THAT WHICH GIVES EXTRAS

by Katie


I returned to Baker Street from a visit with a patient one afternoon in early July of 1889 to find Sherlock Holmes bent over his chemical table in his dressing gown, retorts and burners all merrily alive, wisps of smoke wafting from vials, his brow furrowed in concentration.  His long white fingers darted to and fro amongst the powders and glass pipettes, all activity centered around a concoction of I knew not what which rested upon a shimmering blue flame.  Dropping my bag and approaching him as he sat with his back to me, I ran my hands lightly over his slim shoulders.

"You come at a crisis, Watson," he said without looking up. 

"Then I am very glad I did not stop for more cigars on the way."  I peered curiously at the chemical events unfolding before me, though more out of admiration for the skill of the chemist than in any true effort to determine what was going on.

"In addition, your cuffs are lurking under my bed again."

"My apologies," I smiled.  "I shall retrieve them.  How do you know they are mine?"

"Even if our shirt-cuffs were identical, I would be a poor investigator indeed if I could not tell my own handwriting from yours," he replied amusedly.  "You jotted down an address yesterday.  A patient?"

"Yes, a referral."

"I need hardly tell you that it would prove problematic if anyone were to encounter your shirt-cuffs in my bedroom.  No doubt it is equally unnecessary for me to state aloud that you are most frightfully in the way."

Smoothing his hair back into the orderly state in which I had found it, I reluctantly addressed myself to perusing the mail which had arrived in my absence.  I found nothing out of the ordinary until a small cream-laid envelope engraved with bold, confident lettering caught my eye, and reclining upon the settee behind Holmes, I began at once to read it.

When I had finished, the letter fell into my lap.  I read it through again.  It had not changed.

Rising from the table, Holmes brought his test tube and a slip of paper over to the sofa and sat down lightly upon its back.  "If this paper remains blue, all is well," he declared, an air of triumph infusing his pale complexion with subtle warmth.  "If it turns red, it means a man's life."

"Is this the culmination of our efforts for Captain Brown?"

"It is indeed," he assented.  "If I hold a red paper in my hand in a few seconds time, Jack McCarthy is for the gallows, or I am no judge of British law." 

He dipped the paper and held it up to me.  It had changed to a rusty brick tone.  "Hum!" he murmured.

"In all honesty, I thought as much," I remarked.

"Did you?" he smiled.  "How very gratifying.  I will be at your service in one instant."

With Holmes' back to me once more as he dashed off telegrams, I returned my attention to the letter.  It was not in Percy's handwriting, I noted, nor was it written with his usual easy charm.  The voice was strained, the narrative oblique, recalling but glimmers of his good-natured frankness.  It was undoubtedly genuine, however, for its references and signature were beyond question.  I read through the appeal once more, fighting a very unnatural desire to hide it in my bureau, or to throw it in the fire.

"You've got something better there, I fancy," was the comment which at last roused me from my reverie.  Holmes was standing above me in pinstriped trousers and dark dressing gown, his sharp grey eyes running over me quizzically.  "You are the stormy petrel of crime, my dear boy.  Who wrote that letter?"

"An old school friend of mine," I returned as easily as I could, handing Holmes the missive.  My fingertips seemed very reluctant to turn it over, but I could not for the life of me determine why.  "An acquaintance, rather.  His name is Percy Phelps, and he is the nephew of Lord Holdhurst.  He requires your assistance."

"Does he indeed?" said Holmes, throwing himself down upon the carpet between my feet.  My companion often did this when he was weary at the close of an inquiry, and the effect was most alarmingly endearing.  He quickly scanned the note.  "'Tadpole?'"

"Yes," I replied ruefully.  "He was always an intelligent, pale, dreamy sort of chap.  Carried off every scholarship for which he applied, I recall.  We used to think it rather a piquant thing to chivy him about the playground hitting him over the shins with a wicket."

"Interesting," said Holmes, looking up at me playfully.  "Where is the wicket, by the by?  I last laid eyes on it in the lumber room."

"The point," I continued, "is that he seems to have fallen upon evil days."

"Evil days indeed," Holmes acknowledged, "though from what you say he is largely inured to hardship.  I should not have relished earning the nickname Tadpole."

"Holmes," I said tiredly, "does the matter interest you in any way?"

"Well, he does not tell us very much, though it is odd that he should tell us so little with a woman's handwriting."

"A man's, surely!" I cried, then closed my mouth abruptly.

My friend squinted up at me with a degree of fresh interest.  "No," he drawled, "a woman's."  He commenced tapping the letter against my right knee.  "And a woman of rare character.  You clearly do not know who she may be, but I assure you that she is in very close contact with your acquaintance and that she is possessed of an exceptional nature."  He stood up gracefully and made his way to the sideboard, pouring himself a splash of brandy.

"Will you take the case?" I asked him carefully.

He threw up a hand in a gesture of apathy.  "I know nothing about it.  It is all one to me, my dear Watson.  Do you wish me to take it?"

No indeed, I thought immediately, knowing it to be nonsensical.  Though if our positions were reversed, I would go a long way toward meeting any man of your early acquaintance.  I dismissed the thought as I had dismissed countless others.  A happy fortune had led me to a fellow lodger who not only shared my peculiar preference for men, but had also become, long before our more salacious secrets had seen the light of day, my most cherished friend.  If the atmosphere of our rooms was ever tinged with a longing bitterness, I had only myself to blame.  I knew my own weakness all too well.  I had made the same mistake once in Afghanistan, and time had not granted me wisdom, for it was all easy comradeship and sultry physicality on Holmes' side of the equation, and all love upon mine.

"I would not wish you to deny an old schoolmate of mine if you've the time to spare," I granted.

"I would not wish to deny your amphibian friend my spare time if it is against your will," he shot back.  There was a strange edge to his warm tenor that I could not begin to identify.

"Then that settles it," I said, heaving a sigh of frustration, "though very abstrusely indeed.  Through double negation we have arrived at a positive outcome.  Shall we depart for Woking in the morning?"

