My Dearest Holmes Read online

  'My brother's instructions,' he said, as though he had never intended to digress from the subject, 'are that his rooms be left untouched. Exactly as they are. His belongings are not to be moved. I have arranged it all with Mrs Hudson. She will receive more than the usual rent, so she has no cause for complaint.'

  He watched my face. My amazement appeared to satisfy him. The hint of a smile played about his lips.

  'We agreed that Sherlock was an unconventional man,' he said.

  My mind was racing. What on earth was he saying? For what, for whom were the rooms to be kept? What possible purpose could it serve? Why, why had Holmes never spoken to me about this?

  'I don't understand.'

  'There is very little to understand, Dr Watson. It is no great mystery. Sherlock wanted me to see to it that his rooms were kept just as they are.'

  'But why, in heaven's name?'

  Mycroft shrugged. 'Just one of his whims, I suppose. Would you say that he was a whimsical man, Dr Watson?'

  I was silent for a while.

  'This is senseless,' I said at last.

  'Maybe. But it was his wish. I thought you ought to know. In case you found out from some other quarter and thought that I had neglected my duties as executor.'

  I clutched at the violin case in my lap.

  'You may take that, if you wish,' said Mycroft. 'He said you were to have anything you wanted.'

  I looked at him.

  'He said that he left the choice up to you. That you should be allowed to take anything you wanted to keep.'

  My gaze travelled about the room again. This time I noticed that although dust lay upon the papers, the surfaces, it was only a thin layer, a few day's accumulation; that the spirit flask on the sideboard was half full.

  'The bills will be paid,' said Mycroft, as my eyes rested upon the jack-knife.

  It was bizarre, incredible. I could not believe that no purpose lay behind it.

  'May I see the papers where he set down these instructions?'

  'I'm afraid not, Dr Watson.' Mycroft padded across from the window and came to sit opposite me again. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

  'Why not?' I asked.

  'Because they are confidential; they are addressed only to me, as his next of kin.'

  I met his gaze. Bitterness and impotence overwhelmed me. His next of kin. But you neither knew him nor cared for him. You never loved him as I did. The words died unspoken on my lips. I tasted their blood.

  The calm, watery gaze rested on me.

  'I am well aware,' said Mycroft softly, 'that you were his intimate friend. But that does not give you the right to see his will, I'm afraid. As his brother, it is my duty to see that his instructions are carried out to the letter. I understand that you find them surprising; but really, you have no choice but to take them at face value.'

  'But there must be some purpose behind them. I knew him better than you did. He never would have made such a stipulation out of mere sentimentality.'

  My voice rasped in my throat. An unpleasant expression stole into the pale grey eyes.

  'I would be very careful, Dr Watson, if I were you,' said Mycroft in soft, hissing tones, 'about making too much of your intimacy with Sherlock. Your habits are not unknown to me, nor are the circumstances of your accompanying my brother over to the Continent. Remember that he would not have had to place himself in danger were it not for you. I would not like to have to accuse you of adding slander to the other ills you brought upon him.'

  The sun darkened at the window. The silence between us expanded and filled the room.

  Mycroft rose and held out his plump white hand to me.

  'So good of you to come, Dr Watson. I thought it would be best to tell you of the arrangements, and I would be delighted for you to keep the violin.'

  Slowly, trembling, I rose and took his fingers briefly. My own were as cold as ice. I murmured something--I cannot remember what--and left the room, cradling the Stradivarius in my arms as though it were a child.

  Haltingly I descended the stairs. I found Mrs Hudson at the bottom.

  'Did Mr Mycroft Holmes explain it to you, sir? About the will?'

  'Yes,' I whispered.

  'And what do you think, Dr Watson? Don't you think it strange?'

  'Yes, very.'

  'But then, Mr Holmes was always very strange. I can't say that I like the idea, Dr Watson, but--well, there's the will, and there's the money. The money can't last forever, I suppose. Do you think'--her voice sank to a whisper and she looked furtively upwards--'do you think Mr Mycroft Holmes has some kind of plans for those rooms, sir? I mean, what good is it to anyone, if they just stand empty?'

