fic for colebaltblue: Poetry, Prophecy and Religion

[lavvyan]

Title: Poetry, Prophecy and Religion
Author: kate_lear
Recipient: colebaltblue
Characters/Pairings: Holmes/Watson, mention of Holmes/OMC
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Summary: Holmes and Watson accept a case from a Mrs. Maberley, and Holmes struggles with the revelations about his past that ensue. Set around the events of ‘The Adventure of the Three Gables’.
Author’s Note: A very merry Christmas to colebaltblue! And many thanks to my lovely and helpful beta-readers.

Poetry, Prophecy and Religion

‘Watson,’ Holmes asked me, languidly curling himself still further into the recesses of his armchair, ‘were you really proposing to dash that rather unpleasant fellow’s brains out with our much-abused poker?’

It was a bright, frosty afternoon in December, and our sitting room door had only just closed behind a Mr. Steve Dixie, a more or less typical example of the sort of thug with whom Holmes’ work brought us into all too frequent contact. The regularity of meeting such characters did not, however, lessen my reaction at hearing their threats, particularly when they were directed at the man who had recently become my lover and the chief joy of my life.

‘Of course I did,’ I answered, still feeling residual anger running through me and setting the poker back in the rack of fire irons with undue force. ‘I would be a poor suitor indeed if I were content to stand idly by while you were threatened by that ruffian.’

Holmes turned his face away to look into the fire, but I saw the corner of his mouth curl in an irrepressible smile even as he pointed out, ‘Since your suit has been successful, my dear chap, I don’t believe you can technically be called my suitor any longer.’

Amused, I stifled a grin. It was typical of Holmes’ precise nature to correct a fellow on a point of semantics even when on the receiving end of an affectionate declaration; it was one of the things that, I must confess, I found quite ridiculously endearing about him.

‘You’re quite right,’ I agreed blithely, coming to stand before him, my back pleasantly warmed by the fire. ‘So I suppose that this makes me your spouse.’

Flushing with pleasure, Holmes reached out a hand to draw me down to his lap. I went willingly. The eighth step on the stairs to our rooms creaked loudly, we were out of sight of passers-by in the street below and, since the capture of the notorious criminal Sebastian Moran, there was a dearth of clients who wanted to rent the house opposite. That last was especially gratifying to me, for it meant that we could permit ourselves the occasional small indiscretion in the middle of our sitting room.

Curling long, sensitive fingers around the nape of my neck, Holmes tilted my head down for a kiss. I reciprocated ardently and, after a few minutes of the slow, sensuous glide of his lips and tongue against my own, I was forced to pull back, breathing hard and feeling my trousers begin to grow rather snug. He gazed up at me, his mouth slightly open and his eyes dark and heavy-lidded, as a hand traced my jaw line and began to wander down my shirtfront. I intercepted it before he could begin to tease me and brought it to my lips to press soft kisses to each of his knuckles, scarred from various fistfights and chemical experiments.

‘What did Mr. Dixie want?’ I asked, striving for an even tone.

Holmes smirked at me. ‘I was wondering when you would ask me. I suspect that that little display of bluster was linked to this.’

With my free hand I took the note he passed me, and as his other hand began to gently massage my leg - for the cold made my old war injury ache abominably, for all that I tried not to show it - I read:

Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes

I have had a succession of strange incidents occur to me in connection with this house, and I should much value your advice. You would find me at home any time to-morrow. The house is within a short walk of the Weald Station. I believe that my late husband, Mortimer Maberley, was one of your early clients.

Yours faithfully,
Mary Maberley

The address was ‘The Three Gables, Harrow Weald.’

‘How intriguing,’ I said, setting the letter aside.

Holmes made a small noise of disagreement. ‘I think it’s more likely that an elderly lady has bought a house with a colourful history, and now fancies that every mislaid teaspoon and sudden draught are signs of something more sinister. I wasn’t inclined to take it, Stevie’s visit notwithstanding. It is sure to be tediously commonplace, and today is hardly a day for gadding about outdoors on wild goose chases. It is absolutely freezing outside.’

It was a fair enough point, but from the way Holmes continued to rub the damaged muscle of my thigh I knew he was thinking of my old injury and the way it pained me in cold weather. He had more tact than to say so, knowing that the fastest way to make me attempt anything was to imply that it was beyond my physical capabilities, but even so I stood decisively.

‘We are not quite in our declining years yet,’ I said dryly, holding out a hand to him. ‘The fresh air will be bracing and you have not had a case in three days, which is always a sure harbinger of one of your more noxious chemical experiments.’

Holmes’ thin lips quirked in a smile and he consented to bestir himself, letting me pull him out of the chair and nudge him in the direction of his bedroom to don his heavy winter overcoat.

oOo

It was a short train ride to the Weald station, where the stationmaster confirmed Mrs. Maberley’s directions and told us that the Three Gables was indeed just a short walk away, so we set off on foot. Though cold, the weather was fine, and the previous night’s snowfall had rendered everything a picture in sparkling white.

‘Watson, I think I shall just take your arm,’ Holmes said, suiting the action to the words. ‘The road is rather icy, and I would hate to lose my footing.’

I opened my mouth to reply hotly at such a suggestion, for Holmes was as lithe and sure-footed as a cat and I bitterly resented any show of condescension from him towards my physical injuries, however well-meaning. But he smiled mischievously at me and I checked myself. I felt the warm pressure of his arm linked through mine and the glancing brush of his thigh, and as his grey eyes twinkled down at me from his greater height, I changed my reply.

‘I should, if I were you,’ I agreed solemnly, ignoring the fact that the bright winter sunshine had begun to melt the worst of the ice. ‘The footing here is positively treacherous.’

He merely hummed contentedly in agreement, his warm breath tickling my cold ear.

