I have elsewhere indicated in these chaotic though well-intentioned memoirs that it was in April of 1887 that I hastened from London at the urging of a somber telegram stating that my intimate friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was lying ill in Lyon and required immediate care.  My suggestion that Holmes suffered from an attack of nervous prostration at the close of a long and arduous investigation was not strictly false, and yet, I may say in this private document intended for no man's perusal save my own, neither was it strictly true.  That telegram, my response to it, and what later befell my friend and I on the Continent were in fact all agents which conspired to alter entirely the relations between myself and (at the time) the world's only independent consulting detective.  The true story was as remarkable as it is unfit for public consumption, but I find myself compelled for my own sake to record what was undoubtedly the most important incident--after a certain fashion--of our long partnership.

There are a few matters of background information which I must set down in order to better organize my thoughts.  Holmes and I, at the time he first caught wind of the underhanded dealings of the Netherland-Sumatra Company, had been rooming together for nearly six years, and the profession which my eccentric flatmate had at first fought so formidably to keep private had become nearly as much my own preoccupation as his.  I trust I do not flatter myself that almost from the moment Holmes invited me to accompany him in the Joseph Strangerson investigation, he recognized that he had procured not merely a reduction in his living expenses but an avid enthusiast in his lonely work, and furthermore that in the line of criminal detection two heads, or two revolvers as the case may be, were often better than one.  By the year of 1887, I had, through force of habit rather than any false sense of self-worth, come to expect Holmes would include me in the majority of his cases, excepting those trifling matters which when discussed at the dinner table would provoke a wink, a sigh, and the remark, "My dear Watson, the fact that my time is being wasted in so egregious a manner is irksome enough without dragging you down with me."

Such reassurances, at that time, were my bread and butter.  For it was my deep misfortune to be as enamored of Sherlock Holmes as any of his female clients who paid us calls long after their cases had been concluded, although I trust I hid my regard far more effectively than any of those maidens with their silk skirts rustling beneath shimmering jewels and longing gazes.  I am not myself an unattractive man, as many women and some men, I must confess, have felt inclined to prove to me on occasion.  But I had never laid eyes on such a stunning vista of feminine landscape before moving in with the world's foremost expert in villainy.  There was something about Holmes' pale and chiseled profile which caused the necklines of his clients to plunge almost indecently.  My friend, of course, would have none of them.  He paid them as little mind as he would a self-important lord or a yowling street cat, and more than once I began by hating them and ending feeling sorry for them.  I knew all too well myself that the strength of Holmes' jaw, his wistful grey eyes, and his elegant demeanor, all contributing to his easy air of subdued mirth in the face of danger, were enough to drive a fellow lodger to distraction faster even than the discovery of a bloodied scalpel resting squarely in the butter dish.
 
Holmes, for his part, respected me.  He respected me even when he was berating me, for he knew me assured enough as a man to accept his remarks with aplomb.  I have no doubt but that he also enjoyed my company, for though it is not necessary for a man to share his home, his career, and the majority of his leisure with one constant companion, Holmes did so.  So he respected me--as a doctor, a soldier, and a friend--and for more ephemeral reasons, he liked me.  In fact, he was more fond of me, so far as I could see, than he was of any other man in all of London.  It was torturous.  His aloof affection made matters far worse for me than any disdain could have done.  However, notwithstanding Holmes' temper and the subtle tension which I attributed entirely to my own sordid imaginings, we cohabited with an ease and regard which few married couples manage to achieve after thirty or forty years of practice.  That was why the argument over the Baron Maupertuis came as such a complete surprise to me.

Holmes and I had recently concluded the affair of the Resident Patient and were seated before our fire in early February, neither occupied with much more than reading and wandering from table to gasogene to armchair.  At length, Holmes spoke.

"You'll be glad to learn, my dear fellow, I've been asked to look into the activities of that ne'er do well the Baron Maupertuis by the French service."

"I am certainly gratified to hear more of your international acclaim," I smiled.  "How may we be of service?"

He lit a cigarette and turned his attentions to the dwindling fireplace.  "In fact, Watson, I rather think this is an affair I can better conduct without assistance."

I was surprised, and I will admit that I was also slightly hurt.  "Well, if I would be in the way, I shall certainly not trouble you about it."

He granted me a smile, but I was disquieted to see a watchful expression lurking behind his eyes.  "I shall certainly be able to operate more quickly alone."

"Then let us say nothing more about it."

"Telegrams will reach me at the Hotel Dulong in Lyon for the next two or three months."

"Two or three months!" I could not help but exclaim.  "But my dear Holmes--" I mastered myself when I noted that peculiar intensity had snapped back into his gaze.  "It sounds a vast undertaking.  Will you really be gone so long?" I asked carefully.

"Well, yes.  There is a chance I may be able to clear the matter up sooner, but I doubt it very much.  He's damnably clever--I must proceed with all caution so as not to endanger myself."

"Endanger yourself?" said I, alarmed.

"I must act in utter secrecy.  If the Baron knew I was engaged upon the case, I hardly think my life would be worth a brass farthing.  He isn't a very forgiving fellow, the Baron."

I blinked at him in disbelief.  "And this case, this dangerous and arduous and lengthy case in which you will be risking your life, is not one in which you think my presence could aid you in the slightest degree?" I demanded heatedly, rising from my chair and approaching Holmes.  A voice at the back of my head told me at once I was revealing too much, too unthinkingly, and that I had best hold my tongue if I did not wish to risk losing all of it.

He did not retreat from me, but leaned against the mantel.  "Two investigators are twice as many opportunities for discovery.  In any case, surely your own affairs could not allow you to leave London for so long a time?"

Desperate to keep the chagrin from my voice at the thought of a Baker Street without Holmes in it for a quarter of a year, I allowed myself a breath.  Then I replied more cheerfully, "No doubt you are right.  Well, do let me know if you require me to see to anything in your absence."  I extended a hand cordially, my heart beating uncomfortably in my breast.

He took my hand without once removing his attention from my face.  Indeed, his eyes narrowed as he looked at me into silvery pools. 

"Are you quite all right, Watson?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Of course I am," I replied, dropping his hand and reaching for a cigar.  Holmes has remarked that I am a dismal prevaricator, but that was only in his presence, and long after 1887.  In 1887, I was at the height of my powers; I pride myself that my panic was entirely concealed, my voice steady and my hand sure.  "Feel free to wire me if you need any of your tools or papers."

"Thank you," said he.  His drew upon his cigarette.  He was still staring at me. 

"Just turn that lamp up a bit, will you old fellow?"  I returned to my novel as a last semblance of normalcy.  Holmes turned up the lamp, and then quickly disappeared from the room

When I awoke the next morning, he was already gone.  I will not dwell upon the aching sensation I experienced when I found his brief note under my door.  I read it sitting upon his empty bed, not yet tidied by Mrs. Hudson, glowered at by all manner of blackguards from the walls of his still-warm room.  "If you should find that you need me, wire immediately.  Regards, SH."  I threw it upon his coals, consumed my breakfast, and began two long and dismal months in which I tried assiduously to erase Sherlock Holmes from my affections.  It proved not to be a long enough period of time.

I was sitting over a barely tasted luncheon when Mrs. Hudson brought up the telegram.  The noble woman knew me to be depressed, though I hoped very much she knew nothing of the cause.  She lingered in the sitting room and left little notes about things she'd be obliged if I would pick up for her while I was out and fixed my favorite dishes, which I consumed with all the alacrity Sherlock Holmes had once shown for food at the same table.  I appreciated her kindness although her sympathetic efforts only served to highlight the lack of solicitude I was granted from other quarters, making matters, of anything, worse than they were before.

"You've a telegram, Doctor," she said kindly.  "It's from France, I think."

I looked up immediately.  Holmes had not seen fit to send a single communication since his abrupt departure, though I had read with great relief two days before that the Baron had been apprehended and the whole ugly matter resolved.  I reached for it eagerly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."  She smiled and turned to go.  A sharp cry from me brought her immediately back to the table.