  I shook my head. 'I don't know, Mrs Hudson. It's all very strange. But it's really none of my business, you see; Mycroft Holmes is the next of kin ...'

  She opened the door for me and I stepped out into the sunlight. She bade me an affectionate farewell, saying that I was welcome to call in to the rooms whenever I wanted to.

  '... It's as if he was planning to come back, isn't it Dr Watson?'

  I whistled for a hansom.

  On the journey home, I reflected that this sort of thing happened to so many of us. It was just that I had never thought that it would happen to me. Foolish, under the circumstances. I would have to warn Mary.

  I also reflected that the thing Mycroft had said was true; he would never have left England at all, if it had not been for me.

  For three days afterwards, I amazed both Mary and myself by my calmness and steadiness. I went about my work meticulously. I wondered if I had at last become anaesthetised, beyond caring. On the fourth day, I fell ill. Brain fever was diagnosed. I did not set foot outside the door for months.

  --VII--

  AS I SAID earlier, I greeted the onset of my illness with relief. I experienced a delicious sense of letting go, setting adrift. My responsibilities were lifted from me; I could set down the burden of myself at the feet of others. It was up to them to carry me.

  Mary told me afterwards that she too was relieved; my brave facade had worried her. She coped with my illness admirably. Many of her friends came to help and support her; Isobel Forrester, of course, and Anne D'Arcy, who once came and held my hand, I remember it vaguely. In what must have been periods of lucidity, I was aware that the house seemed full of women. I treated the awareness as another hallucination. Women, I thought, always hovered like ravens wherever there was sickness and death. How Holmes would have hated it! The idea struck me as hilariously funny. I remember lying back upon a heap of pillows, weak with laughter. Finding that their ministrations served only to exacerbate my condition, they at last had the good sense to leave me alone, so that I slept.

  The main subject of my delirium appeared to be the confusion of Mycroft Holmes with Moriarty. Apparently I told anyone who would listen that Mycroft was the Napoleon of Crime, that he had hounded his brother to death, and then been acquitted at the trial. Moriarty came to visit me in the guise of a respectable physician; he sat at my bedside, shaking his head slowly from side to side as Holmes had described. 'What have you done with him?' I shouted. 'How did you escape?' After he had gone, I tried to warn them not to be fooled by his respectable appearance. He might be a pillar of society, I said, but he was responsible for half that is evil and all that is undetected in the City of London. Who, they asked, who did I think I was talking about? Mycroft Holmes, I replied, Mycroft Holmes.

  I called on Holmes constantly, of course. It was as well that only Mary and her friends heard me.

  I recovered and was taken to Hastings, to Mrs Forrester's home to convalesce. It was May again. I sat by the sea on mild days. I interested myself in the bustle and chaos of the fish market. Sometimes I took a slow walk up the hill from the town and sat in the shadow of the old castle. It was beautiful, and almost against my will I regained my strength. One weekend, I remember, young Valentine came home for a visit. I was strangely moved by his youth and freshness. He played the violin to me. I s
howed him Holmes' Stradivarius, which I always kept with me. He took it from its case and held it reverently, wide-eyed; he did not attempt to play it, and I was pleased with his sensitivity. He awakened something in me; not exactly an enthusiasm for life and beauty, but an acceptance of it. By the time we returned to London, I was ready to take up my practice again.

  Another year passed slowly and relatively uneventfully. The Strand approached me again, as Mycroft had predicted, through my literary agent Dr Conan Doyle. This time I agreed to write an account of my friend's last case. 'The Adventure of the Final Problem' I called it, knowing that no one would guess, from the heavily edited version which was published, the true nature of the problem to which it referred.

  Moriarty's brother, a Colonel James Moriarty, had been writing letters to the press, defending his brother's memory which, he said, had been maligned and slandered at the trial. He accused Holmes of victimisation, and said that he had deliberately lured his brother to his death, knowing that he could not be convicted by an English court. There was much public interest in the matter, hence The Strand's invitation to me. I think I succeeded in setting matters straight; after my account was published, there were no more letters from Colonel James Moriarty.

