SPLENDID NIGHT

I once left both Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes because of an illicit affair he was conducting with a fellow called Hastings.  I could almost bring myself to wish that no such ghastly occurrence had ever taken place, but I have come to believe it is through just such crises that our loved ones' true characters are revealed, and that if I had not stormed out that day I would not now posses a fraction of the blessings to which I am privy.  Indeed, I was myself to blame for the lion's share of the trouble, and as a great contributor to the event, I cannot be ungrateful for the lesson it taught me.  If such an outlook appears overly optimistic, or even simplistic, in the light of day, I fear it is not in my nature to dwell upon the past's small tragedies except to see in what ways they have aided me since; and thus, in an attitude of instruction I am taking it upon myself to record the events as they unfolded.  In any event, the story was so exceedingly dramatic that it bears a second look on the merit of adventure alone.

The facts of the matter were so convoluted in their presentation to me that it is difficult to know where the wretched business truly commenced.  I suppose it began when I arrived home to our flat at Baker Street one frigid winter's day a few weeks before Christmas to discover Holmes perusing a letter.  The scene was perfectly domestic, even dull if any room could be called dull which housed Sherlock Holmes, but his expression as I entered was most peculiar.  He was reading with a look of wonderment mixed with a large degree of affection (which was hardly typical of the man) and that even contained, if I admitted it to myself, a trace of fear.  It was the oddest sight I had ever been subjected to on reaching our flat, and my mouth dropped open in shock when I realized that he, the man whose senses rivaled those of the most agile predator, had not even heard me come in. 

"Afternoon, Holmes," I said to him.  I set the bags I was carrying on the floor.

He dropped the letter in surprise and then quickly picked it up again, folding the writing over upon itself and stuffing it in the inside pocket of his coat.

"Watson.  How are you?" he said shortly.

"I am well."  He still was not looking at me.  Instead, his grey eyes now wandered freely and pensively over the carpet.  I approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder.  I was beginning to fear something, and could not even say what.  It was an eerie sensation, as if I had broken into a private sanctuary or eavesdropped on a sordid conversation.  "Are you quite all right, my dear fellow?"

"Me?  I am fine," he smiled.  Rising, he kissed me briefly on the mouth, and then advanced toward the fire and began to resurrect the dying blaze.

"I am glad to hear it."  I fought the impulse to touch my lip with my fingertips.  The kiss had been more than welcome, but I had not expected it.  Sherlock Holmes was not a fellow who thought lightly of bestowing physical affections; or rather, and I had not yet worked out which, such expressions were so trivial to him that it did not occur to him to distribute them more frequently.  "May I ask what you were doing when I arrived?"

"I was reading," he said, and raised his brows as if asking why I should make such an obvious query.

"I know.  You appeared preoccupied."  I do not now know why I was pressing the matter.  It was unprecedented on my part--as unprecedented, perhaps, as his expression had been.

"Did I?" he asked more impatiently.  "What do I look like when I am, as you term it, preoccupied?"

"Your brows grow rather unruly, and you set your mouth as if in the face of a cold wind."

"A very vivid, if unnecessarily poetic, account," he said dryly.  "Do let me know when you have thought up more such stirring literary epigrams to describe my features when I am distracted."

"I did not mean anything by it, my dear fellow," I said hastily.  I regarded him with even more curiosity than previously.  Sherlock Holmes had an alarming temper, and my own relationship with the man was--at the time, in the winter of the year 1884--an object so bizarre it could have easily qualified as an exhibit in the London Zoo, but I did not usually need to tread lightly where he was concerned.  We knew one another far too well.

"If you did not mean anything by it, why are you asking?  In any event, I was reading a letter written by a new client of ours.  We are to investigate the fellow who is making her life a misery.  I know but little of the blackguard thus far, but enough to assure you that it is an endeavor worthy of our attention.  She is not the first poor soul to fall victim to his designs."

"Oh, I see," I replied. 

"No, you don't," he sighed.  "But I shall make it clear to you soon enough.  Now.  What have you been about these past hours?"

I was accustomed to my friend's high-handedness, and even to his dismissive affectations, but they did not put me in a communicative humour.  In any event, the subject had been altered purposefully and with no very great skill.  I seated myself in the basket chair and rubbed at my shoulder, which ached naggingly in cold weather.  "I followed my professional hours with a few errands around town," I said rather distantly.