"Is anything the matter, Doctor?"

"It's Holmes.  He is ill," I replied quickly, handing her the dire little scrap of yellow paper. 

"'Dr. Watson,'" she read, "'Sherlock Holmes most unwell at close of great case.  Impossible to move him.  Will you come?  Concierge, Hotel Dulong, Lyon.'  Oh, Dr. Watson!" She exclaimed.  "Poor Mr. Holmes.  He does drive himself so very hard at times.  You will go, of course?"

I regret to say that I hardly heard our good landlady.  I had Bradshaw in my hand to look up the trains and set off for my sleepless twenty-four hour trek not half an hour later.

Lyon is split by two rivers, the Rhone and the Saone, into a city of twin hills, called still by their ancient nicknames of "the hill that prays" and "the hill that works."  Holmes' hotel was on Fourviere, so-called for the Notre Dame de Fourviere basilica and the opulent dwelling place of the Archbishop near it.  I arrived in the city just as the lamps were being lit, and engaged a carriage to transport me to my destination without delay.

When I arrived at the charming little hotel, freshly whitewashed with a simple gold-lettered signboard and a profusion of tiny blue blossoms struggling for supremacy in their darkening window boxes, I made at once for the front desk with my heart in my dry, tense throat.  There was an elegantly dressed little concierge standing behind the counter, hardly as tall as the woman with whom he was at that moment remonstrating.  He had a shimmering lilac cravat, a thick goatee, and expressive dark brows over thoughtful brown eyes.  When he saw me waiting agitatedly behind the woman, whose complaint I did not understand, he held up an imperious hand and took pity upon me in a fashion I thought uncharacteristically charitable in a French concierge.

"Un moment, s'il vous plaît, Madame.  Avez-vous besoin de quelque chose, Monsieur?"

"I have been asked here to see to the health of Sherlock Holmes, sir."

"Aha!" he exclaimed, bringing his palm down upon the desk.  "Dr. Watson.  It is excellent news!  Here is a key to his room.  It is just up the staircase there, first floor, immediate left.  I must finish with Madame here and will see to your needs presently."  His voice was accented in the Parisian manner of a vast and rapid English vocabulary with scant regard for the way it ought to sound.

I took the little gold key in some puzzlement at the way in which formalities were conducted at the Hotel Dulong, though in my eagerness to see Holmes again I did not give it a second thought.  I took the stairs two at a time into a well-lit, carpeted hallway lined with a creamy damask print, and I admit I did not remember to knock, so anxious was I as I finally turned the key and entered.

My friend was curled up in bed in hastily buttoned shirtsleeves and his trousers, as if he had made an effort to rise at an earlier time and then thought better of it.  The sight of his face sent a cold shock of fear over me, for he was deathly pale and perhaps half a stone thinner than he had been when he left me, and on Sherlock Holmes the loss of seven pounds is a keenly felt one.  I sat beside him immediately, but he did not stir.  In a gesture of uncharacteristic madness, I held my breath as I ran my fingers through his hair.

He blinked a moment, and his eyes slowly opened.  They were bloodshot and harrowed and the only thing in the world I desired to see.  When they recognized me, he smiled gently.

"It is you.  It thought it might be."

"Why did you think that?" I asked.  I found myself unable to remove my hand from the thick black locks I had been longing to touch for several years.

"Because you smell of Virginia tobacco and no one else in this hotel is possessed of such discernment," he sighed contentedly.  He flicked a trembling hand lazily over his eyes and closed them again.

"Holmes, what on earth has happened to you?  You look like a ghost."

"I am a ghost." Then all at once he sat up, his eyes fully open and his brow shining with perspiration.  "Watson, what in God's name are you doing here?"

I drew back, startled.  "I was sent for."

"By whom, may I ask?"

"I am not sure.  I believe the concierge of this hotel."

"Post or telegram?"

"It was a telegram."

"Give me the telegram," Holmes demanded.  He was a pitiable sight, his hair standing out against his ashen countenance.  I placed it in his hand, which had commenced shaking considerably when he sat up.

"I will kill him," Holmes declared solemnly, throwing the offending missive into the fireplace after viciously crumpling it into a ball.  "He has but hours to live."  He arose unsteadily and reached for his dressing gown.

"You do not wish me to be here, then?" I queried softly.  I think at that moment my hands shook as much as his.  I knew what I would do if his answer were no.  I would leave him in peace, fetch another doctor, and never darken the door of our London residence again.

My look seemed to startle him.  "I never said any such--" he began, but a knock at the door interrupted us. 

"Messieurs," the concierge said cheerily, entering with his hands deferentially clasped behind his back.  "Comment allez-vous?"

"Pas bien, merci," Sherlock Holmes retorted, casting about for tobacco.  "J'ai un travail difficile.  Je vais tuer le concierge de l'Hotel Dulong."

"Vraiment?" the dapper little fellow replied amusedly.  "C'est triste, ça.  À  quel heure est-ce que vous allez manger?"

"Dr. Watson appears in need of a sandwich at the very least, and immediately," Holmes replied.  "And a room for the night.  Est ce-que il y'a une autre chambre près d'ici?"

"Bien sur--la chambre à  côté  de ta chambre, peut-être.  Mais il ne reste pas ici?"

"Arrêtez -vous, Michel," Holmes sighed irritably.  "Le docteur est gentil, mais il n'est pas bête."

"Je vois.  Il est aussi très aimable, et assez beau, je pense."

"Michel, tu as cinq secondes quitter," my friend snapped.  I would not be exaggerating to say that at that moment, I would have given a small fortune to speak French. 

"Very well," the little fellow sniffed, clearly vexed by the conversation.  "Dr. Watson, it is an unabashed pleasure.  I will have the adjacent room ready for you momentarily.  There is a communicating door.  Au revoir."

"Michel!" Holmes called suddenly.

"Oui?" Monsieur Michel, for so I took his name to be, replied tersely. 

"Tu n'as parlé pas au mon frère?"

"Non.  Seulement le docteur."

Holmes sighed and ran a white hand through his hair.  "Merci, Michel."  He smiled briefly, flicking his cigarette into the grate.  "Je vois que tu n'es pas complétement insensé."

A derisive snort followed this pronouncement, and the concierge slammed the door shut behind him.

"Holmes, what on earth was that all about?" I asked with some asperity.

"I am sorry, my dear fellow, but you've really no wish to know," Holmes replied, crawling back onto the bed and casting an impossibly lean arm over his eyes.

"I assure you that I do.  Credit me with enough acumen to deduce what 'le docteur' means.  What cause could a concierge possibly have to annoy you so, and what the devil were you arguing about?"

"He isn't a concierge.  I mean--that is to say, of course he's a concierge.  But he is also my cousin."

"Your cousin!" I exclaimed, recalling the suave little fellow's quirk of raising a single brow which fell just short of outright disdain. 

"Yes, my cousin.  My grandmother was French, as you know, and that appalling dwarf Michel Vernet is my cousin.  I was making arrangements for your accommodations."

"That was hardly all you were doing."

"Michel made a joke in the tasteless French manner, and I replied to him that you are kind, not stupid.  He is a very irritating little weasel.  Mycroft and I once convinced him that there was a fortune to be made selling rocks to the gypsies on our property because they knew a way to turn rocks into cabbages.  The trick was to bring them rocks the size of cabbages.  I don't believe he made much profit, but he was out of our hair for a day."

I made a valiant effort not to laugh at this, and lost.  I sat on the bed beside Holmes.  "How old were you?"

"Eight?  I haven't thought of it in years.  He was there for the summer, and Mycroft must have been home from school, so yes.  I was eight, Mycroft fifteen."

"And Michel?"  I asked.  I had no wish to abandon the topic of the only tale from Holmes' childhood I had ever heard.