It was only that spring that Holmes had returned to London and myself, three long and turbulent years following his disappearance in Switzerland, and the exuberance of our reunion had led to confessions of the depth and nature of the affection that each bore for the other, which were swiftly followed by a passionate consummation. A bare month later had found me once more installed in Baker Street, my small practice sold to an astonishingly keen young doctor, with the key difference that my small upstairs bedroom was now my bedroom in name only. I slept every night in Holmes’ larger, more comfortable bed, and in his arms. For six months now we had been conducting ourselves like any enamoured pair of newly-weds, albeit in the strictest secrecy, and I was as happy as I could ever remember being in my life.

After a short walk, we reached the Three Gables. It was a brick and timber villa, standing in its own acre of undeveloped grassland, with three small projections above the upper windows that made a feeble attempt to justify its name. Behind was a grove of melancholy, half-grown pines, and the whole aspect of the place was poor and depressing. None the less, we found the house to be well furnished, and the lady who received us was a most engaging elderly person, who bore every mark of refinement and culture. She was dressed in black that was entirely unrelieved by any touch of colour, and after greetings had been exchanged, Holmes added, ‘I remember your husband well, madam, though it is some years since he used my services in some trifling matter.’

‘Probably you would be more familiar with the name of my son Douglas,’ she answered.

Holmes started, and gave her a look of great interest. ‘Dear me! Are you the mother of Douglas Maberley? What a magnificent creature he is! I know him.’ Here Holmes checked himself, clearing his throat, and added, ‘Slightly. But then, all of London knows him. How is he? Where is he now?’

Holmes had not looked at me, had not given so much as a flicker to betray himself other than that small start, but I had made an extensive study of Sherlock Holmes over the years and the thought instantly formed in my mind that he had perhaps known the ‘magnificent’ young man in a more intimate sense than his conversation with the man’s mother implied. However, neither of us was prepared for Mrs. Maberley’s response.

‘Dead, Mr. Holmes, dead! He was attaché at Rome, and he died there of pneumonia last month.’

Holmes’ naturally pale complexion seemed to whiten even further, and his lips parted in shock. ‘I am so sorry. One could not connect death with such a man. I have never known anyone so vitally alive. He lived intensely - every fibre of him!’

‘Too intensely, Mr. Holmes. That was the ruin of him. You remember him as he was - debonair and splendid. You did not see the moody, morose, brooding creature into which he developed. His heart was broken. In a single month I seemed to see my gallant boy turn into a worn-out cynical man.’

‘A love affair-’ I saw Holmes check himself, and after an infinitesimal pause, venture again, ‘a woman?’

‘Or a fiend. Well, it was not to talk of my poor lad that I asked you to come, Mr. Holmes.’

‘Doctor Watson and I are at your service.’

I glanced at him in some surprise. Naturally, I had not the slightest objection to helping this charming woman, but such a whole-hearted response from Holmes, even before he had heard her story, was a rather abrupt volte-face from that morning’s brusque dismissal.

‘There have been some very strange happenings,’ Mrs. Maberley began. ‘I have been in this house more than a year now, and as I wished to lead a retired life I have seen little of my neighbours. Three days ago I had a call from a man who said that he was a house agent. He said that this house would exactly suit a client of his, and that if I would part with it money would be no object. It seemed to me very strange as there are several empty houses on the market which appear to be equally eligible, but naturally I was interested in what he said. I therefore named a price which was five hundred pounds more than I gave. He at once closed with the offer, but added that his client desired to buy the furniture as well and would I put a price upon it. Some of this furniture is from my old home, and it is, as you see, very good, so that I named a good round sum. To this also he at once agreed. I had always wanted to travel, and the bargain was so good a one that it really seemed that I should be my own mistress for the rest of my life.

‘Yesterday the man arrived with the agreement all drawn out. Luckily I showed it to Mr. Sutro, my lawyer, who lives in Harrow. He said to me, “This is a very strange document. Are you aware that if you sign it you could not legally take anything out of the house -- not even your own private possessions?” When the man came again in the evening I pointed this out, and I said that I meant only to sell the furniture.

‘ “No, no, everything,” said he.

' “But my clothes? My jewels?”

' “Well, well, some concession might be made for your personal effects. But nothing shall go out of the house unchecked. My client is a very liberal man, but he has his fads and his own way of doing things. It is everything or nothing with him.”

' “Then it must be nothing,” said I. And there the matter was left, but the whole thing seemed to me to be so unusual that I thought -’

Here we had a very extraordinary interruption.

Holmes raised his hand for silence. Then he strode across the room, flung open the door, and dragged in a great gaunt woman whom he had seized by the shoulder. She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.

‘Susan!’ Mrs. Maberley exclaimed, shocked. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘Well, ma'am, I was coming in to ask if the visitors were staying for lunch when this man jumped out at me.’

‘I have been listening to her for the last five minutes, but did not wish to interrupt your most interesting narrative,’ Holmes said. ‘Just a little wheezy, Susan, are you not? You breathe too heavily for that kind of work.’

Susan turned a sulky but amazed face upon her captor. ‘Who be you, anyhow, and what right have you to be pulling me about like this?’

‘It was merely that I wished to ask a question in your presence. Did you, Mrs. Maberley, mention to anyone that you were going to write to me and consult me?’

I did not catch the lady’s reply, for while Holmes had been interrogating the housekeeper with his habitual acerbic manner, my attention had been caught by a framed photograph on the mantelpiece and I drifted over to examine it.