"As you wish," he said.  "I have no more pressing occupation."

Something about the way my friend stands with his hips awry and his arm draping down his side is at times inexpressibly lonely, though the fact that he more resembles an island unto himself than any other man of my experience certainly depresses my spirits exclusively and not his own.  I crossed to him, took the glass from his hand, and finished his drink. 

"Thank you," I said, kissing him softly.  I set the empty glass upon the sideboard.

"For the brandy or the case?" he asked.

"Does it matter?"

He poured another finger of brandy in the glass and handed it to me.  "I am in hopes it was the brandy."

I laughed and kissed him again.  Whatever strange humour had passed over him, it was gone.  "Let us assume it was the case, for I've no desire to find myself in a drunken haze at three o'clock in the afternoon."

"No?" he queried coolly, making a very slow ordeal of finishing the drink himself.  "Pity."

"It need not be a system of barter, you know," I added as the glass finally left his lips.  "I am willing to kiss you for reasons other than gratitude."

"That is very flattering," he laughed, turning toward his bedroom.  "One day you will have to enumerate them for me, but I am afraid that the definitive conclusion of Captain Brown's dilemma requires my presence at the Yard."  His dressing gown dropped from his shoulders just as he passed out of sight, and he emerged an instant later in his frock coat, making small adjustments as he strode to retrieve his stick.  "Tell Mrs. Hudson not to bother about my dinner, if you would.  I am afraid that explaining chemical properties to Gregson is no light undertaking."  With a cordial wave, he vanished down the stairs.

I slowly made my way into the chaos of his bedroom, picking my way around a litter of clothing, tobacco-pouches, and newspapers to what I imagined to have been the spot where he had removed my shirt-cuffs and then leisurely kissed his way up my forearms the night before.  I would have been only too glad to enumerate my reasons for him.  One day soon, I knew, I would not be able to prevent myself, and that thought frankly terrified me.  As bad as it had been when we were merely intimate friends, I could not wake up next to the man four or five mornings out of seven without submitting myself to the most vehement orders not to declare myself devoted to him body and soul.  In the meantime, I reflected as I lay hands on my discarded clothing, I would hide it as best I could, for whatever degree of closeness Sherlock Holmes desired of me, I could not in my wildest imaginings believe it akin to love.





"Did you tell anyone you had this special task to perform?"

Percy shook his head, his sensitive mouth curling down emphatically at one corner.  We sat in his downstairs sickroom in Woking, an hour's journey from London, having been escorted promptly to his family home of Briarbrae.  It was, despite my irrational discomfort at allowing him within five feet of Sherlock Holmes, remarkably good to see him again, and I was glad to confirm for myself that he was well on the road to recovery.  His self-deprecating assertion that I would not have known him had been charming but absolutely untrue; though he had suffered greatly, I could easily divine that his quick mind and quiet gentility remained unchanged.  We had never conducted our own affair with any serious intent, and thus I was less surprised than I might have been at the presence of his fiancée.  Percy was the nephew of Lord Holdhurst, after all, and a rising employee in the Foreign Office.  Such a match was expected of him, I reflected, and he had done well in his choice.  He introduced us to Miss Harrison without the slightest trace of discomfort, though he looked at me with a vague and affectionate curiosity in his blue eyes when he asked to be introduced to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes, for his part, sat with his head thrown back, his entire posture indicating complete lassitude.  This was no unusual thing when he listened to the details of a complex matter, and from what Percy had told us of secret naval papers disappearing at the ringing of a bell within the room, the problem was one after my friend's own heart.  I could not help but note, however, that immediately following Holmes' habitual avid scrutiny of his client, and my own brief medical examination, he had lapsed into a detachment bordering upon outright dismissal.

"Do you know anything of the commissionaire?" my friend continued.

"Nothing, except that he is an old soldier."

"What regiment?"

"Oh, I have heard," Percy said, relieved to be of further assistance.  "It was the Coldstream Guards."

I expected a few minutes' further interrogation, littered with seemingly irrelevant questions which in fact struck directly at the crux of the matter.  I expected, perhaps, some discussion of the fellow clerk's background or some musings upon who would benefit most by the sale of the missing treaty.  My friend did none of these things.  Holmes, to the visible shock of everyone in the cheery and open sickroom, lapsed into a desultory discussion of religion, plucking a moss rose from a vase near Percy's head and leaning his lithe form against the shutters by the open window, breezes from the garden playing about his watch chain.  His voice, far from the incisive tones of his professional persona, or even the languid murmurings of the pure reasoner, was simply and inexpressively sad.

"It is only goodness which gives extras," he finished softly, twirling the little stem between pale fingers.  "And so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers." 

Percy and his fiancée shot me helpless looks, but I sat just as discomfited as they were at my friend's bizarre shift of mood.  It was Miss Harrison who impatiently returned him to the world, eliciting from him such hesitant assurances as would hardly bring comfort to anyone.  We departed five minutes later for London, Holmes lost in a brown study with his hands in his pockets, and myself wondering what errant spirit could have replaced my friend's blithe self-confidence with introspective melancholy in the glaring cheer of a July afternoon.


The softly rocking train compartment seemed a veritable haven following the strain of our interview with the unfortunate Percy Phelps, and an equally taxing ride to the station from the enigmatic Joseph Harrison, who for some reason had favoured Holmes and myself with frequent darting glances.  Settling into my seat with a sigh, I watched as my companion lit a cigarette, then leaned forward with another for myself.  He seemed to have recovered his spirits, for a fresh air of amusement danced about his features as he proffered his still-lit vesta.

"You had an affair with him, didn't you?"

I had leaned back into the cushion, but at these words I was up again with a choking cough.

"What the devil do you mean by that?"

"It was a clear enough question," he returned complacently.  "You needn't answer if it distresses you.  I have already deduced it, after all."

"How in God's name could you deduce such a thing?" I exclaimed.