"He is two years my senior, and I weary of talking about him."

"Well, then," I said promptly, "you may tell me how the case went, what has happened to you, and why your cousin should think my presence necessary even if you do not."  I believe that to most men my voice would have sounded entirely neutral when I made this pronouncement.  Sherlock Holmes, unfortunately, is not typical of his race.  He moved quickly to neutralize the conversation.

"Watson, whatever lies that semi-hysterical fop may be inclined to spread about me, I assure you that I am fine," he replied swiftly.

"That is an outrageous lie.  I say this as a doctor, not as your friend," I added, "for as your friend such an assertion is insulting, and doctors, however they may detest it, are used to being lied to."

"My dear fellow, in whatever character you are making such statements, you are still calling me a liar," he snapped in return.  "I have just finished a case which never once required me to work less than fifteen hours a day over the course of the past eight weeks.  Those hours, I assure you, were exhausting.  Moreover, I have more than once--to be frank, as you seem to wish me to be, three times--been at it for five days at a stretch.  I have grown weary.  Is it not the nature of man to grow weary when all around him is commonplace and vulgar?"

Sherlock Holmes, following this telling pronouncement, glared at me as he never had before in our already lengthy association.  I was tempted to be angry, and stopped myself when I recognized he still shook like a leaf, glistened as if in the throes of nausea, and already regarded me with a bitter regret for his outburst.

"Did you really keep at it for such long stretches?"

"I have just said that I did," he responded.  His voice had grown dull and pained rather than angry.

"There is not a man in the world who can stay awake for so long without the aid of artificial stimulant," I noted cautiously.

"Is that true?" he drawled.  "I am exceptional."

"You are still a man."

"Small wonder you are so widely respected as a physician.  It is unforgivable you aren't in Harley Street by now."

I opened my mouth to reply to this crude dig, but was prevented speaking by Holmes, who cast out a hand for any ready surface and found mine in its blind search.

"It is a symptom.  I have done this once before.  I was coming out of university finals.  You mustn't think it personal."  His eyes flew open once more and questioned me with grave urgency.

Much was clear to me by now, of course; I confess, however, that I still could not credit my friend with drug abuse in the midst of an international investigation.  I made every attempt to ignore the salient fact the Sherlock Holmes' hand was now clasped in my own and continued the conversation.

"You never use cocaine when engaged upon a case."

"Then why do you suppose I have done so?" he replied caustically, his mood having already shifted back to that of a prosecutor questioning a jury.

"I don't think you ought to consider your symptoms so far beyond my powers, even if you had not already confessed as much," I growled.  "Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that your stamina on this case has proven humanly impossible, I should have recognized symptoms of irritability, nausea, fatigue, tremors, depression, and loss of muscular control as indications of addiction withdrawal from cocaine."

There was a long silence, which seemed not to stem from any consternation on the part of my friend, but rather because he was unwilling to speak whilst mild shudders passed through his body.  I wondered, not for the last time, which dire force of nature would be required to compel Sherlock Holmes to relinquish his control.  I realized I had no choice but to force the issue.

"You say you have done this before.  Surely you are not so foolish as to think the second time is easier than the first?" I asked.  The words flew out of me, cognizant themselves of their value even as I wished to retract them.

This remark hit home.  "I had just earned double firsts in history and mathematics," he replied in a shocked tone.  "I took a suite of rooms for a week.  I did it myself...."

"No doubt.  No doubt your consumption was also significantly less than that required to keep you awake for over a hundred hours at a stretch, on three separate occasions.  The body grows inured to--"

"I understand it was mad, I assure you," he interjected fervently.  "But Watson, you must not think me an utter lunatic.  It was the case which precipitated this advanced necessity."

"Nevertheless, you require help," I said gently.  "I wish to help you."  I kept my eyes sensibly trained on the carpet though I still gripped his hand with a precariously suppressed force. 

"I do not desire anyone to see me like this," was the choked whisper which at length drew me from my reverie.

"I am not anyone," I pointed out.

"No, you aren't.  You are far worse."

"What the devil is that supposed to mean?" I demanded, withdrawing my hand at long last.

"You are everyone," he replied, reclaiming it.  "You are no one.  I don't know.  You certainly aren't anyone."

It was utter nonsense, of course.  The words, though strung together earnestly, conveyed no message to their intended audience.  I made no progress at understanding him, nor should I have attempted such, for Holmes was in the throes of a severe medical condition.  Yet something in his tone, I will confess even now, struck a chord within me.  He could have been reciting "The Charge of the Light Brigade" for all I cared.  He wished me to be there.  He needed me to be there.  That was all I could have hoped for at the time.

The maid arrived a few minutes later, no doubt at Michel Vernet's request, with a tray of pastries and a basin of fresh water.  Holmes' grip had by that time entirely relaxed and he slept the sleep not of the comforted, but the physically exhausted.  I partook of as many bites of food as I could stomach, then lay down beside my insensate friend, throwing my own greatcoat over myself for a blanket.  I knew nothing could be done for him medicinally, and the thought sent a self-reproachful ache to the very center of my professional being.  Still, the room was warm enough and the bedclothes beneath me intoxicating.  In all my life, I have remained awake for half the period Holmes had specified--just over two days time.  In this particular case, however, thirty hours of helpless dread was enough to drive me into the deepest sleep I have ever experienced, heedless of what country I was in, whose bed I had crawled into, or whether Sherlock Holmes would be likely to forgive my presence upon the morrow.

In fact, the events of the morning surprised my friend and I both equally.  We are neither of us heavy sleepers, as it happens, for we have both been, through differing ways and means, exposed to the necessity of sudden and complete wakefulness.  Therefore the urgent knocking at Holmes' bedroom door roused both of us at once into passable semblances of alertness.  We stared at one another in bafflement for a moment as Holmes withdrew his arm from my waist and I regretted having forgotten to make my own bed appear slept in.

"I assure you--" he began.

"I never dreamed of--" said I at the same time.

"This is ridiculous," he snapped, throwing his dressing gown over his shoulders as he made for the door.

"Holmes, are you feeling any better?" I asked as he set his hand to the knob.  It was not an insincere question.  Addiction is a horrific ailment.  I had been quite terrified for him the night before.

"Get in your room.  Now," he replied.

I hastened to do so, my ears burning.  He hadn't sounded angry.  But then, all too often, when Sherlock Holmes is exceedingly angry, he does not show it.  I sat upon the edge of my immaculately made bed for some three minutes whilst angry exclamations vied for supremacy in the French tongue.  At last Holmes threw open the communicating door between our rooms.

"Get dressed," he commanded.  I noted that he had already nearly achieved this goal and lacked only a collar and frock coat to complete his toilette.

"Holmes--" I began.  To my utter shock, he threw back my coverlet, leapt between my sheets, rolled back and forth four or five times with his forearms tucked in--a stance I recognized at once from his techniques when boxing--then tumbled out the other side to land gracefully upon the hardwood.  His descent precipitated an abrupt spin as he rotated to punch my pillow into quivering submission.

"That is better," he declared.

I gaped at him as he stood there, having returned his hands easily to his pockets.  He regarded me with that half-questioning amusement I had so often found equally irritating and arousing.

"Watson, simply because they are French does not mean they are entirely inured to the concept of scandal.  I have fixed what ailed your bed.  The summons itself, I fear, is not one to be trifled with.  Now get dressed," he repeated lightly.  So saying, he strode out the door, his frame once more under his control though it still quivered noticeably.  Suppressing a smile, I at once complied with his orders, wondering as I did so whether there would be hell to pay later for the liberties I had already taken.  A clean collar and a quick shave sufficed to make me presentable and I returned to Holmes' room greatly curious at what could have so alarmed him.  To my great shock, he was handing both his own travelling-case and my as-yet unpacked valise to his distraught cousin.

"Mais je crois que c'est trop dangereux--"

"Michel, n'importe pas.  C'est trop dangereux ici," Holmes replied placatingly.