  It was my meeting with Dr Conan Doyle to discuss my response to The Strand's invitation which brought mme back for the first time to one of my old haunts, the Domino Room at the Cafe Royal. As I entered once more through the green swing doors, and walked with my own reflection past the long, gilded mirrors and blue pillars wreathed in vine leaves, I experienced a feeling of displacement, of alienation, for which I had not been prepared. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigars and Turkish cigarettes, and the patrons who lounged at the marble-topped tables were carefree and vain as they had always been; but I could no longer even pretend to number myself among them.

  Dr Conan Doyle was sensible and kind; he asked me frankly whether I felt able to publish such an account as The Strand was asking for. I told him that under the circumstances I thought it important that I wrote something, and showed him the draft that I had already prepared. He said that he would read it through and let me have his comments. He looked at me keenly. I knew he was worried lest I had written anything indiscreet. He was a most meticulous editor. He was perceptive enough to be quite well aware of my feelings for Holmes, although he never referred overtly to the matter. His attitude, I knew, was one of pity, which I would have repudiated had he ever voiced it. He took the medical rather than the judgmental line.

  I sipped at the excellent Beaune that he had ordered for us, and let my gaze wander around the room. I had never come here with Holmes; he eschewed the place--probably, I saw now, because he knew I visited it in other company. Now I stared blankly, unmoved, at my fellow guests, some of whom I recognised; and my sense of alienation increased. They were happy, carefree, all of them. In spite of the scandal that had accompanied the closure of Cleveland Street, there was a mood of optimism and carelessness among those who shared my persuasion, which seemed much more pronounced than it had been two years before. Some of the younger men wore green carnations; that fashion was obviously catching on. They were graceful and languid as young trees enjoying their first summer, unafraid, laughing on their journey into winter. I felt so old, so damaged.

  Two young men in particular caught my attention. They must have been in their early twenties, both of them, one fair, one dark, both beautiful. They were talking animatedly over champagne and cigarettes. The golden-haired one held his head slightly to one side and toyed with the stem of his glass; his dark friend spoke emphatically, leaning forward, his keen eager features reflected in the mirror behind him.

  About fifteen years ago, I thought, if we had known each other then; if I had been wealthy, and he unhurt--could we, would we have been like that?

  They broke into delighted laughter; they sipped their champagne, their eyes engaged; the dark boy reached out and lightly touched the other's hand. I could bear it no longer. I finished my wine, and raised an eyebrow to Conan Doyle, indicating that it was time to leave. He, poor fellow, was more than pleased to do so; the Domino Room was not his milieu. At another time it would have amused me.

  As we passed out through the doors, we encountered yet another golden lad, in a beautifully tailored light suit, with large, loosely-knotted tie and straw boater, carrying a gold-headed cane. He could not have been much over twenty-one, yet he carried himself with the assured and patronising air which bespeaks a privileged background. I turned back to look at him; he returned my gaze coolly, and looked away.

  'Lord Alfred Douglas, I believe,' murmured Conan Doyle in my ear.

  So that was he; I had heard the name. So much had happened in the last two years.

  I should have warned them, I thought, as my hansom bore me swiftly back to Paddington; I should have warned them that they will not be allowed to be happy for long; that they will all suffer one day, as I have suffered; even the young ones, even the beautiful, even the rich. The Mycroft Holmeses of this world will make sure of that.

  Apart from that one brief visit to the Domino Room, I made no attempt to resume my former haunts or my further companions. Only a handful of friends had bothered to enquire after me when I was ill; and at the age of forty, I crept thankfully into retirement, feeling too old and too exhausted to weather the storms that raged in the young. Also, I felt that I owed it to Holmes to live quietly; like a devoted widower, I pledged myself to celibacy.

  Twice I walked along Baker Street and looked up at our old windows, picturing to myself the scene within, the empty, abandoned, grieving rooms. I could not bring myself to go in.