He raised a fairly supercilious brow.  "I know your habits, my dear fellow.  You always take a pulse at the carotid artery, rather than using the radial artery of the wrist, in an effort to more precisely measure cardiac pressure.  Percy Phelps is, as you put it, an old acquaintance.  Why should you take a stranger's pulse at the neck and a friend's pulse at the wrist unless you were making an unconscious effort to avoid the added intimacy?"

When I could think of no answer, he simply smiled and leaned across the carriage, tucking two slim, dexterous fingers under my jaw.

"Elevated heart rate.  Three possibilities exist.  Either you are ill, I am right, or your carotid artery is guilty of prevarication.  Shall I try for the femoral?  It is just here, between upper thigh and lower abdomen, is it not?"

"Do be still, Holmes," I protested wearily, removing his hand from my groin.  "Very well.  I was intimate with Percy Phelps for a matter of months before he left school.  Are you satisfied now, or would you care to judge me by any other medical criteria?"

He drew his knees into his chest as the suburbs passed by in a blur of brick and slate.  "I would not have thought him the sort of fellow to spark your interest."

"Indeed?" said I, stung though I knew him to be merely observing aloud.  "And what, pray, is wrong with him?"

Holmes shrugged.  "He is attractive enough, I suppose, if one is drawn to men who have more in common with the opposite gender than with their own.  Many of us are, after all.  He seems sympathetic, after a fashion, and aristocratic in a nervous sort of way.  I have very little patience with him."

"I do not see any reason for such a feeling."

"Perhaps I am too quick to judge.  But his first action, after being dealt a stroke of bad fortune, was indisputably to develop brain fever for a nine-week period.  He is not the most shining example of masculinity the world has produced, is he?  He wasted an inexcusable amount of time by contracting an ailment usually confined to yellow-backed novels in which heroines with cardinal discoveries upon their lips fall into low fevers, awakening after their estates are sold and their lovers entangled with designing women."

"I suppose any sensibility of spirit must necessarily be deemed cowardice in the presence of the great Mr. Sherlock Holmes," I snarled, startling even myself.  There is, however, a streak of stubbornness which lurks in many lovers, male and female alike, that cannot bear to hear old passions criticized.  Whether in myself that characteristic has more to do with the virtue of loyalty or with the sin of pride I cannot say, though I hope that the former is as great an influence as the latter.

"Watson--" Holmes said warningly.

"No, it really is too bad," I cried, incensed by his careless words.  I did not even know what I was saying, though it felt very good indeed to be saying it.  "I hardly call it gentlemanly.  It is like a blind man mocking his brother for being sensitive to light.  We are all well aware of your immunity to the softer emotions, but do pray grant a little grace to a man who, unlike you, possesses a heart which does more than beat a pulse."

The detective paled considerably, then crushed his cigarette into a broken stump.  "If I had been aware that your feelings for Percy 'Tadpole' Phelps continued in such a strong vein," he said calmly, "I would certainly have made it a point to interview Miss Harrison in private.  I could have provided you ten minutes of blissful reunion, after all."

I stared back at him furiously, the elevated heart rate he had diagnosed so glibly hammering against my ribs, and then I knew why I had been so very keen to hide my relationship with Percy from Holmes.  It was not because he would care.  It was because he would not care in the slightest degree, and knowing that for certain would go a long way toward breaking my heart.

"Perhaps it is not too late," I said coldly.  "He is not married yet, after all."

Holmes looked for an instant as if I had struck him a physical blow, but recovered himself so quickly that I at once, too late, regretted what I had said.  No man knew better than I the heights of scathing rhetoric to which my friend could rise when incensed, and the thought of continuing in this vein sent a cold rush of panic through my very bones.  I could not tell him why I was so angry, and I could even less entertain the notion of ending it.  As he opened his mouth, I leapt from my seat to slide in next to him.

"I did not mean it.  I spoke out of anger, not reason, and I would be grateful if you would refrain from response.  For my sake, though I have just said several very unwarranted things to you.  Please."

"Watson--" Holmes began again.

"Please," I repeated.

My friend considered the request for a tense moment, then propped an arm upon his knee and commenced staring out the window with the knuckle of his forefinger resting pensively against his lips.

I looked down at the still-smoking cigarette in my hand and drew in a thoughtful draught of it.  Hesitantly, I passed it to Holmes.  He took it without looking at me, and so we sat side by side for the remaining half hour of our journey, until our train pulled into Waterloo Station and Holmes, without a backward glance, quit the carriage to hail us a cab.  It was only after I lifted my bag that I discovered, quite by accident, a bedraggled little moss rose beneath it.  I slipped the object into my pocket and hurried after him into the glare of the mid-afternoon.



A telegram awaited me upon our return, and I tore open the yellow slip as Holmes ducked into his bedroom, listening vaguely as he thrashed about for some object or other.  The note proved to be from the brother of Percy's fiancée, the Mr. Joseph Harrison whose company we had quit a bare two hours before, and read as follows:

Dr. Watson, am very anxious to speak with you upon your return regarding matter deeply affecting you, my future brother-in-law, and by association, Mr. Holmes.  Will arrange for us to be alone.  Yours, Joseph Harrison.

I knew at once, as if touched by Holmes' gift for blinding inference, what it was about, and I found myself staring numbly at the paper.  Then, unthinking, I strode to the fireplace, lit a match, and burned the hateful correspondence.  What I would do I knew not, for seldom if ever are men granted absolute clarity in the instant of a crisis.  I knew without the faintest shadow of doubt, however, what I could not do. I could not tell Percy, whose nerves were hanging in tattered threads, and I could not tell Holmes, whose occasional remarks about the stupidity of committing illegal and damning sentiments to paper rung at that moment as clear in my mind as a church bell.  My friend, to do him justice, was a kind and sympathetic man.  But he had no patience for the weak or the foolish, and to tell him I had risked so much, even in my youth, over a trivial affair, would as good as end the little we had built.  In a sudden rush of anger, I found myself sympathizing with Holmes' cold appraisal; I could not decide whether to be more furious at myself for having written to Percy or at Percy's damnable weakness for having kept it over the course of several years.