"Tu as la raison," Vernet replied, sounding all but panicked.  "Mais--"

"En anglais, s'il te plaît," Holmes interjected, laying eyes upon me. 

"Assuredly," said his cousin hastily.  "I merely mean to say that there are certain advantages to remaining here which even you cannot deny.  You are free from specific influences.  You are sure of your food and drink.  You have an ally at the gates, if you will--"

"Mon cher Michel," said Holmes kindly, "I would never dream of bringing that very ally into my own perilous sphere.  Consider yourself well out of it.  And my thanks to you for what must have been a very trying ordeal."

The diminutive kinsman shrugged his shoulders in an elaborate display of disinterest as his eyes filled with tears.  "C'est mon plaisir.  Take every precaution, the both of you.  If something should happen--"

"Oh, for God's sake," Sherlock Holmes retorted testily.  "Here.  I'll take the bags myself."

Michel Vernet laughed at this as Holmes offered him his pocket handkerchief.  Drying his eyes, he replied, as with one hand he grasped my friend by the shoulder, "You will survive it.  You will survive him.  I know that you will.  Your strength, your indefatigable courage, your joie de vivre--"

"Are swiftly ebbing," Holmes interrupted him.  "Allons-y, mon cher--I beg your pardon.  My dear Watson, let us depart.  Michel, as ever, I hope never to lay eyes upon you again."

Michel Vernet placed a hand over his heart as if he considered this the highest compliment.  "As ever, then, mon cher cousin," the little fellow replied gallantly.  "Well said indeed.  As ever.  Dr. Watson, meeting you was a great honour.  Au revoir!"

As we darted down the back stairs past maids going about the business of supplying fresh linens, I could not restrain my curiosity.  "Holmes, whom are you going to survive?"

"My apologies for my relation," Holmes muttered.  "He is very unnerving.  There is a little matter pertaining to the Baron Maupertuis which remains to be sorted out."

"What matter?"

"He is just now a trifle keen on my death."

"How can that make any difference?" I demanded in a rush of panic.  "He cannot harm you.  He is incarcerated.  I read it myself.  You've been finished with the case for two days, and you didn't even have the decency to--"  I halted somewhat lamely as we burst forth from the kitchen door into the spring air.

"To what, Watson?" Holmes asked.  He had stopped in his tracks, staring at me intently.

"Well, to wire," I sighed.  "Or barring that, to return."

"Yes, I could have," he replied.  "I am sorry."

"It is quite all right," I hastened to assure him as we set off again, disconcerted at the unprecedented experience of being apologized to by Sherlock Holmes.

"I can only excuse myself by mentioning I was in the depths of a rather serious condition," he continued, his eyes warily scanning the street. 

"Of course you were.  I am terribly sorry for--"

"And I couldn't have returned in such a state.  Michel had his orders, you know.  I was locked in.  I was exceedingly surprised when you burst in upon me."

I blushed at the thought.  "You asked your cousin to incarcerate you until your cravings had run their course?  What is it, four days now?"

He nodded silently.

"But Holmes--there was only a simple lock on that door, and a drainpipe by the window.  You could easily have--"

"Escaped?" he chuckled.  "Not when Michel had given his word to wire my brother if I went missing."

"I see," I said, the system revealed to me.  "You could either adhere to your own regime, or risk exposure."

"Quite so.  I only hatched the notion some two weeks ago when I recognized that my need for alertness had outstripped my health.  I waited until the case was largely concluded, then convinced Michel to lock me in."

"Holmes," I queried slowly, "why did your cousin wire me with such urgency to come to Lyon?"

My friend sighed and motioned for me to follow him up a steeply inclined side street, lined with shadowy herb boxes and canopied with fresh laundry.  "I do not remember.  It is just possible I may have asked him to do so.  I recall quite clearly I thought I was dying."

As I attempted to formulate a response to this, Holmes continued, "I am under no such delusions now, I assure you, nor will I be again.  Do not fear for that."

"I am not afraid for that," said I.  What I was afraid for I could not begin to articulate.  As I attempted to puzzle it out, Holmes all at once stopped and leaned his back against the wall of an empty residence, his breath coming in shuddering gasps and his hand shielding his eyes from the morning sun.

"Holmes, what is it?" I asked, grasping for his pulse.

"It is nothing."

A thought occurred to me.  "Holmes, when was the last time you ate something?"

Either he gave the matter serious thought or it was some moments before he could speak.  "I cannot precisely recall."

"Then you are already aware of what I am about to say," I replied, taking his arm as his strength slowly returned to him.

"I suppose I can deduce it, yes," he said sheepishly.  We continued up the steep edge of the hillside. 

"You are as thin as a wraith.  You require better sustenance than cocaine."

"Forgive me the personal remark, my dear boy, but you are hardly looking in top form yourself," Holmes responded softly, sending a critical eye up and down my physique.

"Me?" I exclaimed.  "Holmes, that is preposterous.  I may have been rather active in your absence, but when have you known me to forego a meal?  In any event, I have not been engaged upon a desperate venture in secret and in solitude."

I knew from his brows that he saw through my bluff.  It hardly mattered, however, for he merely shrugged and quipped, "To breakfast, then, my dear Watson, for my sake if not for yours.  There is a little cafe just through here with a few secluded tables in the back garden.  We must plan our campaign out of sight of prying eyes.  In any event, my first breakfast in three weeks or more ought to be a leisurely affair."

 
It was more than a leisurely affair; it was a breakfast such as no man should embark upon unless he had been two days with hardly a scrap of food, as in my case, or God only knows how long surviving upon tea, bread, tobacco, and artificial stimulants, as in my friend's.  I knew not what he had ordered, for he spoke rapidly and courteously in his grandmother's tongue with the elderly waiter, whose occasional smiles led me to believe Holmes' remarkable constitution was already well on its way to recovery.  When the platters covered in breads, cheeses, and cuts of meat arrived just after a bottle of a dusty old vintage no doubt retrieved from the furthest corner of the cellar, I believed myself for a moment, caught up in the rush seeing my friend again after so long a time, the happiest man alive.  Whether sharing a bottle of red wine vaguely marked "1871" at ten o'clock in the morning was a good idea, I hardly cared--Holmes sat before me, a fork in one hand and a crust of bread in the other, and I had not the slightest wish to oppose any of his whims.

"Holmes," I ventured at length, when many of the dishes had been cleared and the detective had turned his attention, hands still trembling but noticeably stronger, to an array of fresh fruit, "are our lives really in danger just now?"

This elicited a bark of laughter from Holmes, who settled back and drained the last of his wine glass.  "You have an unnerving knack, my dear fellow, of cutting in upon my thoughts.  I fear it is only luck on your part, and perhaps some time I shall give you a demonstration of how such things can be accomplished logically."

"Logically based or not, the matter must necessarily be heavy on both our minds," I pointed out.

"Bravo--a point, we must concede it, to the law of probabilities," he smiled, lighting a cigarette.  "Very well, then.  We must flee, I think, and without much further delay.  I have secured every member of the Baron's modest empire including the mastermind himself.  The trouble lies in the fact that the wretch has worked out a way of communicating from prison, and has hired a fellow I should not like us to encounter.  Michel, it may surprise you to know, has his fingers in a great many sticky matters through his hotel's practice of entertaining with perfect anonymity any guest with which the Archbishop must hold commerce.  I gave Michel a list of men who, if they were contacted, could give me trouble here in Lyon before locking myself in.  I also gave him their descriptions.  The ridiculous fellow waited until nine this morning, for fear of disturbing us, to report that one such blackguard had been rebuffed in his attempt to engage a room."

"And who was this ruffian?" I asked.  I posed the question carelessly, as if the danger meant nothing.  In fact I posed it carelessly because Holmes had let slip a phrase I desired very much to explore.