I did not need to see the black twist of crepe on the frame to deduce that this must be Douglas Maberley. The photograph had been taken outdoors - in the distance behind the standing figure I recognised the magnificent, towering shape of the Colosseum. In Rome, then, doubtless taken by one of the photographers who made their living taking souvenir photographs for tourists. The young man was dressed in a pale linen suit and a straw boater, one hand on his hip, the other loosely clasping a cane, showing that it was a nod towards style rather than my own more compulsory means of support. He was tall and broad-shouldered, every line of him radiating health and vitality, and Holmes had spoken the truth when he said he was a magnificent creature. He gazed straight at the photographer, a ready smile lighting up his handsome face, and I was forced to admit to myself that in the whole of my extensive, yet necessarily discreet, experiences with other men, I had rarely seen anyone to surpass his physical charms. If Holmes had known this fellow as intimately as I suspected, then they must have made an absurdly striking couple.

‘My son, Douglas.’ Mrs. Maberley had appeared at my elbow, and she took the picture down from the mantelpiece and invited me to examine it more closely. ‘Taken in Rome, four months ago.’

‘You have my condolences,’ I said, conscious of the inadequacy of the words. As I searched for better ones, we were interrupted by Holmes. Coming to stand on the other side of me, he glanced at the photograph I held and his hands twitched as though he longed to pluck it from me. Instead he merely asked, ‘Mrs. Maberley, who had this house before you?’

‘A retired sea captain called Ferguson.’

‘Anything remarkable about him?’

‘Not that ever I heard of.’

‘I was wondering whether he could have buried something. Of course, when people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank, or the vaults of Cox and Co., eh Watson? But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.’ I shot Holmes a sharp glance, for this was hardly the sort of sentiment to express in front of a refined, elderly lady, but he ignored me. ‘At first I thought of some buried valuable. But why, in that case, should they want your furniture? You don't happen to have a Raphael or a first folio Shakespeare without knowing it?’

‘No, I don't think I have anything rarer than a Crown Derby tea-set.’

‘That would hardly justify all this mystery. Besides, why should they not openly state what they want? If they covet your tea-set, they can surely offer a price for it without buying you out, lock, stock, and barrel. No, as I read it, there is something which you do not know that you have, and which you would not give up if you did know.’

‘That is how I read it,’ said I.

‘Dr. Watson agrees, so that settles it.’

‘Well, Mr. Holmes, what can it be?’

‘Let us see whether by this purely mental analysis we can get it to a finer point. You have been in this house a year.’

‘Nearly two.’

‘All the better. During this long period no one wants anything from you. Now suddenly within three or four days you have urgent demands. What would you gather from that?’

‘It can only mean,’ said I, ‘that the object, whatever it may be, has only just come into the house.’

‘Settled once again,’ said Holmes. ‘Now, Mrs. Maberley, has any object just arrived?’

‘No, I have bought nothing new this year.’

‘Indeed! That is very remarkable. Well, I think we had best let matters develop a little further until we have clearer data. Is that lawyer of yours a capable man?’

‘Mr. Sutro is most capable.’

‘Have you another maid, or was Susan your only servant?’

‘I have a young girl.’

Holmes frowned. ‘Try and get Sutro to spend a night or two in the house. You might possibly want protection.’

‘Against whom?’

‘Who knows? The matter is certainly obscure. If I can't find what they are after, I must approach the matter from the other end and try to get at the principal. Did this house-agent man give any address?’

‘Simply his card and occupation. Haines-Johnson, Auctioneer and Valuer.’

‘I don't think we shall find him in the directory. Honest business men don't conceal their place of business. Well, you will let me know any fresh development. I have taken up your case, and you may rely upon it that I shall see it through.’

Holmes’ voice sounded oddly serious, as though he were making a solemn vow, and I mused on it as we left the house. As we passed through the hall Holmes' eyes, which missed nothing, lighted upon several trunks and cases which were piled in a corner. The labels shone out upon them.

‘ “Milano.” “Lucerne.” These are from Italy.’

‘They are poor Douglas' things.’

‘You have not unpacked them? How long have you had them?’

‘They arrived last week.’

‘But you said - why, surely this might be the missing link. How do we know that there is not something of value there?’

‘There could not possibly be, Mr. Holmes. Poor Douglas had only his pay and a small annuity. What could he have of value?’

Holmes was lost in thought.

‘Delay no longer, Mrs. Maberley,’ he said at last. ‘Have these things taken upstairs to your bedroom. Examine them as soon as possible and see what they contain. I will come tomorrow and hear your report.’

We set off back to the station on foot, and while we walked I examined Holmes as he gazed unseeingly at the winter landscape. Eventually he stirred and spoke, his breath making great plumes in the frosty air.

‘We have the housemaid, Susan, to thank for our visitor this morning.’

‘Oh?’ I asked, encouragingly.

‘Yes. Mrs. Maberley sends Susan with her letters to the post-box, that much I learned while you were distracted. When she knew that her mistress was writing to me she alerted Barney Stockdale, a villain I have had my eye on for some time, and he sent our guest this morning. But as for who is behind it all, that I cannot yet tell. All Susan would divulge, however involuntarily, was that it was a woman. Someone wants us out of this affair very badly, Watson.’

‘I agree,’ I replied, watching him closely. I did not suppose that he would bring up the topic of Douglas Maberley anywhere except the privacy of our rooms, but I did so want to reassure him that he need not fear my reaction. This was, of course, assuming that my suspicions were correct, but I was fairly confident that they were. Holmes had been so utterly shaken by the news of Douglas’ death, even now he still looked rattled, and the fact that he had not been able to stop such emotion from showing on his usually impassive countenance spoke volumes to me.

Naturally, I did not begrudge him the time he had spent with other lovers before our relationship began, and I was certain that it was before our relationship - I knew that great heart well enough to be certain that once he had pledged himself to someone he would never betray his word. I guessed that it had been during the years he had spent away from London rather than his days at university; the intimacy was most likely recent or else it would not have provoked such a strong reaction.