Holmes emerged looking elegant in a far more sumptuous fashion than was his wont.  He approached me in his usual affable manner, though the set of his shoulders was strained to say the least.

"Where are we going?" I queried, in a fair approximation of my normal voice.

"Whitehall, to seek an audience with Lord Holdhurst," he replied.  His grey eyes suddenly focused all their power upon my face.  "What is the matter?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Something has happened, and I wish for you to tell me what it is.  That, in essence, is what I mean," said Holmes with visibly reigned impatience.

"Nothing has happened.  I am tired, and I regret having attacked you as I did," I explained.  I stood with my back to the sideboard, praying he would believe me.

Holmes advanced until our faces were separated by the merest inches, and then leaned on the sideboard with both hands, effectively hemming me in.  "Tell me," he whispered.

"I do not know what you mean."

"Watson," he said patiently, and I could feel the warmth of his breath against my eyelids, "you do know what I mean, and you would confer a very great honour upon me by telling me what happened between the time we entered the sitting room and the time I came out of the bedroom."

"Holmes," I replied, the fear making me sound more cross than I meant to, "even if something had happened, it is not like you to force a confidence."

He raised one hand so that it rested against the side of my face as he ran a thumb gently over my brow.  I felt a slight shiver pass through me at the touch, so gentle was its character.  "I am going to ask you one more time," he said.  "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," I whispered.

"Watson, please."

"It is the strain of the day.  That is all," I insisted.

He stood back, casting a casual eye toward the desk.  "I take it the telegram was not for me," he observed dispassionately.

"I--" I began, but he waved a hand to silence me.  "Come along, Watson.  The Cabinet Minister has many valuable demands on his time."  He regarded me with something a little like pity, and more like hurt.  "You needn't have burned it, you know.  I would not have taken it from you."  He made for the door as I watched him, rooted to the spot.  When he had reached it, he stopped.

"Are you coming?"

I left with him, a wilting moss rose still at rest in my pocket.  I made up my mind to be of use, despite my own troubles.  Percy's problem, after all, was one of international import, and come what may, I would make every attempt to spare him his health.  I was prepared to do that much for him.  For Holmes, lost in indifferent silence though he was, I was prepared to do practically anything.

Our interview with Lord Holdhurst was for me shrouded with dark imaginings, and though Holmes did not press me, he shot me quite as many searching glances as he did the aloof but courteous Cabinet Minister.  When we had spoken to both the diplomat and a rather churlish Yard inspector who was overseeing the tangled matter, we returned home, and I made a Herculean effort to distract myself by arranging my notes from Captain Brown's case while Holmes, having disappeared into his bedroom, scraped away listlessly upon his violin.  I sat at my desk until well after one, making a desperate effort to organize my brain for the task ahead of me.  I could not help but think that, while I may have been a match for an amateur blackmailer, I would never be able to wage such a battle under the nose of Sherlock Holmes, and the thought of losing him made even the threat of public exposure a trivial concern. 

At last I abandoned the struggle to remain upright and turned down the little lamp by my desk.  I do not know at what hour Holmes retired, but at the tread of my footsteps ascending the stairs, the violin ceased its bowing and the only sound remaining was that of an occasional cart making its slow progress down Baker Street in the warm summer air. 






Our breakfast was a silent one, as was the majority of our journey to Woking next morning. Because Holmes was treating me not with hostility, but a sort of devastating neutrality, I went so far as to allow my hand to rest upon his shoulder in the train for a solid ten minutes before I gave up all hope of his paying the slightest attention to it.  By the time we arrived at Woking, and had walked the easy distance to Briarbrae, my nerves were so wracked by his silence and my private misfortune that I could not help but eagerly anticipate the smash, in whatever form it chose to take, as an alternative to watching the most vibrant man I had ever met fade into the background like a photograph in the sunlight.

Percy, in a fever to see us again, apparently had his own troubles.  The agitation which his trust in Holmes had smoothed away had sprung back into his countenance, and it seemed all he could do to keep still for the period required to tell the tale.

"Do you know," he cried, "that I begin to believe that I am the unconscious centre of some monstrous conspiracy, and that my life is aimed at as well as my honour?"

"Ah," said Holmes.  I will not attempt to convey the irony contained in the syllable.

Percy, ever disarmingly good-natured, must have thought the criminal expert's nonplussed demeanor the result of many years exposure to villainy.  He launched into a tale of a forced window, a cloaked intruder, and the glint of a knife with undiminished enthusiasm.  Holmes, to do him credit, grew ever more attentive.

"That is most interesting," he said finally.  "Pray, what did you do then?"

As Percy concluded his tale with the rousing of the household and examining the grounds for clues, Holmes' grey eyes brightened and he rubbed his hands together briefly.  I, who knew his every gesture as churchgoers study catechisms, saw he had found an important clue to the affair, but the next instant my own troubles returned to vex me.  My courage, which I had foolishly imagined shored against every eventuality, suffered a serious blow when Joseph Harrison suddenly appeared in the room.

"Do you think you could walk round the house with me?" Holmes asked Percy.

Percy assented, Joseph volunteered, and Holmes, to my surprise, forbade Miss Harrison to leave the room.  I found myself walking in the sunshine next to her brother as Holmes and Percy fell into a conversation about the visibility of the house from the road.

"You've received my note, then?" Harrison asked in an affable manner.

"Yes," I replied.  "It was most mysterious.  I am afraid I have not the slightest idea what you meant by it."

"Well, perhaps it was a trifle obscure," he continued genially.  "The fact is, I have come into possession of a letter, Dr. Watson, which it strikes me was written by you."

"Does it?  As I do not recall having ever corresponded with you, I am at a loss to know how you could come by such a thing."

"Oh, it was not addressed to me," he said laughing.  "You wrote it to Percy.  Shall we meet in the study when they are through?"

I nodded in a businesslike manner, though my anger at the execrable injustice of it all was threatening to unseat my reason.  While the law was in effect upon both of our sides, a prosecution for blackmail was a flickering candle compared to the raging bonfire of a prosecution for homosexuality.  Holmes stood ten or twelve feet away from me in a summer suit of light linen looking utterly breathtaking, and, to me at that moment, terribly vulnerable.