"His name is LaRothiere.  A clever little assassin.  We must make our way to Paris, my dear fellow.  In this bag I have the garb of a local clergyman, and Michel assures me that you were not observed entering the hotel.  I am equally assured we were not observed departing.  Therefore you may remain as you are, and I will meet you at the train station.  You can find your way there within half an hour, yes?"

"Assuredly," I replied.

"Purchase a single one-way ticket to Paris on the 1:15, find a private compartment, and await me within it," he finished, pushing back his chair.  "I must be engaged some little time in altering my appearance."

I likewise arose from my chair.  "What of the bill?"

"What bill?" Holmes laughed.  "I've just garnered an eight hundred pound reward, and I cannot recall ever having paid you for medical services rendered, including house calls in foreign countries.  In any event, francs are worthless when set against the pound."

I stood stock still for an instant without replying, for there it was again.  Every so often, always during some remark which Holmes intended to be jocular, I caught a fleeting pensive expression behind those grey pools which boasted over a thousand differing moods: each, I flattered myself, known to me.  I was wrong in this assumption, as I was in many others.  But at this recurrence of his wistful glance, I was tempted very strongly to pose the question burning at that moment deep within me. 

However, I flatter myself I am not a man to give in to temptation until the time is right.  "Thank you, my dear fellow.  It is a great pleasure to see you again, you know."

"If it is a great pleasure to see me again in this state, I hardly know what is likely to please you,"
 he retorted, retrieving our bags from behind a potted rose.

"It simply pleases me to see you," I replied.  "It pleases me beyond words.  No matter what state you are in."

He did not hear me.  He had flashed me a smile and disappeared into the cafe with a cheery wave.  I had not expected him to hear me, for there was a certain cadence to Holmes' parting shots which brooked no further remark unless that remark be made to the wind.  However, I will confess that I took care to book a railway compartment which suited my purposes, as torrential and scattered as those purposes were.  I hardly knew what I would say to him, or do, once we were truly alone together, but the memory of his arm throw carelessly over my torso burned in my memory like a bonfire.  He had done nothing, said nothing, which could not be easily attributed to the distraight of a debilitating illness.  But the mere fact of seeing him again convinced me that my own case was so utterly hopeless that something must be done about it, for better or for worse.

The railway carriage I had taken such care in perusing was largely unoccupied at one o-clock, save for myself and a red-haired woman in the compartment opposite whose main preoccupation was to check her watch against the time the train was scheduled to depart.  Ten minutes later, a well-mannered clergyman asked whether the seat opposite mine were occupied.  I assured him that it was not.  Twenty minutes after that, the train well on its way at last to the capital, I was granted the highly erotic sight that I had not convinced myself to tire of in six long years: that of Sherlock Holmes slowly discarding the habits and attire of one person whilst leisurely slipping back into his own skin. 

"Was it difficult?" I asked.

"Not difficult, no, but tedious," he said, diving under the cassock and emerging in shirtsleeves and waistcoat.  "I was obliged to sit down and then get up again in several coffee shops.  Only thus can one truly know if one is being followed."

"And were you?"

"No indeed.  It would hardly matter if I had been, for I executed a few dodges en route.  I am very glad to be on this train--it is a shame to leave my relation in such an absurd dither, but I've no wish to bring harm upon him or his hotel, and we will be far less visible in Paris, rest assured."

"I am inutterably relieved.  And exhausted as well, I find."  I could not suppress a yawn at this revelation.

Holmes stared at me in silence for a moment.  Then, glancing down, he remarked, "I've a violin in the bag, you know.  Part of the old clergyman's persona.  It is a wretched instrument--hardly worthy of my fingers or your atten--"

"I would be deeply grateful if you would play it for me," I replied.

"Would you?" he asked in a sudden flush of discomfort.  "I wouldn't mention it, but I haven't played...."

"Holmes," I repeated gently, my eyes never leaving his face, "I would pay you a fortune, if I had one, to play for me just now."

"You cannot mean that," he remarked shrewdly.

I shrugged at him.  "You know what your violin does for my nerves.   They are a trifle distressed.  As for the question whether the instrument is worthy of your playing, well, that is self-explanatory.  You purchased it in your disguise as the elderly clergyman.  Ergo, the violin must be..."

He cocked a brow at me and commenced bowing.  The sounds were raw, yes, but impeccably in tune.

"The violin must be to your satisfaction," I finished.  I leaned my head against the railway carriage and closed my eyes.

He may have played for minutes, or for hours.  I could not tell.  He had drawn all the blinds within our portion of the rail car, and it was as good as dark within our sanctuary.  I did notice when he shifted seats to my side of the chamber, and I also noticed when he ceased bowing, replaced the sorely tried old instrument in its case, and leaned back against the rocking of the seat cushions.

"Holmes?" I whispered, in the darkness.

"What is it?" he sighed.  "I had nearly found a place to drift off to sleep in this pernicious environment."

"We will be in Paris in a little over an hour anyway," I pointed out.

"Yes, Watson, so I must needs satisfy your curiosity as we travel, neglecting any little moments of repose I may have braced myself with along the way."

All considerations of ingratiating myself into a conversation with Holmes over the topic I intended disappeared at once.  For me, the discussion became a forgone conclusion; it would be hostile, or it would not occur.  I braced myself.

"Holmes, there is one question I cannot work out."

"Only one?" he sniffed.

"Why would your cousin have feared disturbing us at nine in the morning in your room?"

I fear that he sat as still as if he had been turned to stone.  A moment later, however, the blood returned to his face and his limbs regained their power of motion.

"You sincerely wish me to deduce the machinations of Michel's mind for you?  To what purpose, may I ask?" he demanded.

"It seemed an odd consideration."

"He is, as you have seen for yourself, an odd man.  Perhaps he thought me too delicate to disturb.  I have long since ceased to be curious about the tortuous corridors of the Vernet mind, and I suggest you do the same."

"I wish to know."

"I wish to know what drives one man to murder while another will not commit perjury to save his own wife," my friend returned with some asperity.  "I wish to know whether the God who set all this in motion gave any thought as to its eventual trials and tribulations; that does not mean I entertain any hopes of finding such things out."

"You truly equate your little cousin's casual remarks with the great mysteries of the universe?" I stated incredulously.

"Watson, drop it, I beg you.  There is nothing to be gained in our exploring the matter."

"We are alone in a rail car.  If there is nothing to be gained, surely there is nothing to be lost either.  It seems a harmless enough way to while away the time."

Holmes turned to face me.  His eyes were very bright there in the dimness of the compartment, resigned and yet daring at the same time.  "If you really wish to know, I will tell you," he said. 

"Thank you," said I.  "I do wish to know."

"But I warn you," he continued quietly, "you and I will never be friends again.  Or at least, not in the sense that I regard the word."

"I will remain your friend until one or the other of us is dead," I assured him, my heart beginning to race.

"You are risking something that is exceedingly important to me over a trifle," he replied scathingly.  "Perhaps to you, it is of little consequence.  But you are my only friend in the world, the only one to whom I can confide the lofty matters which are entrusted to me, as well as the desperate little matters which are handed over to my care."

As gratifying, and indeed, unheard-of as these remarks may have been, I had gone to far too stop at such a critical juncture.  "Holmes, are you saying that I will no longer take part in your cases if you explain to me a casual statement made by your own cousin?"

"It amounts to that."

I recalled the warmth of his arm encircling my waist in the small hours of the morning, and the image lent me strength.  "Does it have anything to do with not merely the original question--why Michel would not wish to interrupt us--but also why I have scarcely been able to sleep more than a quarter hour at a time since you've been gone, knowing you are set upon continually by determined assassins without me at your side?" I asked.

Sherlock Holmes took one last all-encompassing, infinitely fond, final look at his friend.  And then he kissed me.  I would not be exaggerating to say he attacked me.

So this is what it is like, I thought before my mouth opened of its own volition and all thoughts fled from me.  After a moment, he drew away, and as my hand clutched the back of his neck in mute protest, the beginnings of a smile played around the corners of his lips.