It would be unthinkable to broach the subject in public, yet I yearned to reassure him: for all that he was a genius of crime, he was very new to this type of settled, domestic relationship.

Moments later we were at the station, and a short while after that we were stepping off the train at King’s Cross.

‘Where will you go now?’ Holmes asked, startling me slightly as he had been silent and lost in his thoughts for the entire train ride.

‘Back to Baker Street for a quick lunch, and then I have my round this afternoon.’

When I had moved back to my old lodgings, there had been a small handful of people who had begged me to keep them on as private patients. I had been flattered by the esteem in which they held my skills and had agreed, and I had to admit that my weekly round was refreshing for the chance to practise my medical skills at something other than patching up the endless cuts and bruises that Holmes accumulated during his work.

‘You are not joining me?’ I asked, and Holmes shook his head.

‘I have other business that I must follow up this afternoon, and so I shall see you this evening. You still want to attend the ballet, don’t you?’

‘I had completely forgotten about it,’ I confessed, smiling. ‘But yes. Shall I see you there, then?’

‘Yes. Tell Mrs. Hudson not to wait supper for me, I don’t know what time I’ll be back.’

And with an affectionate, discreet squeeze of my forearm, he was gone.

oOo

Later that evening, I sat in a box at Covent Garden and listened to the orchestra tuning their instruments. That evening’s performance was Swan Lake, something that I had expressed a fervent desire to see when I first saw the winter programme of the opera house. When I first suggested attending, Holmes had sighed in a put-upon fashion.

‘Tchaikovsky? Really, Watson?’

‘Whyever not?’ I asked, bemused. ‘The man has a gift, you cannot deny it.’

‘True, but his work is so … overly dramatic,’ Holmes sighed again with just the slightest trace of disdain. ‘This is the man who wrote the 1812 Overture.’

I stared at him, hardly believing my ears. ‘Which you dislike. Quite understandably so, since you have such a horror of the dramatic in your own work,’ I added dryly.

‘Touché, Watson!’ Holmes grinned at me unexpectedly. ‘Oh, very well, my boy. If you really wish to go then by all means, purchase the tickets.’

The strains of the first overture had begun when Holmes slipped into the seat beside me, with a whispered apology for his tardiness. The swelling music effectively put an end to any opportunity for conversation for the next couple of hours, and I lost myself in the story unfolding on stage.

It was only when the haunting, urgent notes of the final scene began that I glanced over at Holmes to find him transfixed. He was biting his lip, his eyes were following every movement of the dancers, but it was not difficult to guess where his thoughts tended, especially with the tale of love and loss being played out on stage below us. I was willing to bet that his thoughts were miles away from the white and silver winter scene but were far to the south, under blue Mediterranean skies. I wanted to reach out to him, and encourage him to seek solace in my presence.

Unable to stop myself, I reached over and touched his wrist gently. He glanced over at me, at the look of concern that I was sure was written across my face, and smiled faintly, covering my hand with his own and pressing it gently. We did not speak during the rest of the performance, although I vowed that when we got home I would raise the subject of Douglas Maberley with Holmes.

The reader may think me impossibly naïve if I say that even at that moment, I did not entertain the notion that Holmes’ feelings for the other man may have been deeper than those of a casual affair. Holmes had declared his love for me in no uncertain terms; he had shown it by dashing across Europe and returning to London, at considerable risk to his own safety, because Mycroft had wired to him to say that I had recently lost my wife and was once more quite alone in the world.

That, and a hundred other small gestures that he made on a daily basis, convinced me that I had nothing to fear; a man does not go to such lengths for a passing attraction. But my heart ached for Holmes as I watched him trying to accept that one of his old lovers - a young man in the prime of life - was now dead.

After the heart-rending finale, we stood outside the Opera House, thunderous applause still ringing in our ears, and I faced Holmes.

‘Shall we find a hansom cab, then?’ I asked, when he made no move towards the line of cabs waiting outside the Opera House.

‘For you, yes,’ Holmes answered. ‘I have one more visit I must make this evening. Alone.’

‘Holmes-’

‘I insist, Watson. I need to pay a call on Langdale Pike.’

I knew the name - Langdale Pike was Holmes’ human book of reference upon all matters of social scandal. This strange, languid creature spent his waking hours in the bow window of a St. James' Street club and was the receiving station as well as the transmitter for all the gossip of the metropolis. He made, it was said, a four-figure income by the paragraphs which he contributed every week to the garbage papers which cater to an inquisitive public. If ever, far down in the turbid depths of London life, there was some strange swirl or eddy, it was marked with automatic exactness by this human dial upon the surface. Holmes discreetly helped Langdale to knowledge, and on occasion was helped in turn.

No-one was paying us the slightest attention in the general bustle to find a cab and get out of the cold air, but Holmes’ voice lowered as he drew me to one side and continued. ‘Langdale already knows that I am as queer as a bent farthing, but I would prefer him not to know the same about you. Nor to deduce the exact nature of our relationship, for believe me, he would. I may be a genius at observing and drawing inferences from objects or locations but, when it comes to people, Langdale Pike is a match even for me.’

The snow had started falling again while we had been watching the ballet, and white flakes were drifting down, as fluffy and weightless as swansdown, and landing on us both. I looked at Holmes, the sharp lines of his formal attire setting off the chiselled, aquiline features that I knew as well as my own. A few flakes had settled in his black hair and, when he met my gaze impassively, I thought that he looked like a snow prince, or an envoy sent from fantastical polar lands, rather than the warm, human creature I knew and loved. I had a fleeting notion that were I to reach out and touch his cheek, I would feel cool marble under my fingertips and not warm flesh.

However, I was acutely conscious of the people milling past us, and so contented myself with saying merely, ‘Then I will see you at home.’