All at once, Holmes clasped Percy by the shoulder and said something to him in a low tone before striding rapidly back to the house.  I little knew what to make of it, but advanced toward Percy's exceedingly weakened form and offered him my arm as we returned to the ground-floor sitting room.  I could see Holmes exchanging swift words with Miss Harrison through the window, but no sound of it reached my ears.

"I will be all right, John," Percy said at length, in what sounded, for the first time, like his natural voice in the timbre that I remembered it.  "I do not think your friend likes you paying much attention to me."  He smiled at this.  "I was often the same way, you know, when you were with other men."

"My dear Percy..." I began, in some surprise, but he shook his head with another sheepish smile.

"I will make my way back myself.  You are dismissed," he said affectionately.

"Percy, we will talk, but later," I ventured.

He nodded indulgently, and I hurried back to the house.

Joseph Harrison awaited me in the study, staring out the window at the riotous garden, his hands clasped behind his back as if he were judging a close-finish horse race.  He smiled at me.

"Do sit down, Doctor."

"Thank you, but I do not imagine the interview will last so long.  To what letter do you refer?"  I was anxious to come to the point, for every second spent away from Sherlock Holmes would surely lead to equally as many deductions regarding my absence.

"I mean the one written to Percy when your relations were, shall we say, of a less natural character than at present."

"Mr. Harrison, setting aside the fact that I consider your behavior the lowest possible infamy, as well as the fact that you clearly must have been rifling through your future kinsman's private papers, I am willing to listen to your terms provided that you can equip me with a single shred of evidence that you have such a letter in your possession."

He shrugged and passed me a small sheet of foolscap.  I scanned a brief transcript and handed it back to him.  It was nothing at all as I had expected, I thought numbly.  Every criminal imagines being caught.  I had, of course, pictured what I would do under such circumstances.  I had imagined tearing the blackguard apart limb from limb and shouting defiantly that he could never make me any less of a man.  After I had done so, I'd conceptualized returning to America, or Australia, or the far East, or any number of places.  It isn't about yourself at all, I thought in surprise, my eyes shifting from the note to Harrison's smug leer.  It's about him.  It's about what Harrison could do to him.

"What are your terms?" I asked, determined not to sound in the slightest bit distressed though my palms were sweating and my knees weak.

"I require two hundred pounds," he said evenly.  "Then I return your letter, and you have nothing further to worry about."

The figure flashed through my mind like a summer storm.  It was nothing.  Two hundred pounds?  A hardship, to be sure, but hardly a ruination.  I kept my voice steady.  "It is far too much.  But to be rid of the trouble, I am willing to pay it."

"Spoken like a true sportsman," Harrison said triumphantly.  "Then neither you nor Mr. Holmes need worry about it further."

"Sherlock Holmes is not involved in this," I said quickly.

"Isn't he?" Harrison asked softly.  "You live together, after all--one would think that the exposure of one implies the exposure of the other."

"It isn't like that," I growled.  "Holmes is not an invert.  He is my friend, and a bachelor.  That is all."

"Now, that is most intriguing," said Harrison, allowing his voice to drop still further.  "I am now inclined to reconsider the position I have taken."

"You are talking nonsense," said I.  "I will have your two hundred pounds in--"

"Oh, no," he said, his eyes boring into mine.  "That was when I imagined I was keeping a secret from the public.  Not when I knew I was also keeping a secret from your friend, flat mate, and literary muse.  Six hundred pounds."

"That is the most preposterous reasoning I have ever heard, but I suppose I should expect nothing less from a man who imagines blackmail a valid source of income," I spat at him.  "In any event, it is a ludicrous figure.  I can pay you two hundred pounds, but six is absolutely out of the question."

"Oh, I imagine you will think of a way to pay it when you have considered the alternative sufficiently," he replied.  "I will give you a week to consider."

I think I would have the struck the insufferable smile off his face then and there if we had not been interrupted by a knock at the door.  He threw it open with a light laugh and there stood Percy, looking back and forth at us in a rather mystified fashion.

"Well, I will just see if Mr. Holmes has discovered anything," Harrison said evenly, passing through the door and into the hall beyond.

"My dear fellow, are you all right?" asked Percy anxiously as he entered the study.  "You look quite alarmed over something."

"I am fine," I sighed, running a hand through my hair distractedly.  "A minor distraction."  I was about to ask where Holmes had got to when the man himself appeared in the doorway.

"There you are," he said, and I registered with apprehension that cold contempt had crept back into his voice.  "Mr. Phelps, it would be a very great help to me if you would come up to London with us."

"At once?" Percy replied.

"Well, as soon as you conveniently can.  Say, when you have finished doing whatever you happen to be doing with Dr. Watson here."

I could do nothing more than stare at him, but Percy responded courteously, "I feel quite strong enough, if I can really be of any help.  Perhaps you would like me to stay there tonight?"

"I was just going to propose it," my friend agreed with grim determination, to my very great surprise and dismay.

"We are all in your hands, Mr. Holmes.  Perhaps you would prefer that Joseph came with us, so as to look after me?" Percy added with a timid glance in my direction.

"Oh, no," Holmes said softly with a terrifyingly humourless smile upon his face.  "My friend Watson is a medical man, you know, and I imagine he will look after you very well indeed."



It was all I could do reach the train station with my mask of normalcy intact, so distressed was I at Harrison's terms and so wounded by Holmes' machinations.  I was destined to be granted one more horrifying shock, however, for when the detective had seen us to our carriage, he stated in the same dead tones that he had not the slightest intention of accompanying us to the city.

"Watson, when you reach London you would oblige me by driving at once to Baker Street with our friend here, and remaining with him until I see you again.  It is fortunate that you are old schoolfellows, as you must have much to talk over."  He nodded to us, his face devoid of all expression, and quickly exited the train.

"Excuse me a moment," I gasped in a broken whisper.