"John Watson, I seem to have reached some inaccurate conclusions about you," he whispered.

"And I you, I assure you," I replied.

"It is absolutely astonishing," he mused.  He ran a hand languidly down my arm as if to gauge scientifically my reaction to his intent.  When he encountered no objection, the hand migrated to my upper thigh.  "To think that you could have deceived me for so long, and at such close quarters--it is clear that my observation of you has hitherto been entirely unsystematic."
 
"Holmes," I pleaded, "never mind that now."

"Very well," he murmured, the smile widening.  "I shan't." Leaning in to kiss me again, he deftly undid my cravat and plucked away my collar, proceeding to unbutton my shirt with one hand as the other held the side of my face.

"You've drawn all the blinds completely?" I gasped as his firm lips migrated to my jaw line.

He took his time in answering me, for his hands were busy pulling my shirt apart as his mouth played over my collarbone.  "That I have.  Though not for these purposes."

His lips wandered over my skin in a nonchalant and meandering pattern, but their heat felt as if he were burning a path of scorched earth along my chest.  When he encountered the scar upon my shoulder, he gave a little sigh and brushed it tenderly with his lips while his eyes darted over further undiscovered territories.

"Is the door locked?"  I could scarcely seem to catch my breath as his sinewy arm snaked around my back and firmly drew me to him as he continued his exploration of my upper body.

"Of course it is.  Why do you ask?"  He favored me with a shockingly passionate glance and returned to what he had been doing as his left hand neatly unfastened my trousers.

"This is illegal!" I hissed, running my hands desperately through his dark hair.

"No, it isn't," he stated cheerily as he dropped to his knees in the railway carriage and scrutinized what he had unveiled as if it were a particularly remarkable and complex problem. 

Even if I'd had the air in my lungs to protest, I recalled he was right.  We were not in our native country and its laws could not affect us.

"Of course," he continued thoughtfully, propping a casual arm upon my knee, "it will be very illegal when we have returned to Baker Street and perform similar acts three hundred and fifty or sixty days out of the calendar year.  But I don't intend to tell anyone about it, and I will thank you to return the favor."

I nearly laughed at his courteously prim request but gasped instead as his head at last descended.  My vision blurred as he took me deeply and slowly in his mouth, and I gripped the seat of the rail car as if I would fly out the window.  Just when I thought I would be lucky to hold out through another thirty seconds of such delicate yet forceful ministrations, I felt his arm against my leg as he freed his own flesh from its confines and began to stroke himself powerfully, moaning against me as he did so.

The sensation was incredible, and I drew blood from my lip in an effort to keep from screaming so as to alarm the entire train.  "Holmes," I cried at length, unable to prevent myself, but at that moment he cried out at his own completion, muffling the sound with my member deep in his throat.  At that moment, I abandoned all semblance of control as I lost the battle to hover at the brink of pleasure, and with shuddering gasps experienced a more profound release than I had ever imagined possible.

When I at last opened my eyes and sought evidence that the event I had just experienced was not merely the most wonderful dream I could ever have, I regarded Holmes tucking into his pocket the handkerchief he had clearly been clever enough to expend himself in at the last moment, and all trace of our activities thus disappeared from sight as he fastened the last button of his trousers. My own he had already attended to.  The fastidiousness and care over potentially damning trifles were both so typical of the man that I shook my head in amazement as he sat down once more and lay his head easily in my lap.

"Where the devil did you learn to do that?" I asked, utterly dazed.

He shrugged, and commenced rubbing his hands together in a languorous effort to calm their tremors.  "At boarding school.  Doesn't everyone?"

I chuckled heartily at this cavalierly shocking query.  "Well, I certainly did, but no, I don't imagine it is an experience common to every British youth.  But I wasn't speaking so generally.  That trick of--"

"Oh," he smiled.  "You liked that, then?"

"It was incredible, but you appear to have robbed me of the opportunity to return the favor."

"A small matter," he sighed contentedly.  "We shall soon enough set it to rights.  I've an excellent memory for such accounts."

"That doesn't surprise me in the least," I grinned, gently grazing his cheekbone with the back of my hand.  "Holmes, you are regarding me with the most extraordinary expression."

"Am I?" he laughed.  "I was just picturing you at seventeen, barely old enough to shave, dashing about playing rugby and then pursuing other sports in your more leisurely hours."

I do not know why this casually stated remark should have warmed my heart as it did, but I stilled his hands and commenced massaging them gently, one by one.  

"How do you feel?"

"I feel terrible," he sighed.  He was still appallingly pale, and I could feel his fluttering pulse at his slender wrists.  "And of course, I also feel rather wonderful."

"I am very glad of it," I murmured.  "But Holmes, I wish you to tell me something."

"All right.  Michel Vernet feared to interrupt us at nine in the morning because he has known me for an invert since I was in the sixth form.  So has Mycroft, for that matter."

"No, I think I had worked that out on my own," I said softly.  "I am very glad to see your family are not repulsed at such things.  What I mean to say is...I do not wish to sound petulant, of course, but--Holmes, why on earth did you leave me in Baker Street for two months without word while you ran around risking your neck?"

His weary grey eyes flicked up to my face solicitously.  "I performed that inexcusable act because I made two serious tactical errors," he said somberly.

"To which tactical errors to you refer?"

"The first was in imagining you had no interest in male advances simply because you took an interest in females as well.  An unforgivable blunder."

"I have had my share of experience with women," I admitted, "but if you refer to the women who are continually parading themselves around our sitting room for your benefit, I was not aroused by them; I was furious at them."

"Ha!  That," said Holmes, laughing, "is an excellent example of emotional prejudice obscuring fact."

"And the second?"

He paused for a moment as if weighing his words.  "I imagined that if I could take myself away from you for a long period, I could uproot the perversions which threatened our partnership."

"You thought you could change your nature?"

"No, of course not.  But I thought I could forget you," he replied, and his voice was suddenly very sad.  "And that, my dear fellow, was an error so egregious that the pitiable results lie before you."

"Yes, it was very stupid of you," I agreed fondly, making an effort not to appear as moved as I felt.  "It may improve your spirits to learn I was no better at the exercise than you."

He looked up at me with such an expression of tenderness that I feared to move, lest I break the moment and never see it again.  "It improves my spirits to an unprecedented degree," he smiled.  "Is there anything else you wish to know?"

"Yes, there is one thing," I admitted.  "You have said we are going to Paris.  But what are our plans?"

"I had thought we might remain lost in that city for as long a period of time as it amuses us," he murmured.

I could not conceal a pang of disappointment, as irrational as it may have been.  Upon any other day of my life, when asked by Sherlock Holmes whether or not I would like to wander the streets of Paris with no object other than our own amusement in view, I would have replied that nothing in the world could so swiftly enable me to die a contented and satisfied man.  That afternoon, however, as he rested upon me white-faced, still shivering, and clearly nothing more than a great wreck of nerves, I wanted nothing more than to take him back to London.

"I said I had thought that," he continued at the look on my face, "but that was before you demanded to know the meaning behind my unspeakable cousin's solicitude."

"How does that change anything?" I asked.

"Watson, I will take you to Paris," he pronounced solemnly.  "We will walk down the boulevards arm in arm and we will stop whenever it pleases us and I assure you it will be breathtaking.  I will show you everything that is wonderful about that city.  I realize you know it well enough, but I would dearly love to show you the Paris which stands out in my memory as the finest city on the Continent.  I am not without contacts there, and neither is my horrible cousin.  But just now, I beg your permission to use it as a stopping place only.  Now that you know everything...I want to go home."

"Never mind, old fellow," I reassured him.  "I could not agree with you more.  But what of LaRothiere?"

"The only way he could hamper us is if he was astute enough to have the Lyon train station watched at all times, for he must have known I would swiftly quit the Hotel Dulong."

