Holmes rummaged behind his wardrobe and pulled out a strongbox covered with faded maroon cloth. He took the key from the chain he wore around his waist and unlocked it. I peered inside.

On the left-hand side there were neat rows of bottles, some of them labeled by his hand and others bearing the formal inscriptions of a chemist. They were oils, ( Read more... )

My life before Baker Street was not an easy one. My trials in India and then Afghanistan are too numerous to mention, though the angry pink scar that streaks across my shoulder can attest to the depth of my physical hardship. My emotional strain was no less profound, for it is a difficult thing to discover one is a hopeless invert in the seat of a ( Read more... )

He doesn’t know that I can still see him when I close my eyes.

Sometimes I think your heart beats only when there’s a case, he once joked to me.

He is, of course, referring to my periods of stagnation where I might lie for days unmoving on the settee. But he could not be more mistaken in his observation.

My heart beats for him and him alone.

It ( Read more... )

Doctor Watson was not unduly surprised when he discovered Sherlock Holmes’s secret. What confounded him was that it had taken him so long to realize that his best friend was an invert. “Blazingly obvious” was a phrase often used by the very man himself, when pointing out a bare fact or basic deduction that had escaped the good doctor. And now, ( Read more... )

I saw the open box before I saw Holmes.

Just back from a weekend in the country, I was not surprised to find that Mrs. Hudson had been doing some cleaning in the attic. I was surprised, however, to find Holmes curled into a miserable ball on the settee with one hand covering his face. This was not among the characteristic poses wrought by his ( Read more... )

Sherlock Holmes was not a sexual creature. At least, that’s what he had believed since the time when he was fourteen and an unattractive schoolmaster awkwardly explained the mechanics of human reproduction. It had sounded so vulgar and undignified, and was certainly nothing that held any interest for the aspiring chemist.

In adulthood, Holmes ( Read more... )

There was something particularly sensual about the warm summer breeze that wafted through the open window and gently rustled the curtains. Perhaps it was the seductive glances Holmes kept casting in my direction that evening, or the fact that he had, for the first time, invited me to one of his small refuges on the other side of the city to assist ( Read more... )

“Watson, quick! Behind the sofa!” Holmes hissed at me.

I immediately dropped the papers I was sorting through and closed the desk. I could hear footsteps in the hallway, and the voices belonging to the owners of the house we had just broken into.

Holmes had the grate removed from the crawl space in seconds, and without hesitation he flattened ( Read more... )

I returned to the sitting room and observed all those trifle objects that signified the place was ours; Watson’s stack of medical journals, my piles of newspapers, the volumes over which we each pored when presented with a new supply of facts to consider, the worn patch on the hearth rug where I had paced, the mess of papers covering my desk, the ( Read more... )

My return from the Continent after a three-year absence was heralded with such fanfare and celebration that I was hounded for nearly a fortnight by press agents who were anxious to be the first to present the story in full. Returning to Baker Street, and to the side of my friend and colleague Dr. Watson, was adjustment enough without scads of ( Read more... )