I dashed back down the steps like a madman and caught Holmes just as he was leaving the platform, pulling him bodily along with me until we were standing in a relatively secluded spot behind a stack of trunks, feeling all the while as if someone had turned my soul to lead.

"You'll miss your train," he said icily.

I still had him by one wrist and, looking furtively about me, I added the other to my grasp.

"Holmes, if you are sending me off with Percy to Baker Street in some misguided effort to...to..."

"Your train," Holmes repeated, "departs in two minutes, give or take about fifteen seconds."

"Why would you want me to be with him alone tonight?" I protested desperately, not bothering to keep the flood of emotion from my voice.  "Why send me away with Percy of all people?  Is it spite, or jest, or--"

"If you want him, then I want you to have him," my friend said.  His face was very pale.  "I need him out of the way tonight, in any event.  But you--I wanted to...."  He stopped, seemingly furious at himself for his own ineloquence, and took a breath.  "I cannot be expected to bear any more secrets.  Not from you.  Not about him."

"They aren't those kind of secrets," I whispered, my eyes growing unexpectedly clouded.  "Holmes, if you are attempting to rid yourself of my company--"

"I find it singularly unpleasant to be accused of duplicity when from the moment you received that letter, you have been lying to me about your relationship with that...that man," he breathed bitterly.

'I am sorry," I said, the moisture in my eyes threatening to spill over.  "I would never have hurt you deliberately.  I love you."

Now I had done it.  However chagrined his visage had been before, it was nothing to the disbelieving anger now coursing through his slate grey eyes.

"Watson," he said incredulously, "how can you say such--"

"The train is leaving.  And I am making a very great fool of myself," I returned in a tone which, I am certain, reflected all the misery of many months concealment.  I turned to go.  This time Holmes caught me by the arm and whirled me around.

"Watson," he repeated fiercely, "how can you say such things to me in the middle of a public railway platform?"

The detective looked about him at the few visible stares we had attracted and willed himself into quiescence.  My heart was pounding as if it wished to escape the confines of my body and take up residence in a nest high above the station.

"Get on that train," he said, and a trace of a smile appeared upon his lips.

"Holmes--"

"Watson, if you do not get on that train, I am going to do something that will land us both in the dock," he said, pushing me toward it.  "I do not fancy turning a treadmill for a living, and I do not think you would enjoy breaking rocks, as it is a far from stimulating vocation.  I will see you at home.  Your friend is welcome to your room so long as you sleep in mine."  So saying, he proffered his hand.

I clasped his hand in all seriousness, but when I looked at him again, he was laughing so helplessly that I could not help but join him.  I added my other hand to his, staring down at them with the thought that I would never, not if I lived to be a hundred years of age, forget what his hand felt like at that moment.

"I would have told you long ago if I had thought you'd take any interest in the matter," I confessed quietly.

"I am going to make a list about you at my earliest convenience and begin it with the entry, Knowledge of Sherlock Holmes: Nil," my friend said in an exasperated tone.  He briefly added his left hand to the two clutching his right.  "Now, if you value my freedom, let go of me.  I will be with you the moment I can."

Nodding, I leapt onto the already-moving passenger car.  I stood on the steps of the carriage as the train began to move, clouds of steam billowing from its stack, Holmes' tall figure slowly receding.  I wanted to shout something down to him, but could think of nothing which was not florid, hyperbolic, woefully inadequate, or criminal.  I hand up a hand as he did the same, then watched as he turned on his heel and, looking back only once as he approached the archway, set off on the dusty road back to Woking.



Percy looked up when I entered with an expression of mingled pity and concern.  "I do hope that went well, my dear fellow, whatever it was."

"It did," I replied.  "It went as few events in my life have gone, which is to say nearly perfectly."  Sitting down opposite him, I buried my face in my hands wearily.

"John, there is still something troubling you, is there not?  I am far too preoccupied with myself at the best of times, but my misfortune has no doubt made me still more callous.  Is there anything you wish to talk about?"

"I do not think you can help me, Percy," I replied kindly.  A desperate, dangerous notion had sprung into my mind, but I could not bring myself to confide in a man already wracked by self-blame.  "Although...."  I leaned forward and dropped my voice.  "Percy, if I ask you something out of the ordinary, will you promise not to question me about it?  It regards your household and, indirectly, the case Holmes is working out for you."

"I would be happy to give you any assistance I can," Percy responded, though his pale face betrayed his surprise.

"Does your bedroom--the one upstairs, mind, not the sitting room where you have been living--lend itself to concealment of an object?"

Percy considered the bizarre question briefly.  "There is hardly a place to hide anything in that room.  It is all perfectly open, unless one took the rather risky route of placing the object in the bureau."

"Is there any place in the house which leaps to your mind as an effective hiding place?"

"Well, certainly.  There is a secret compartment under the floor in the sitting room.  I surmise that the original carpenters put it there, though for what purpose I could not say.  I have showed it to the Harrisons, however, in addition to several other guests, so I would not be likely to use it myself.  I say, my dear fellow, whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing," I said quickly.  "Thank you, Percy.  Thank you very much indeed."



Walking up the stone-lined path to Briarbrae under cover of darkness that night with Percy's house key in one pocket and my service revolver in the other, I felt a momentary pang of guilt at having left him in London.  Mrs. Hudson had assured me unequivocally, however, that she would be delighted to provide him whatever he needed, and Mrs. Hudson was as capable as any nurse I had ever encountered.  Breathlessly, I turned the key in the lock and made my way into the darkened hall.

As I dared not make a sound, my progress toward the sitting room proceeded more slowly than it might have done.  I had nearly reached it when, to my utmost horror, a hand clasped me firmly over the mouth, an arm snaked around my waist, and I found myself dragged silently backward into a tiny room, so dimly illuminated by a cracked bull's-eye lantern that no light had appeared beneath the door.  My assailant deftly shut this door with his foot as I struggled against him.

"I have not the slightest notion of what you are doing here, but if you betray our whereabouts with any ill-advised noise, I will be very put out," murmured a silky voice in my ear. 