‘Yes. Most likely tomorrow morning, I imagine. Sleep well, my dear chap.’

His eyes were much softer than his words - a private look of affection that was meant for me alone - and I touched his arm briefly as we parted.

On my return to Baker Street I went straight to bed, knowing that it was useless to wait up for Holmes. When he was not in his club, Langdale Pike was one of those socialites who think nothing of staying up until dawn, and Heaven only knew when Holmes would return. As I fell asleep, my last thought was of our client, Mrs. Maberley, and a vague wondering as to whether she had followed Holmes’ advice and had asked someone to stay at her house.

I woke briefly when Holmes came to bed, some time in the early hours of the morning. His face and hands were cold as he lay down beside me, still clad in his dress shirt and trousers, and pulled me gently into his arms, trying not to wake me. He buried his face in my hair and I felt his mouth moving as he murmured softly to me. Drifting just below the surface of consciousness, I nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck as I wrapped an arm around his waist. I knew that he would not sleep while his brain was puzzling over a case, but the fact that he had sought my presence touched me deeply.

oOo

The following morning I found Holmes at the breakfast table. Seating myself opposite, I greeted him and, as I was wondering how best to address the subject that had been preying on my mind, Holmes wordlessly passed me a telegram:

Please come out at once. Client's house burgled in the night. Police in possession.

Sutro

‘The drama has come to a crisis, and quicker than I had expected,’ Holmes said gravely. ‘There is a great driving-power at the back of this business, Watson, which does not surprise me after what I have heard. This Sutro, of course, is her lawyer. I made a mistake, I fear, in not asking you to spend the night on guard. This fellow has clearly proved a broken reed. Well, there is nothing for it but another journey to Harrow Weald.’

During our journey, Holmes had an air of barely-suppressed anticipation that I could well understand. Our adversary had shown their hand; such a desperate measure could only furnish Holmes with further clues as to the culprit, and I had every confidence that they would not elude him for long.

Moments after we pulled up at the house, Holmes leaped down from the cab and strode inside, leaving me to settle the fare. The place was in uproar - a small group of idlers had assembled at the gate, while a couple of constables were examining the windows and the geranium beds.

When I entered the main hall, I met a grey old gentleman, who introduced himself as the lawyer, together with a bustling, rubicund inspector who was greeting Holmes as an old friend, much to my amusement.

‘Well, Mr. Holmes, no chance for you in this case, I'm afraid. Just a common, ordinary burglary, and well within the capacity of the poor old police. No experts need apply.’

‘I am sure the case is in very good hands,’ said Holmes silkily, with just the slightest tinge of irony audible only to me. ‘Merely a common burglary, you say?’

‘Quite so. We know pretty well who the men are and where to find them. It is that gang of Barney Stockdale - they've been seen about here.’

‘Excellent! What did they get?’

‘Well, they don't seem to have got much. Mrs. Maberley was chloroformed and the house was - Ah! But here is the lady herself.’

Our friend of yesterday, looking very pale and ill, had entered the room, leaning upon a little maidservant.

‘You gave me good advice, Mr. Holmes,’ said she, smiling ruefully. ‘Alas, I did not take it! I did not wish to trouble Mr. Sutro, and so I was unprotected.’

‘I only heard of it this morning,’ the lawyer explained.

‘Mr. Holmes advised me to have some friend in the house. I neglected his advice, and I have paid for it.’

‘You look wretchedly ill,’ said Holmes, showing one of those flashes of compassion that he always later denied. ‘Perhaps you are hardly equal to telling me what occurred.’

‘It is all here,’ said the inspector officiously, tapping a bulky notebook.

‘Still, if the lady is not too exhausted-’

‘There is really so little to tell.’ Mrs. Maberley raised herself still further in my esteem by holding up a hand as the inspector opened his mouth again, and continuing. ‘I have no doubt that wicked Susan had planned an entrance for them. They must have known the house to an inch. I was conscious for a moment of the chloroform rag which was thrust over my mouth, but I have no notion how long I may have been senseless. When I woke, one man was at the bedside and another was rising with a bundle in his hand from among my son's baggage, which was partially opened and littered over the floor. Before he could get away I sprang up and seized him.’

‘You took a big risk,’ said the inspector severely.

Ignoring this patronising remark, the lady elaborated.

‘I clung to him, but he shook me off, and the other may have struck me, for I can remember no more. Mary the maid heard the noise and began screaming out of the window. That brought the police, but the rascals had got away.’

‘What did they take?’ Holmes asked.

‘Well, I don't think there is anything of value missing. I am sure there was nothing in my son's trunks.’

‘Did the men leave no clue?’

‘There was one sheet of paper which I may have torn from the man that I grasped. It was lying all crumpled on the floor. It is in my son's handwriting.’

‘Which means that it is not of much use,’ interrupted the policeman. ‘Now if it had been in the burglar's-’

‘Exactly,’ said Holmes, and I was sure that this time the irony in his voice could not fail to be audible to all. ‘What rugged common sense! And how very disobliging of the criminal class not to be in the habit of leaving signed communiqués behind them. None the less, I should be curious to see it.’

The inspector drew a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocketbook.

‘I never pass anything, however trifling,’ said he with some pomposity. ‘That is my advice to you, Mr. Holmes. In twenty-five years' experience I have learned my lesson. There is always the chance of finger-marks or something.’

At the gentle jostle of my elbow against his ribs, Holmes forbore to comment. Instead, he inspected the sheet of paper and asked, with an air of malicious innocence: ‘What do you make of it, Inspector?’

‘Seems to be the end of some queer novel, so far as I can see.’

‘It may certainly prove to be the end of a queer tale,’ said Holmes cryptically. ‘You have noticed the number on the top of the page. It is two hundred and forty-five. Where are the odd two hundred and forty-four pages?’