"You've stopped by Covent Garden."

"How on earth did you know that?"

"I can smell the contents of your parcels, and at least one of them is brimful with pine," he returned amusedly.  He seemed to have pulled himself back from the edge, for which I was grateful, for once Holmes has fallen into a black humour, it is devilishly difficult to haul him out again.

"You are a man of keen discernment."

"One cannot afford to ignore any one of the senses, even if it may seem a peripheral one.  Our very lives have depended upon that maxim, and on more than one occasion.  An alert sense of smell is essential to the criminal investigator."

"I give in.  I have purchased pine."

"I know you have.  Now, what shall you do with it?"

"I shall distribute it about the room, my good man," I smiled at him.  "Unless, of course, you prefer to burn it, or build a table, or perform mystic rites with it, or put it to some even less orthodox purpose."

"No, I am quite content with orthodoxy as regards seasonal decor," he smiled in return. He strode to the bag and began tearing off strings which bound various limbs of foliage into bundles.  Whistling to himself, he selected two boughs of nearly the same weight and tucked them behind glass frames on either side of the mantel. Then he proceeded to find similar homes for other sprays of needles. 

"I can do it myself if you'd rather not," I pointed out, though I felt at that moment far too contented to leave the chair.  A cloud of peacefulness seemed to have settled over me.  Holmes had done an excellent job of re-kindling the fire, and his mysterious letter was quickly fading from my mind as I watched his slim, muscled form wander the room with scraps of conifers.

"Do I look as if I'd rather not," he asked wryly, "or do you delude yourself you could produce a more artistic effect?"

There was nothing for it; the gauntlet had been thrown.  "I realize you've more justification for the sin of pride than any man living, but do try not to fly too close to the sun," I retorted teasingly.  Rising, I opened the second bag and drew out a branch.  "I am a very skillful decorator."

"As a matter of fact, you are only a doctor of medicine.  I have art in the blood," he shrugged as he wound a spray into a wall fixture.  The incorrigible fellow was right, of course.  Within five minutes, the room had already taken on the atmosphere of a winter's woodland glade.

For twenty minutes or more, we circled the room, fighting over materials and insulting one another's efforts good-naturedly.  I could hear the ringing of many bells through the frosted glass of our window, and the muffled clatter of hooves over mud and sleet.  The quips flew nearly as thick and fast as the snow had the day before.

"That pine branch is altogether too near the painting."

"You have degraded a holiday wreath into a circular stick."

"Were you raised in a barn, or do you merely prefer such agrarian effects?"

"Oh, very well, my dear fellow, hang a piece of dead wood over a gas lamp.  I thought you'd adventure enough in your life."

Before half an hour had passed, the room was a thing of beauty indeed.  We were nearly through our stock of supplies when I extracted a little spray of leaves and approached Holmes with it, looking up pointedly at our ceiling.

"You are far taller than I, and much better qualified to hang this."

"Why the devil should I hang it?" he inquired innocently.  "It ought to go just there, and fill in the gap between the books on the third shelf.  Put it next to the Almanac."

"But you never stand below the Almanac, or the third shelf," I protested, moving even closer to him.

"Well, that is obvious, my dear fellow.  I tower above it, in fact.  Here," he directed, twirling the stem in his elegant fingers before returning it to me, "if you've no love lost on the bookshelf, put it in that vase on the sideboard."

"But that will still not accomplish anything."

"Put it above my chemical table."

"You are missing the point," I said fondly, putting my arms around his neck. 

"No, you are missing the point," he argued, his arms twining around my waist.  "That isn't mistletoe--it is common English holly, and I'd like to know what you think you'll gain by it."

"Of course it's mistletoe," I protested.  "Holmes, the two look nothing alike.  Don't you think I can tell--"

I did not get any further, for he kissed me.  It was warm, and slow, and breathtaking, and when he stopped, it took me a moment to realize my eyes ought to be open.

"--what mistletoe looks like?" I finished breathlessly.

He squinted at it as he returned to the business of trimming an unruly branch.  "Right you are.  My mistake, my boy.  Hang it above my door frame and see if anyone thinks it amiss."