"How can we be sure of having shaken off his pursuit?"

Holmes shook his weary head pensively.  "I fear we cannot know until we reach the Channel crossing.  We change trains only once before then, and even if we observed everyone who accompanied us on to the next leg of the journey, we should not know whether any of them are following us.  It is not a situation I relish, and it is altogether inexcusable to have placed you in it with me."

"It is not your fault a man is out for your life, and I have been have sick with worry while stuck at Baker Street for enough days to last a lifetime.  In any event, it has been far too long since you placed me in any sort of danger."

"That is no laughing matter," he responded irritably, though he appeared equally vexed and amused. 

"Then we will not treat it as such.  We shall hang our heads as if a death warrant had robbed us of all humour."

"Watson," Holmes said, narrowing his eyes at me, "you are going to be completely incorrigible from this moment onwards, aren't you?"

"I cannot promise anything," I demurred. 

"Never mind," he yawned.  "I am too exhausted to consider the question of verbal repartee just now.  Within a month or two, I will know better what I have gotten myself into."

So saying, he fell immediately fast asleep.

When we departed from the train into one of Paris's huge and bustling "gares" or stations, I was surprised to note that Holmes had stuffed his disguise in his travelling bag and affected no other means of concealing himself.

"It isn't any good, Watson," he replied to my anxious brows.  "If I was spotted in Lyon, if anything, it will confuse them for an instant.  Now, we are going to switch lines as quickly as possible, and soon enough we shall arrive in Calais and take the first ferry available back to Dover."

After purchasing tickets, we set off through the labyrinthine halls, our footsteps echoing in concert with the footsteps of hundreds of other passengers negotiating that massive edifice.  I thought for a moment how easy it would be for someone to draw up behind us and casually slip a knife through our ribs, but forbore remark on the subject.  However, I was not to fret in silence for long, as Holmes appeared gradually to be slowing his pace.

"My dear fellow, are you all right?"

"I am feeling a little weak," he replied casually, "and also I have every suspicion that we are being followed."

"Holmes--"

"This way," he hissed at me, and dove suddenly into a less populated hallway.  Trying a nearby door and finding it locked, he drew his folding knife from his pocket and made swift work of the lock, though I could not see how it was done.  We at once ducked into the room, which proved not a room at all, but a wide, dimly lit tunnel leading to the service access for the tracks.

"Capital!" Holmes laughed softly.  "We are fortunate indeed that LaRothiere himself was so hampered by my cousin--who assures me he lost no time in informing the Lyon constabulary--that he was forced to engage the services of an associate.  This man, if I do not miss my guess, is a complete imbecile.  Quickly now--behind that great box housing the tools for the track workers."

"Holmes, how on earth did you know that fellow was following you?" He had taken my hand to lead me behind a shed-like wooden structure housing, no doubt, all manner of equipment.

"Because he is not very good at it," Holmes muttered, clasping me round my waist as he settled against the wall behind me.  "I took care to observe as many of our fellow passengers as possible who likewise took tickets to Calais.  Then I proceeded in precisely the wrong direction for said train.  Three wrong directions, in fact.  That fellow dogged our every step."

I entertwined my own fingers with those encircling my torso, wondering as I did so how on earth I could have been so very stupid for so very long, despite Holmes' assertion that all claim to idiocy lay at his door.  "You think he will follow us in here?"

"I hope so.  He observed us enter, and the door is unlocked.  In fact, I am counting on my own reputation to save us a great deal of trouble."

I did not understand this, but fell silent as the door slowly opened and light crept into the cavernous chamber.  The fellow lost not an instant but hurried down the slope into the darkness.

"And that ought to do it," said Holmes merrily, his voice still very low.  "Back out again, my dear fellow, and let us catch that train."

When we had exited the room, Holmes withdrew his penknife once more and locked the door behind him.

"I see it all," I declared, laughing.  "He thought you a formidable enough quarry to take the service tunnels to a point near the track of your own train, and then, without any knowledge of the master schedules, make your way across the active tracks to the platform and thus shake off any pursuer."

He could not touch me in the open hallway, but he made a serious effort to portray irreparably wounded pride.  "And you delude yourself that such an operation would prove beyond my ken?" he demanded.

"No, I don't, in fact," I returned.  "I apologize for having even suggested such a thing.  Henceforth I will make every effort to express my admiration for your skills."

Holmes rolled his eyes at this as we hastened to the track which housed the Calais train, but I knew his active imagination too sensitive for my remark to have entirely failed in its purpose. 

The Calais leg of our journey was far quieter, for Holmes appeared more fatigued with every stroke of the clock.  I made certain of a visit to the dining car, and his usual suavity indulged me in a brief meal, but I could only wish the train to travel far faster than steam could carry it.  When we finally alighted the steam ferry at Calais, I rejoiced that so many or our troubles were nearly at an end, but immediately upon my engaging a private room, my friend collapsed upon the length of the seat.

"Holmes, what is it?" I asked, his ashen looks startling me beyond all reason.

"It is just an attack.  It will pass, like all the others."

I poured a little water on a cloth from my valise and placed it over his brow.

"Can I get you anything?  Water?  Some brandy, perhaps?"

"You are aware, surely, that it won't do any good," he replied impatiently.  "You are a doctor.  You know perfectly well that the only element at work here is time."

I sat at the end of the seat and gathered him up so that I leaned back against the wall and his head was supported by my chest.  The door was locked, all blinds drawn, and the land in which such behavior was punishable by a stint in Reading Gaol drew ever nearer.  I gave little enough thought to any of it.

"I know you hate to be seen like this, but it cannot be worse than watching you suffer," I could not help but tell him.  His stoic and proud nature would likely not be comforted by such an assertion, I knew, but unfortunately the beginning of my intimate relationship with Sherlock Holmes also marked the end of my ability to dissimulate in his presence.

"It is not so very terrible," he assured me.  "Do not trouble yourself."

"What is it like?" I whispered.

He considered the question.  "It is as if everything good has been taken so utterly away from you that you cannot recall what it was like before."

"Oh, Holmes.  And that isn't so very terrible?"

"Very well.  It is terrible.  It is wretched and terrifying and I deserve every minute of it.  I also seem to deserve to be subjected to a conversation about it.  Now for God's sake leave me in peace."

I ran my fingers through his hair.  "I am sorry," I said miserably.  "I wish I could do something."

He opened his eyes for a moment.  "You are already doing it.  Now please, Watson, if you ever held me in any sort of esteem, do stop talking."

I imagined telling my friend precisely how deep my esteem for him ran.  It seemed very urgent at the time to express my regard for him in the most fervent manner possible, for I knew that, were our positions reversed, I would have been comforted simply by the sound of his voice.  But Sherlock Holmes, I recalled in time, is nothing like me, and indeed nothing like any other man I had ever encountered.  What he wished me to do, I was already doing.  And he was right--the rest was simply a matter of time.

The sight of our Baker Street rooms was such an utter relief after the difficult journey that Holmes even managed to muster the good humour required to emphatically declare to Mrs Hudson that he would be fine, on four separate occasions.

We dined quietly, for I felt by this time nearly as shaken as Holmes looked.  Neither of us said much, and after dinner, brandies were drained rather than enjoyed.  My friend indulged in a single pipe, but all too soon, squeezing my shoulder with an absent smile, he made for his room and shut the door behind him as he always did.

I could have interpreted his actions in several ways, and I realized, sitting there before our sitting room fire as a rush of fear washed over me, that whatever I knew of the moods of my eccentric friend, I knew nothing whatever of his habits as a lover, and the idea frankly terrified me.  Everything I had taken for granted about the man I adored had been fundamentally wrong; what else might I have misjudged?  Had he other lovers?  Did he desire me to share his bed?  Would my constant ache to be with him grow to irritate him as much as anything else he found commonplace?  Had he mererly looked at me as a tantalizing problem and dismissed the whole affair as unimportant once that problem had been solved?  I was so ignorant of procedure that I hesitantly made my way upstairs, shut my own door, and quietly went about preparing myself for bed.