I relaxed at once, for that voice could belong only to one man, but tensed again at the touch of his lips upon the back of my neck.  His hold upon me had loosened slightly, but remained inexorably steady.

"You will forgive me for robbing you of speech temporarily, but just now I would like free reign to express a few things to you, Doctor."  By now the hand which had restrained my abdomen was busily undoing the buttons of my shirtfront while the other hand remained firmly in place over my mouth.  "In the first place, may I point out, perhaps redundantly, that railway stations are not ideal settings for declarations."  He paused for a moment to tilt my head back as he devoured the right side of my neck, sending slivers of pleasure shooting through the base of my spine.

"On the other hand," he continued as his free hand roamed over my chest with confident, sensitive fingers, "you did me the inadvertent favor of working out what I wished to say to you over a matter of hours."  Leaning back against him, I loosened my own cravat and tore off my collar, which elicited a small sigh of appreciation as he explored newly exposed flesh with his lips and his tongue.

"I fear I must apologize for not having expressed similar sentiments before this, but I am not a man for whom such things come easily.  I could not say when I first began to love you, but I assure you that it was no recent occurrence."  His hand, having made short work of my trousers, grasped my straining member so firmly that I would surely have cried out if I had been able.  I threw my head back as he pulled at my flesh, and was rewarded with a gentle bite on my upper shoulder.  "Possibly it was the way you looked the night we waited outside Stoke Moran.  Or perhaps it had more to do with your waiting up for me half the night through when I was out masquerading as a tradesman during the affair of the Amateur Mendicant Society.  You were asleep when I arrived home, and I watched you for an hour or more.  Seeing you run up so fearlessly to that mad dog of Rucastle's to rescue a man who isn't worthy of lacing your boots may have been a cardinal moment.  More likely it was simply prolonged exposure."  It was becoming increasingly diffcult to breathe as Holmes, speaking softly all the while, ran his thumb over the tip of my cock.

The cry of pleasure I had been longing to utter was replaced by a cry of dismay when the stroking ceased suddenly, but I moaned into his hand helplessly at the sensation of his wet fingers between my cheeks a moment later.

"It is difficult to say why I did not tell you.  I have never been given to open displays of affection, and the verbalization of such is rather arduous for me."  The hand resumed its steady pulse as his bared cock nestled against the sweat-soaked dampness of my lumbar curve.  His easy, quiet speech was fast losing its clipped precision.  "In fact, I regret to say that I am unlikely to embark upon such discussions very often, for I am unfortunately a rather secretive fellow.  But that doesn't mean I don't adore you.  You are the world to me."  It was taking every fibre of self-control I possessed not to thrust blindly into his hand, for there were white stars at the edges of my vision and every word he was saying only pushed me closer to the edge.  He stopped for a moment to press his pelvis against me, asking a silent question.  For answer I leaned forward and braced my hands against what appeared in the near-darkness to be a shelf. 

He hissed when he slid inside me, but Sherlock Holmes has reserves of self control which I do not, and could keep as silent as the grave when circumstance required him to do so.  He began a tender and maddening rhythm.  Silently blessing the hand which was arresting my own screams, I felt his head drop softly to rest upon my shoulder as he withdrew slowly, painstakingly, only to plunge in still deeper.  In that moment, I lost all control.  I spent myself raggedly into his smooth hand, while his body draped over my back fell to shuddering uncontrollably until at last we both were still.

I felt an odd twinge of regret as his hand left my mouth, then recalled with a pang of fear what I was doing there.  He would know now.  He would have to know.  Holmes turned me around and kissed me deeply, drawing in his breath sharply as he did so.  He would be mine, I thought, for as long as I could make that kiss endure.  When he finally pulled back, I caught him by the neck.  Then he looked me in the eyes, and I was completely undone.

"What is it?" he asked urgently.  He took my face in his hands.  "Did I hurt you?"

"Of course not," I assured him.  "You have never hurt me."

"Watson," he said, pulling my head toward him and kissing my brow, "you look positively terrified."

I cast about for an excuse, any excuse, though prevarication is unlike me and I knew it would only delay the inevitable.  "I--it isn't...I mean to say, what if we had been heard?  And now--well, you've made rather a mess of us both, and...."

"Watson," he said, his voice infinitely gentle, "we are in a linen cupboard."  He plucked a cloth from the shelf above me and set about rectifying the chaos he had engendered. 

I drew a deep breath.  If it was to be over, let it be over quickly, for I could no more easily bear Holmes quietly setting us both to rights than I could bear the thought that what had just occurred would likely never occur again.

"Joseph Harrison has requested a sum of money for the return of a letter I once wrote to Percy Phelps."

Holmes looked up in alarm.  "A compromising letter?"  He fastened my trousers carefully.

"Yes," I whispered.

"What sum?"

"Six hundred pounds."

"Why the devil did you not tell me of this immediately?" he said angrily.  "I have, after all, some expertise in this arena.  You may not have noticed, but I am an independent consulting detective."

"I have heard your views on 'men so eager to see their sentiments in print that they rush to provide kindling beneath their own stakes.'"

"I never meant to--"

"Yes, you did," I insisted.  "On three occasions.  It quite petrified me.  I rather thought that, if you knew anything of it, you would desert me forthwith."

"As you are clearly overwrought, I will pretend not to be deeply offended by that remark," he stated firmly. 

"You are not angry with me?" I questioned with a very slight tremor still in my voice. 

"Of course I am.  But I am angry that you imagine me a faithless cad, not that you wrote a letter."  Smoothing a lock a hair back from my forehead, he continued.  "So.  While I would be gratified to imagine that you flew to my side in a fever of blind passion, you are in fact attempting an exceedingly ill-conceived bit of housebreaking.  What makes you think you know where this object is hidden?"

"Percy suggested that the only place in the house safe from all eyes is a secret compartment below the carpet in his sickroom.  I was determined to check, come what may.  I have his key."

