford winked at me again, and Holmes held out his hand to show the many stains and pieces of plaster which covered it. I had a memory of both his slender hands, in not quite so marred a condition, touching me long ago with a strength and daring that had surprised me and sent shivers through me in that dark closet. Indeed, the thought had sent shivers through me for quite a few nights afterward, alone in my bed.
As blissfully ignorant as ever, Stamford changed the subject from crime. "We came here on business," he said, sitting on a stool and pushing another one toward me with his foot. "My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together."
I seriously considered retracting my interest in the lodgings then, but could see no way to explain it to Stamford, especially since I had been previously so insistent that I did not mind the eccentric traits that he had described to me since lunch.
For his part, Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing rooms with me. "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street which would suit us down to the ground." He presumed to know what would suit me, though he hardly knew me at all. He asked, "You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"
I determined to be friendly and positive while Stamford sat smiling upon us, for I might always change my mind afterward and have a word with Holmes in private. "I always smoke 'ship's' myself," I answered.
"That's good enough." He gestured toward the table. "I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?"
"By no means."
He smiled at my easygoing attitude and rambled on happily. "Let me see--what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone and I'll soon be all right. What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together."
Oh, we knew the worst of one another all right. The very worst of depravity and lust. I laughed to shake off my apprehension and adopted his own casual tone. "I keep a bull pup, and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."
He smiled and nearly reached to touch my arm I think, before he remembered Stamford sitting there with us. He inquisitively tilted his head at me. "Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?"
"It depends on the player," I replied with a shrug. "A well-played violin is a treat for the gods--a badly played one--"
He laughed merrily. "Oh, that's all right." His grey eyes met mine warmly. "I think we may consider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you."
I turned away from his glance, regretting that I had responded in kind to his flirtatious, teasing manner. Perhaps it was not good to be so near to kissing him again. "When shall we see them?" I murmured without interest.
Holmes noticed the change in me and rose from his stool. "Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go together and settle everything." He reached for my hand.
"All right--noon exactly." I shook his hand with formality and turned quickly to go.
Stamford called out good-bye to Holmes, then he followed me hurriedly out the door. He fell in step with me and insisted on walking with me to my hotel. He asked why I seemed sullen and quiet now. "Is something wrong? You two seemed to hit it off rather well, I thought. A real connexion."
I tried to dismiss his inquiry. "It's nothing. I--I was just thinking."
"About what?"
I turned to Stamford and said the first thing that came to me, though the point did vaguely disturb me. "How the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?"
Stamford nodded with understanding and smiled enigmatically. "That's just his little peculiarity. A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out."
"Oh! a mystery is it?" I tried to look piqued with only an innocent interest. Stamford knew, after all, that I liked to read mystery novels. I told him that I wanted to make a study of this unique fellow to whom he had introduced me.
Stamford chuckled. "You must study him, then. You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him." Checking his watch, he realised that he had expended too much time in my company, and he bade me good-bye as he hurried off to keep an appointment.
Once I was free of him, I paused to mull over Stamford's remarks about Holmes. The hairs upon the back of my neck began to tingle. Heaven help me if the man were some kind of spy or blackmailer, following people around and learning their secrets. Worse yet, participating in my own despicable secret.
I kept looking around me in the street, yet saw no one like him anywhere. My nerves being quite unsettled, I hurried back to my hotel and have stayed here brooding in my room all day. Is this Sherlock Holmes someone I can trust, or is he a danger I would do best to avoid?
I went to meet Sherlock Holmes at the laboratory again, though an hour earlier than the time that we had agreed on the day before. I had resolved to tell him that I did not want to share the rooms after all, and to ask him for discretion's sake to not mention our sordid history to anyone.
I found him once more alone, working on some chemical analysis. I wondered if Holmes ever left the laboratory, or even lived here. He glanced towards me when I entered and gestured for me to take a stool, before he turned back to his work.
"I had not expected you so early, Doctor!" he remarked cheerfully. "You'll have to excuse me while I finish this one little thing, but then I promise I shall be entirely at your disposal. In fact, why don't we stop somewhere for lunch before we stroll over to Baker Street? Was it the Holborn at which you ate yesterday?"
He disconcerted me and revived the paranoid feeling that he had somehow followed me, which of course he could not have done.
Seeing my anxious expression, he lied politely. "Stamford told me." I was not convinced for a moment. He shrugged, "If you would like to dine somewhere else, naturally that would be all right with me."
"Listen, Holmes, I need to talk to you. I've changed my mind about the rooms."
He did not reply immediately, being engrossed in the resolution of his experiment. When it was complete, Holmes gingerly set the glass instruments aside and wiped his hands on a towel. "Very well," he said, "let us talk, Doctor." He turned his stool toward mine and folded his hands. "Though I must warn you, I think you are making a mistake."
"A mistake?"
"Leaving aside for the moment the fact that we have known each other in the past--which I actually believe might help us rather than harm us--the simple truth is that I desperately need a room-mate, and you also desperately need a change of accommodations."
"How do you know that?" I demanded. He was as frustrating as ever.
"One cannot afford residence at a hotel forever, not on a wound pension. If you won't admit to that, Doctor, then have pity on me at least. I shall never be able to afford these rooms without someone, and I happen to know that the suite will be let to another if I am not swift enough." He took my hand. "At least help me forestall that eventuality by seeing the rooms with me today, as we agreed yesterday."
I relented, as it seemed to mean so much to him. "I will see them, though I cannot promise you more than that."