As I laughed happily, I reflected he was perfectly right to remind me of the necessity of caution.  I busied myself with the finishing touches on our side table, never looking up until I had completed the task, for I knew my feelings were at that moment loudly represented on my countenance.  Holmes and I had been indulging ourselves in the release of what I can only call unnatural urges for over a year at that time, and we'd been friends for years longer; but that day he had kissed me twice, in the middle of the sitting room, as if it were nothing--not in the context of a seduction, before languidly ordering me out of my clothing, or even after the act, sweat-soaked and heavy-lidded, a token reward--but simply to kiss me.  As if my presence were reason enough.

I could not have felt more satisfied with my afternoon or with my eccentric friend under any circumstances.  I was just turning to the fire to burn the mistletoe by way of discretion when I saw a flutter of chalky ash drift up toward the flue.  It was what remained of Holmes' letter.  I knew it at once.  His back was turned toward me when my eyes flew to him, and I swallowed hard.  Whatever it was, he had not even wanted me in the same room with it.  He preferred it to be burned.  I added the mistletoe to the scrap of cream paper noiselessly, and ran a weary hand over my eyes.






I was not afforded any fresh clue to the matter until three or four days later, just after Holmes and I had returned from one of our walks about town.  It was a perpetual delight for me to wander the city with my friend, his arm linked with mine in an easy, companionable manner, and I was in such a pleasant mood when we arrived home that I did not immediately connect the letter lying on our table with the incident a few days previous.  I merely glanced at it casually, and was in the act up picking up the calling card resting upon it when Holmes pounced on both objects and removed them from my grasp.

"Holmes, what are earth are you doing?" I asked irritably.  "Who has called while we were out?"

He slid the letter inside his jacket without reading it and read the card with an expression of great disgust, throwing it to the floor when he had finished.  I picked it up again.

"Who is Charles Augustus Milverton?" I asked.

"The worst man in London."  My friend lit his pipe and then began wandering about the room distractedly.  "Is anything on the back of the card?"

"He is to call at six thirty," I replied.  "What is the letter?"

He glanced at me quickly.  "It is a facsimile of one of the missives with which he intends to blackmail our client."

"Indeed?  He is a blackmailer?  Small wonder you hold him in such regard," I nodded.  "I cannot myself think of any lower vocation.  And who is our client?"

"Lady Eva Blackwell."  He fell into his chair, his eyes unfocused and his expression pensive.  "She is to be married to the Earl of Dovercourt.  This fiend has several imprudent letters--imprudent, Watson, nothing more--but they would suffice to break off the match.  He is nearly due, and I am to make her the best terms that I can."  He looked up at me.  "Are you staying?"

This was not a question which I had ever before been asked, and I was at a loss how to respond.  In the past, Holmes had demanded my assistance even when clients questioned trusting their delicate information to another party.  I could not tell if he desired my enthusiastic support, or my discreet exit; in fact, I could hardly fathom the query at all.  I only knew I did not like it.

"It is up to you, of course, Holmes," I said.  "Can I be of assistance?"

"Yes, perhaps.  I cannot say whether--"  He cut himself off at the sound of the downstairs bell.

I had only a moment to wonder why Holmes should have hidden the copy of Lady Eva's letter from me, for almost immediately we heard someone ascending the stairs.  When the door opened, it revealed a very short man with a large, benevolent bald head and sparkling eyes behind little gold-rimmed glasses.  He approached Holmes with his hand outstretched, which my friend stonily ignored.

Milverton laughed and removed his coat.  "This gentleman," he said in reference to me, "is it discreet?  It is right?"

Holmes hesitated, but replied firmly, "Dr. Watson is my friend and partner."

I stared at Holmes, for while his response had been entirely in character, his brief pause had not.  Milverton, his eyes equally fixed upon my friend, paid me not the slightest attention.

"Very good, Mr. Holmes. It is only in your--"

"Lady Eva's situation is already known to the Doctor," Holmes interrupted.

"Lady Eva's?" Milverton asked with a malicious smile.  "Ah, of course, the Lady Eva Blackwell, on whose behalf you are engaged.  I only wished to be certain.  I was going to say it was for your sake I inquired, Mr. Holmes.  The matter is so very delicate, after all."