  So absorbed was I in my own retirement, that I did not at first observe that Mary was looking ill. When at last it dawned on me, I was filled with alarm and anger.

  'Why didn't you tell me that you were feeling unwell?' I asked, taking in for the first time the strained, transparent look to her face, the shadows and lines around her eyes, her thinness. She shrugged and gave an unconvincing laugh.

  'It's not as bad as that, John. Just a few pains in the chest. Dr Anstruther says that rest is the best cure, and so I am resting. Haven't you noticed that I have become even lazier than usual?'

  She leaned back languidly in her armchair, a bored expression on her face, trying to impersonate the manners of the idle rich. I gripped at the arm of my chair.

  'Anstruther? You've been to see Anstruther behind my back? For heaven's sake, Mary, why didn't you come to me?'

  My voice rose up the scale in alarm. Mary surveyed me through lowered lashes.

  'My dear husband, it didn't seem quite decent. Rather incestuous, don't you think?'

  'Of course not, what rubbish!' I snapped. She opened her eyes and smiled apologetically.

  'Sorry, John. The truth was, I didn't want to bother you because you're still far from well yourself. How would you like to prescribe me a period of convalescence in Hastings? You could come down yourself, if you like.'

  The thought of another spring in Hastings appealed to me, but something warned me that I should let her visit Mrs Forrester alone.

  'You go,' I said. 'Go and rest. For God's sake, Mary,' I added peevishly, 'don't you dare die and leave me. If you do, I'll never forgive you!'

  'What an extremely uncharitable attitude. I hope you don't say that to all your patients.' She patted my head as she glided out of the room.

  When she died, a few weeks after her return from Hastings, I signed over all my rights to her effects and her money to Isobel Forrester. I did not care what the solicitors thought. It was the least, the very least I could do.

  --VIII--

  MARY DIED AT the end of June, and for three months I continued to take care of my house and my practice. At this time some of my friends did, after all, remember me, and came to visit me, offering sympathy and company, neither of which I wanted. Then one day I received another telegram from Mycroft Holmes:

  'Have message for you. Will call upon you at five-th
irty if convenient. Mycroft Holmes.'

  My first thought was that I should send a wire by return stating in no uncertain terms that I forbade him to set foot over my threshold. It was over two years since our last meeting, and I could still remember every word, every look. His impudence 411 announcing his intention to call on me in such a way filled me with rage. And yet I could not help but be curious. What message could he possibly have for me, and from whom? There was only one thing that we had in common; and I could not deny myself the chance of knowing anything that might bear reference to the memory of my beloved.

  In the end, I sent neither a positive nor a negative reply; I merely waited to see whether he would turn up at the appointed hour.

  He did. As the girl announced him and he walked into my study, I felt my heart constrict in spite of myself; the dark hair, the keen grey eyes.

  He looked exactly the same. I rose, and briefly touched the heavy flipper he extended to me. I motioned him to the armchair and resumed my seat.

  'You have altered since I saw you last, Dr Watson,' he said impassively. I inclined my head slightly but said nothing. I knew that I had changed; there were streaks of white in my hair around the temples, I was thinner, my face was lined.

  'I was sorry to hear of your wife's passing,' he said. His gaze took in my mourning. I had not worn mourning for Holmes. It would not have been expected.

  He sat back in the chair, fingertips together, nodding resignedly at my silence. He pursed his mouth, and his eyes appeared to linger on my watch chain.

  'You said you had a message for me,' I said shortly, when I could bear it no longer. Mycroft sighed deeply, and reached into the inner pocket of his frock-coat.

  'That is so.' He extracted a small packet and toyed with it, passing it from hand to hand. 'I must warn you in advance, Dr Watson, that I can answer no questions concerning this article or how it passed into my hands. It is only under repeated pressure that I hand it over to you. I have resisted all such pressures in the past, and still believe that I was right to do so. But now, it seems, I have no choice. If you wish to follow it up, you are quite at liberty to do so. If you choose to ignore it, there will be no repercussions. I am passing it over to you as instructed, and I take no further responsibility.'