Forty minutes later there came a knock at my door and there stood Holmes in his dressing gown, a candle in his hand and his eyebrows aloft.

"If you are truly more comfortable here, I've no objection, but my bed is larger and my window faces a brick wall," he observed.

I must have looked rather sheepish, for he added in a more worried tone, "Or is there something else which troubles you?"  He closed the door behind him and leaned against it.

"I am a little troubled," I admitted, "but I am merely vexing myself.  Discovering that we have both been elaborately deceiving each other all these years was simply disconcerting for a moment.  I questioned--I do not know what I questioned.  It is nothing."

This was not precisely true.  I was beginning to know what I wanted, but I was irked with myself that my desire was so unnecessary and irrational.  I knew, as surely as ever anyone knew anything, that Holmes cared for me.  There was not a doubt in my mind regarding that salient fact.  However, I adored him so that declarations hovered ever upon my lips, had done so even before that unforgettable train ride, and I knew it would be a job to quash all of them.  Even as he stood there, his arms crossed patiently, a hundred phrases he would not have appreciated flitted through my mind.  If he would only say even one of them, I could feel less like my own sentiments would ever be greeted with a snort of derision.

"You are right," he conceded, setting the candle next to mine on the bedside table.  "The habit of many years deception is now a rather awkward mantle."

Holmes has always been blindingly adept at expressing himself, for which I was very grateful.  "That is it exactly," said I.  "It is as if, after all this time, I know nothing about you."

"My antecedents, you mean?"

"No, though that is certainly a topic of great interest to me.  But I always thought you abhorred everything to do with love."

He reclined upon my bed with his head propped up on his hand.  He was as weakened as I had ever known him at appear, and the consternation this caused me fought for supremacy with the soaring joy of seeing him at last, at his ease and heavy-lidded, sprawled there on my quilt.  "That is easily explained.  I am a criminal investigator, and I know perfectly well how easy it is to determine whether or not a man has been frequenting certain gentlemen's clubs.  I also know how easy it is to fall into the power of some scoundrel or other in consequence of a single night with a Whitechapel rent boy.  I had determined not to allow my predilections to shipwreck my career.  Or my life, come to that."

"I see," I said a little dubiously.

"I will admit that I have never been subject to the sways of romantic fancy, so such a decision was easier for me than it would be for most."

Such a statement, though entirely in character, only deepened my own misgivings.  "So," I pressed on, sitting also upon the bed and trying to keep my voice neutral, "my geographical proximity is a very felicitous convenience for you."

"Well, of course it is," he assented.

"I am very glad you have stumbled upon so happy an arrangement."

"Watson," he said seriously, though his eyes were unreadable, "are you asking whether I intend to be faithful to you?  Because I assure I am not the sort of person to risk--"

"No, that is not it at all," I sighed, falling back against the pillows in despair.

He looked pained for moment, and then his brow began to clear as he edged toward me.  "Oh, I see."  He did not stop until he hovered over me, his lips inches from my own.  "You are asking whether I would want to be with anyone but you."  He began to finish the job of undressing me, but his eyes never left mine.  "I might ask you the same question, you know.  You never said anything."

"Of course I did not!" I exploded.  "You loathe sentiment.  Everything I have done for five years and longer has been one long effort to prove my regard for you.  I did not think it necessary."  In an effort to avoid his gaze, I began hastily undoing the buttons of his shirt beneath his dressing gown.

"Well done, Watson," he said simply.  "That was admirably put.  I will borrow your own phraseology, then alter a single pronoun to suit my purposes.  I loathe sentiment.  Everything I have done for five years and longer has been one long effort to prove my regard for you.  And I did not think it necessary."

I looked back up at his face.  It was sincere, and a little self-deprecating, and concerned, and utterly beautiful. 

"It would not under ordinary circumstances be necessary," I replied a trifle shakily, "but I seem to be most extravagantly in love with you."

"Are you?" he smiled.  "I am very glad of it."  He shrugged himself out of the sleeves of shirt and dressing gown and tossed both to the floor.

"Why?" I queried as he divested himself of his trousers, slightly stunned at the vision of my friend without a scrap of clothing on his body.

He returned to his position next to me on the bed.  "Because if you love me, as you say you do, you will not be tempted by the eventual advances of other men who adore your kindness and gentility and strength, you will excuse my significant flaws, and I can dare to imagine that you will remain mine, as you are now."

"I was always yours," I laughed, fighting the lump in my throat as I threw off what remained of my own clothing and rolled myself on top of him.  "You didn't notice."

"Yes, well," he drawled, "I notice now."  I bent down to bite at his neck and he gave a very satisfying little gasp.  "I fancy even a Yard inspector would notice now.  I say, my dear boy, we really are going to have to be supremely careful about all this," he managed just before my tongue reached his sharply defined pectorals and he lost his train of thought.

"No doubt," I muttered carelessly.  It had been years since I'd had a naked man in my bed, and still further years ago that anyone I'd loved had been in such a position.  The feast spread out before me was too intoxicating for words.

"I mean it, my dear fellow.  I haven't locked your door," he gasped as I lowered my attentions to the sensitive skin around the bones of his pelvis, just then far too visible for my liking.  I realized I would have to discuss our menu with our good landlady.

"Mrs. Hudson is long abed, and I hardly think Billy likely to knock at my door," I dismissed, drawing him into my mouth.

"Emergency summons," he moaned, his eyes closing.  "Watson, we aren't on a train anymore.  I've burst in here Lord knows how many times...."

"Another perk of being a consulting detective, I imagine."

"No really, love, I mean it--I am perfectly aware that's only a plane tree out there, but you must recognize that both the candles are still lit."

Whether it was the endearment or the urgent tone, I could no longer ignore his request.  I rose to lock my door as he wet his fingertips and extinguished the candles.  So it was that when I approached the bed, I did so in blind darkness, and so it was that Holmes managed to have entirely changed his position by the time I arrived; when I lay down once more and began to continue the task I had been so enjoying, I was greeted with an equally enthusiastic mouth at my own nether regions.  I made no argument, but pulled him close to me so that our bodies were once smooth line, and lost myself deep inside him.

There were no more words after that.  We fell asleep there in the darkness, so swiftly we might have been children exhausted by a long day's play.

The next morning I descended the stairs to find Holmes, still pale but no longer shaking, at the breakfast table.

"That was a trick," I stated, sitting down and lifting the lid of my own tray.

"You are far too perspicacious for me to associate with any longer, Watson," he smiled.  "But you are not entirely correct.  In any event, the door was not a trick.  That was an important precaution.  The candles may or may not have been a trick."

"They were a trick," I repeated.  "Who has telegrammed you?"

"I would invite you to read it yourself, but it is in French," he said, passing me the slip.  "It is from Michel; LaRothiere is in custody, though they can prove nothing against him.  He has been informed, however, that if I were to meet with any sort of misadventure, he will be investigated most uncomfortably.  He has almost the makings of an international agent about him.  I shouldn't be surprised if our paths cross again."

"What of his associate?"

"For all I know, he is still wandering the tracks of the Paris Gare de Lyon," he said blandly, though I knew him to be moderately pleased with himself.

"And what of you?" I finished.  "You look better.  I daresay there isn't much wrong with you now that a change of air could not amend."

"Yes, I am feeling a bit more myself.  No doubt it is the relief of once more knowing the English Channel lies between my cousin and myself."

"I am rather grateful to him, you know." I remarked.

"You say that now," he replied a trifle coquettishly, "but you will change your tune soon enough.  You have only suffered me these three days.  I am exceedingly trying, you know."

I looked at him as he sipped his coffee and made an effort to read three newspapers which he had missed while abroad simultaneously.

"It is not so terrible," I said fondly.  "You needn't trouble yourself."