"Of course, Doctor." He rose from his stool. "Come, let me treat you to lunch, to say thank you."
I hesitated.
"We'll find a private booth to talk," he said. His eyes could be very direct and powerful at times, and I could not resist them for long.
We went to lunch, and after our meals were set before us, we began to talk in earnest.
"So you have come up to London," I said.
He nodded. "Many people do."
"Four millions of people do. London has always been that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are inevitably drained."
Holmes smiled at my colourful phrase. "An apt way to put it, Doctor." He toyed with his food pensively, shaking his head. "Still, five years. I had not thought I should see you again after so long a time."
"Nor did I."
He shrugged. "Not knowing each other's names, we might have easily continued to miss each other among four millions of people. I remembered you were in medicine, of course, and I sometimes thought it likely that you had been practicing at Bart's. Even so, as I did not see you around, you obviously had already taken your degree and gone away, probably to a private practice somewhere."
"I had not. I was in the army."
"So I deduced from your wounded shoulder," he replied matter-of-factly.
How could my wounded shoulder alone speak such volumes? Holmes eerily seemed to know everything about me. Stamford had also seen my wound, yet he still had needed me to relate my full adventures to him before he knew where I had been. How did Holmes know that I had entered the army, that I had served in Afghanistan? How, indeed, had he known all those facts that he had rattled off about me five years ago when we first met? My being from another university, my being in medicine--it could not all have been from my black gown. My old uneasiness and bewilderment were returning in full force, for I did not really believe in clairvoyance.
"What have you been doing these five years?" I asked him, hoping that Holmes would reveal something definite about himself. Nevertheless, he remained rather vague.
"Well, I stayed a little longer at the university, but I did not take a degree, as my particular studies have been so unusual. I have lived in London since then, with rooms in Montague Street, and I have occupied my time with my profession and some of my independent researches. Lately, as Stamford has probably told you, I have taken some useful lectures and have made use of the hospital's excellent laboratories, for I have no adequate set-up in my current rooms. I hope to remedy that matter soon by obtaining this suite in Baker Street. There is sufficient space there for a little laboratory of my own."
I naturally wanted to know his profession, and started to ask him, but he anticipated me and became evasive.
"My profession is a private little business that you would be bored to hear of, no doubt."
His avoidance aroused my suspicions. Why should he not want me to know what he did, especially if he wished me to share rooms with him and have me put up with whatever his daily routine might be?
Holmes cleared his throat and firmly focused the conversation on the rooms in Baker Street. He explained that his income was variable, and that he could only guarantee having a modest amount of rent every month, which was why he needed a partner with a more stable income in order to meet the price of these rooms. This seemed reasonable enough, and if he were indeed a spy or blackmailer, he could not be making much money at it. Yet.
I tried to ask again what his profession was, prepared to insist on the point if I had to, but Holmes interrupted by asking me my first name. It caught me off guard, and he smiled wryly at his bluntness. "I am sorry for being so forward, Doctor, but Stamford did not mention it the other day, and I hate to feel that you have an advantage over me. Especially considering... our prior intimacy."
"John," I answered awkwardly. "It's John."
"Thank you, Doctor. The name suits you."
There was a pause, and the food felt dry in my throat, so I sipped my drink and tried to ignore the rising hairs on the back of my neck. Despite everything, I had a sudden maddening desire for him then. I wanted to throw him down in that booth and have him again, in public. I wanted to hear him moan my name "John" in that voice of his, to feel his nimble fingers sliding down my spine. And what then? Would I whisper back to him "Sherlock", not caring if he were a blackmailer or not?
Holmes noticed my tension and leaned near to me, speaking in low voice. "Watson, I... I do remember everything of that day too. It is a pleasant memory. There were times I thought about seeking you out. Making inquiries, narrowing down your university, and paying you a reciprocal visit." Then he sat back and chuckled quietly. "It was a test, in a way. A test of my resolve."
I watched the pensive look in his eyes.
He folded his hands together. "You'll agree that much has changed for both of us in the intervening years. I am sure that we are each capable of letting what is past remain in the past. Do not worry that I have designs upon you, Doctor, nor that I would wish to expose you to your friends. I am equally at risk on that point, as you know."
In this way he tried to convince me that all would be well, should I agree to split the rent with him. I was not sure whether I trusted him yet, but I was willing to listen. Indeed, as Holmes had already pointed out, my impoverished pocketbook necessitated that I listen.
Pushing aside his plate, he took out an old pipe and a pouch of tobacco from his pocket. "Care for some?" he offered. I accepted, and he lit both our pipes with his match. Then he paid for our lunch and walked with me over to Baker Street.
The rooms were quite agreeable and fully furnished, with large windows looking onto the street below. Holmes spoke of clearing out one corner of the sitting-room and moving in a deal-top table for his planned laboratory. I walked into one of the bedrooms and gazed out its window for a while, thinking. After my time alone, I returned to the sitting-room and asked Holmes what the rent would be for the apartments. He told me, and added that this price included meals and the use of the landlady's servants. I finally agreed, and we immediately made the necessary arrangements with Mrs. Hudson.
Thus I have moved into 221B Baker Street this very evening, and have enjoyed my first dinner prepared by the gracious landlady. It is quiet here, and I only await Holmes to bring over his own belongings tomorrow morning. We shall see how this arrangement works out between us, and should we part, I hopefully will have amassed enough savings by then to be able to afford similar lodgings elsewhere. Who knows? I may even return to work in a practice or hospital, when I am feeling more myself. I shall not be dependent upon him for long.