‘Well, I suppose the burglars got those. Much good may it do them!’

‘It seems a queer thing to break into a house in order to steal such papers as that. Does it suggest anything to you, Inspector?’

‘Yes, sir, it suggests that in their hurry the rascals just grabbed at what came first to hand. I wish them joy of what they got.’

‘Why should they go to my son's things?’ asked Mrs. Maberley.

‘Well, they found nothing valuable downstairs, so they tried their luck upstairs. That is how I read it. What do you make of it, Mr. Holmes?’

‘I must think it over, Inspector. Come to the window, Watson.’

He drew me away with a hand on my elbow, and I caught the faintest of impatient sighs at the slow, plodding self-importance of the village police inspector.

‘Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself,’ I breathed to him, too softly to be heard by the small knot of people standing behind us, ‘but talent instantly recognises genius.’

Holmes smiled gratefully at me. ‘Watson, you flatter me far too much, but I will admit that that that narrow-minded inspector is intolerable. I believe I actually miss Lestrade and Gregson, although I wouldn’t have them know it for the world.’

Then, as we stood together, Holmes read over the fragment of paper. It began in the middle of a sentence and ran like this:

‘. . . face bled considerably from the cuts and blows, but it was nothing to the bleeding of his heart as he saw that lovely face, the face for which he had been prepared to sacrifice his very life, looking out at his agony and humiliation. She smiled -- yes, by Heaven! she smiled, like the heartless fiend she was, as he looked up at her. It was at that moment that love died and hate was born. Man must live for something. If it is not for your embrace, my lady, then it shall surely be for your undoing and my complete revenge.’

‘Queer grammar!’ said Holmes with a smile as he handed the paper back to the inspector. ‘Did you notice how the “he” suddenly changed to “my”? The writer was so carried away by his own story that he imagined himself at the supreme moment to be the hero.’

‘It seemed mighty poor stuff,’ said the inspector as he replaced it in his book with a dismissive air. ‘What! Are you off already, Mr. Holmes?’

‘I don't think there is anything more for me to do now that the case is in such capable hands.’ Holmes’ tone was as dry as the Sahara, but as he turned back to Mrs. Maberley his attitude became one of gentle solicitude. ‘By the way, Mrs. Maberley, did you say you wished to travel?’

The lady smiled. ‘It has always been my dream, Mr. Holmes.’

‘Where would you like to go - Cairo, Madeira, the Riviera?’ Holmes’ voice was quiet yet insistent, as though he were urging her to dream large, and then larger still.

‘Oh, if I had the money I would go round the world.’

‘Quite so. Round the world.’ Holmes smiled enigmatically but, to one who knew him as I did, it was clear that a sea-change had come over him: somehow he had tied up the last loose ends and found the solution to the mystery. ‘Well, good morning, Mrs. Maberley. I trust that you will feel better soon. I will drop you a line in the evening, when I hope that I will be able to set your mind completely at rest.’

oOo

‘Now, Watson, we are at the last lap of our little journey,’ said Holmes when we were back in the roar of central London once more. ‘I think we had best clear the matter up at once, and it would be well that you should come with me, for it is safer to have a witness when you are dealing with such a lady as Isadora Klein.’

We had taken a cab and were speeding to some address in Grosvenor Square through the brown slush that was the swift fate of any snow to fall on this dirty city. Holmes had been sunk in thought, but he roused himself suddenly.

‘By the way, Watson, I suppose you see it all clearly?’

I had to confess that I did not, but gamely said that I supposed that we were going to see the lady to whom Susan had referred the previous morning, the lady who was behind all this.

Holmes looked as though he were barely suppressing a scathing comment at my failure to draw the correct conclusions from available facts, but contented himself with a brief explanation.

‘Isadora Klein was, of course, the celebrated beauty. There was never a woman to touch her. She is pure Spanish, the real blood of the masterful Conquistadors, and her people have been leaders in Pernambuco for generations. She married the aged German sugar king, Klein, and presently found herself the richest as well as the loveliest widow upon earth. Then there was an interval of adventure when she pleased her own tastes. She had several lovers, and Douglas Maberley, one of the most striking men in Rome, was one of them. It was by all accounts more than an adventure with him. He was not a society butterfly but a man who gave and expected all. But she is the “belle dame sans merci” of fiction. When her caprice is satisfied the matter is ended, and if the other party in the matter can't take her word for it she knows how to bring it home to him.’

‘Then that was his own story-’

‘Ah! You are piecing it together now. I hear that she is about to marry the young Duke of Lomond, who might almost be her son. His Grace's ma might overlook the age, but a big scandal would be a different matter, so it is imperative that- Ah! Here we are.’

It was one of the finest corner-houses of the West End. A machine-like footman took up our cards and returned with word that the lady was not at home.

‘Then we shall wait until she is,’ said Holmes cheerfully.

The machine broke down.

‘Not at home means not at home to you,’ said the footman.

‘Good,’ Holmes answered. ‘That means that we shall not have to wait. Kindly give this note to your mistress.’

He scribbled three or four words upon a sheet of his notebook, folded it, and handed it to the man.

‘What did you say, Holmes?’ I asked.

‘I simply wrote: “Shall it be the police, then?” I think that should pass us in.’

It did - with amazing celerity.

The rest of the story is easily told.

As Holmes had suspected since his meeting with Langdale Pike last night, it was indeed Isadora Klein who had hired Barney’s Stockdale’s gang to break into Mrs. Maberley’s house. She had had a brief affair with Douglas Maberley and, when it ended, he had written a manuscript that very clearly cast himself as the injured party and left little doubt as to the identity of the beautiful, heartless woman who had cast him off. In an unusual display of cruelty, he had sent one copy of the manuscript to her and kept one for himself, with the intention of submitting it to a publisher when he arrived back in England. As Holmes had been on the point of telling me in the cab, the publication of such a novel would have caused a dreadful scandal and rendered the lady’s forthcoming, highly advantageous, marriage impossible.

When the tale was told, and she had shown us that the manuscript was well and truly burned to a cinder in her fireplace, Holmes had shrugged before coolly requesting a cheque for five thousand pounds from her. My eyes widened at the sum he named, for all that I agreed wholeheartedly that Mrs. Maberley deserved a first-class trip around the world after all she had undergone. Isadora Klein merely regarded Holmes for a long moment before walking to her desk and retrieving her cheque book.

Whether or not she knew that Douglas had engaged in a liaison with Holmes immediately before she began her affair with him, she did not say. In truth, it did not matter very much. Holmes had only to summon the police and present his evidence and chain of deductions for the lady to be ruined, and she clearly preferred to settle the matter quietly and discreetly.

Once the footman had shown us out, his mechanical impassivity firmly in place once more, we stood on the street and Holmes carefully placed the cheque in his inside coat pocket.

‘Yet another journey to the Three Gables for me today,’ he said, making a wry face. ‘Rather tiresome, but I suppose it cannot be helped; I shall be happier when this is safely in Mrs. Maberley’s hands and when she knows that she has nothing more to fear from unknown intruders. Will you join me?’

I shook my head. While it would have been lovely to see the expression on the lady’s face when she learned that she could do what she had always dreamed of, yesterday’s crisp brightness had given way to an icy rain that was chilling me to the bone and making my old wound throb painfully. On my calendar that morning I had noticed that it was the day of the winter solstice; our interview with Isadora Klein had lasted longer than I had thought and the damp winter sunlight was already beginning to dim, making me think longingly of a cup of tea and a roaring fire to ease the tightness in my thigh.

‘No,’ I answered. ‘I think I shall return home, what with-’ I gestured awkwardly at my leg, although I was sure that my lopsided posture spoke volumes to Holmes, ‘one thing and another.’ Privately, I also thought that Holmes might perhaps benefit from some solitude once the case was closed, in order to reflect on all the startling revelations we had received, but I did not say so.

‘Of course,’ Holmes said, touching my arm, his face a picture of restrained sympathy. ‘Today is certainly living up to the worst stereotypes of English weather. Go home and enjoy a good blaze and think kindly of me, making the journey back out to Harrow Weald in this rain.’

I did as he suggested. I went back to our rooms and stretched out my legs towards the fire, sternly quashing my feelings of frustration and revulsion towards the gnarled flesh on my thigh that meant I was not the man I had once been. It was a useless waste of time to regret the past, as Holmes would tell me, and had I not been injured then I might never have come to London and met the extraordinary man with whom I now shared my life.

I spent a large part of the afternoon and evening writing up my notes on the case of the Three Gables and was optimistic that, with a few judicious alterations, it might one day be publishable without throwing undue suspicion on Holmes or myself. I retired earlier than usual - an afternoon by the fire having made me lethargic - and did not bother to don my nightshirt. The lazy kisses in the armchair before the fire seemed much longer ago than merely the morning of the previous day; Holmes had barely touched me since then and I quietly yearned, body and soul, for his embrace.

A muffled noise from the sitting room stirred me into wakefulness sometime later. My pocket watch on the night stand told me that it was a little after midnight, and I curled beneath the blankets and closed my eyes again, thinking that it could not be long before Holmes came to join me. I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew was the muffled chime of the small clock on the mantelpiece of our sitting room as it struck one. Sighing, I threw back the covers and reached for a dressing gown. Left to himself, Holmes would remain sunk in his melancholy thoughts until they were succeeded by the inevitable black mood that always followed the successful conclusion of a case, and I could not bear to watch such a thing without trying to avert it.

In the sitting room, I found Holmes sitting on our settee with his long, lean legs stretched out towards the fireplace, and his chin sunk upon his chest as he gazed meditatively at the glowing embers.

‘Holmes,’ I asked gently, ‘are you coming to bed?’

‘In a moment.’

He had not looked at me as he gave this rather subdued response, and I could not repress my sigh as I said, ‘You must think me as deaf and blind as your bedpost.’

Then he looked at me, his head jerking up with almost comical speed. I had not wholly intended to voice my thoughts aloud, but now that I had, the only way forward was to brazen it out. Holmes was regarding me with an air that said further explanations were unnecessary, but nevertheless I tightened the belt of my dressing gown with as much aplomb as I could muster as I continued.

‘I am perfectly well aware that you and Douglas Maberley were rather more than mere acquaintances. What I do not understand is why you have been taking such trouble to keep it from me.’ As I had been speaking I had crossed the room until I stood before him, looking down into his face, and more gently I said, ‘I don’t resent the fact that you had lovers before me. I am not so naïve as to imagine that a man as attractive as you would have remained celibate until I met you.’

At this he quirked a smile at me, albeit a small one, and reached for me. I sank down to sit astride his thighs, conscious that our positions perfectly replicated those of yesterday morning, and his arm settled around my waist as he replied, ‘John, despite the fact that I frequently seem to underestimate you, I do in fact have the highest opinion of your intelligence. I knew that you had guessed that Douglas was an old lover.’

‘Then it is something else that has been preoccupying you,’ I said slowly, searching his face. ‘Perhaps how it ended?’ He bit his lip and I knew that I had found my mark. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? Whatever was between the pair of you did not end well, and now you feel guilty.’

Sighing, Holmes shrugged in defeat. ‘I may as well tell you, since you have clearly deduced the essential points on your own. When I met Douglas I had just arrived in Florence after my battle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. I was exhausted after my mad flight but more than that, I was heart-sick and half-mad with grief.’ His voice softened and he cupped my face, thumb stroking across my cheekbone. ‘I had just left you standing on the ledge of the Falls and screaming my name into that dreadful abyss as though you were breaking apart. I had longed so to go down to you but I dared not - it was imperative that everyone should think I was dead, even you, my darling. Furthermore, you had Mary, you were happy, and I was determined to leave you to your new life with your wife and to try to rid myself of my hopeless infatuation with you.’

I captured the hand that was still caressing my face and brought it to my lips, bestowing soft kisses on the long fingers. ‘Not so hopeless as all that,’ I teased gently, trying to provoke a smile for he looked distant and lost in the past. It did not work.

‘I did not think I would see you again for several years, if ever, and every time I thought about it I felt I would lose my mind. Douglas was a… distraction. He could never replace what I truly wanted, but he occupied my mind for a time. However, I am afraid that I may have been rather brusque with him, particularly at the end.’

I could well imagine this. I had witnessed Holmes’ black moods firsthand and knew how short his temper could be at such times. Knowing now that he had loved me, even then, I could only imagine the depths of his despair. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I were forced to leave him, not knowing when or if I would ever see him again. My mind shied away from it, and my hand rose involuntarily to rest against the side of his neck.

‘So there you have it,’ Holmes said quietly, almost resignedly. ‘We were lovers, briefly, but I did not conduct myself quite as well as I ought to have done. I did not love him, I could not, and at the time it never occurred to me to wonder if he might have wanted me to-’

‘Stop,’ I said firmly. ‘Enough. Such morbid dwelling on the past is not like you at all. If I know you, then I know that you would never have given the young man the impression that you felt more for him than that of a casual affair.’

For Holmes had many faults - arrogance, impatience, a cool detachment that was sometimes almost intolerable - but deceitfulness was not among them.

‘Of course not,’ he said.

‘Then you are not responsible for whatever choices he made after you parted. To each his own life. What’s done is done, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. You are an extraordinary man, Holmes, but even you cannot foresee all ends.’

‘Not so very extraordinary, underneath it all,’ Holmes demurred.

It was highly uncharacteristic for Holmes to so belittle his own talents, and I caught his chin in my hand, forcing him to meet my gaze as I quoted, ‘“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.” ’

Holmes made a small noise of impatience. ‘Yes, yes, I have a great mind, but-’

‘And a great heart,’ I insisted, seizing one of his hands and squeezing it between my own. ‘And I thank my stars for it every day.’

‘Watson, that is absurdly sentimental,’ Holmes murmured, something of his usual lightly humorous tone creeping back into his voice.

‘Nevertheless, it is true. It suits us very well to let readers of The Strand think you cold and unfeeling and distant from every other creature on this earth, but I know better.’

I leaned down to kiss him, intending it to be a soft benediction, but his lips caught my own and lingered against them until one kiss blended seamlessly into another and another. Finally he released me and I sat up, my face feeling rather warm and acutely conscious of the strength of his thighs beneath me, and the fact that I was wearing nothing but a rather hastily-tied dressing gown.

‘Watson,’ Holmes murmured huskily, his eyes dark, ‘are you wearing anything underneath that robe?’

His hands had found the hem of said garment and his fingers were trailing along my bare calves in a manner that ensured he would soon find out for himself, but even so I sighed, ‘No’ as he reached the backs of my knees and lingered. He gave a little groan at that and leaned forward once more as he kissed me, hard and demanding, coaxing my mouth open to lightly brush his tongue against my teeth. Evidently the past two days had not been easy for him either, for when I reached down to brush my fingers against his trouser front he pulled back and gasped, ‘I think we ought to retire to our bed chamber.’

‘Actually,’ I said breathlessly, pressing my hand against him more firmly and watching his pulse flutter and leap in his throat, ‘I have always wanted to christen our hearthrug.’

oOo

You are still sleeping, dearest, sleeping so deeply that you did not even stir when I slipped out of bed this morning. While I am tempted to think that this must be one of the signs of the coming Apocalypse, I know it is merely the exhaustion of two days’ worth of agitation, both physical and emotional. So I have sat down to write the above account for you, to show you that I had already known the position you were in (more or less) and that nothing you do could make me think less of you: you are the best and the wisest man of my acquaintance, and will doubtless remain so for the rest of our lives together.

I am sure that you recall last night, before the dying fire. How I stripped you bare and went over every inch of you before taking you in my mouth and eventually bringing you to your peak. Doing so aroused me to such a degree that you had barely opened my dressing gown and taken me in hand before I finished in my turn, for I will freely own that I adore you madly, and being the cause of your pleasure is a dizzying, heady experience. Indeed, Mrs. Hudson mentioned to me at breakfast that she is going out this morning, and so I daresay if you come out to our sitting room after reading this note, with the charming flush to your cheeks that such expressions of affection always induce, it would take very little to coax me back into our bedchamber to demonstrate once more the depth of my feelings.

Later, we can sit by our fire and I will watch you attempt to deduce - from the cut of my waistcoat or the way I hold my cigarette or some other equally abstruse indication - what I intend to give you for Christmas. I say ‘attempt’, for I am certain you will not succeed. Smugness is a most unappealing quality, it is true, but I am convinced that this year I have surpassed myself.

Our calendar tells me that this morning is the 22nd December, the morning after the longest night of the year. The world turns, and the days will grow longer, and doubtless before the old year is out you will have once more discovered something outré and bizarre enough to fascinate you and stave off your inevitable boredom. But for now, come out to me, and kiss me good morning, and know that for the rest of 1894 and all the years that follow, I am, dear heart,

Entirely yours,

J. W.

~Fin~

‘The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.’ John Ruskin, 1819 - 1900