At this Holmes threw back his head with a dry little laugh.  "I see.  So that's where it is.  I had planned to allow Harrison to lead me there himself, but this is far simpler.  What a stroke of luck he was forced to hide it so quickly.  Apparently I could have retrieved the treaty this afternoon if I'd had a mind to interrogate the tadpole further.  Of course, I was not over-eager to speak with Mr. Phelps this afternoon."

"Holmes, what on earth are you talking about?"

"The treaty," he said evenly.  "It is at this moment nestled against your letter, I have no doubt.  Rather amusing that Phelps knew of its whereabouts all along without being aware of it."

"Do you mean to say that Harrison--"

"Is a depraved and dangerous man.  He is also, I begin to see, something of a self-made businessman.  I instructed his sister to remain all day in the sickroom on guard, if you will, and then to retire at ten-thirty.  Her light was to remain burning for another hour, and her door faces the room in which her brother has been sleeping.  It is eleven o'clock now.  Using Miss Harrison's key, I entered the house via the servant's door and planted myself here with a little light, secure in the knowledge that I would be able to hear the slightest movement from the sickroom when that Harrison scoundrel arrived to claim his prize.  He will be coming down any minute now."  Holmes folded the cloth carefully and placed it in his pocket.  "I crave a word with him, in any event.  He is most desperate for money, which is what, I imagine, caused him to go through his future brother-in-law's private papers in the first place.  When he discovered your letter, he feared blackmailing Phelps lest Phelps allow word of the matter slip to his sister.  Your appearance must have seemed a godsend indeed.  Stealing the treaty, on the other hand, was the merest accident.  Ah--you see?"  He smiled at the sound of footsteps upon the stairs.  "Let us wait a moment, for the door of the sitting room to open.  Superb.  If you would follow me."  He strode out of the closet, and I followed close behind him.

Harrison, struggling to open a little square of wood in the floor, whirled around with a gasp of fear at the sound of footsteps.

"Good evening," said Sherlock Holmes.  "I fancy that you've two items stowed away there which do not, in strictest truth, belong to you."

The villain gaped at Holmes in fear and astonishment.  "You!  What the devil are you doing here?  Breaking into the house like a common thief?"

"I have no desire to enter a debate regarding which of us is the common thief," my friend replied placidly.  "If you hand me the letter along with the treaty, I will let the matter rest."

"Have a care, Dr. Watson," he sneered, though his eyes were bright with fear.  "I've half a mind to tell Mr. Holmes here what this letter contains if you have the audacity to cross me!"

"I really haven't any interest in it.  But it belongs to the Doctor, so I must ask you once more to give it back."

"He's--he's a sexual deviant!" Harrison cried desperately.  "All this time, under your very nose!  He is prey to every kind of perversion!"

"Is that so?" Holmes asked, his brows aloft.  He glanced back at me with an expression of genuine affection mixed with feigned incredulity.  "He told you, of course, that I am no such animal."

"He did!" Harrison cried triumphantly.  "But now you are aware that he is the basest form of degenerate."

"That is undoubtedly shocking," my friend said tenderly.  "Watson, please tell me this isn't true."

"I am afraid it is, Holmes," I said in tones as guilty as I could make them.  "I have been found out at last."

"All this time and I never noticed."  He shook his head ruefully, then his eyes set like steel.  "Hand them over, Harrison.  I will say it once more, and then I very much fear that I will lose my temper."

Our quarry stood slowly, his face marred with the extremity of his rage.  Holmes held out his hand as Harrison, with the papers, did the same.  Then a glint of silver shone from Harrison's other fist just as Holmes, in a lightning-quick dive, wrenched his arm to the side.  My revolver was out of my pocket in an instant, but the two were grappling in such a way that I could do nothing but watch while Holmes, sliding out from the grip of his opponent's arms, struck him a tremendous blow to the jaw.  Harrison staggered slightly, but the knife flashed again and Holmes uttered a tiny gasp as he dodged once more out of harm's way, this time with the letters in one hand while the other dripped blood upon the carpet.  My revolver was at the brute's temple in an instant.

"I have no wish to press criminal charges against you, nor, I believe, will Percy, for the treaty is a very secret matter," I said with a voice like iron.  "However, if you make one more move against Sherlock Holmes, I will shoot you where you stand.  Drop the knife."

He did so.  "Now, run," I directed calmly as Miss Harrison appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide and her hair wildly askew.  "Do not think of coming back.  I will not be so merciful in the future."


"I think she took it rather well," Holmes remarked on the morning train back to London as I changed his gauze carefully.  We sat next to each other in a private compartment, my back turned toward the fastened door.  I had wrapped the gash along his fingers where Harrison's knife had grazed it, but my friend's active hands refused to be still for any length of time and required frequent fresh bandaging.  "She will make Mr. Phelps an admirable match."

"Holmes, do leave off Percy."

"I mean it," Holmes insisted with a slightly hurt expression.  "He is hardly in our position, after all.  You are an exceedingly masculine ex-army surgeon and I am an unabashed Bohemian with no family save a brother who is arguably the queerest man in London.  Mr. Phelps could never live as we do considering his family connections, but his choice of partner is nevertheless admirable.  I told you she had an exceptional nature when the letter arrived."

"Yes, you did," I conceded, realizing he was being kind to Percy for my sake.  "And speaking of letters, I wish to assure you there are no other alarming missives penned by your devoted servant at large."

"Capital," he said thoughtfully.

"No, no," I replied at his look rather than his words, "Percy was no exceptional affair.  We were only together for a few months.  He was very distraught when he left school, and my heart went out to him and--well, you would hardly understand.  It is not as if you have ever written a love letter."

"Of course I have not," he said with a frigid glare.  "You have never left me for any serious length of time."

I could think of no response to this other than to kiss the fingertips of the limb I was re-bandaging.  The gesture was accepted surprisingly graciously.

"Of course, if I did ever write you such a letter, I would require your solemn oath that you would burn it upon receipt."

"Burn it!" I exclaimed, laughing.  "That is easier said than done.  In Percy's case, I believe he kept my letter because it reminded him of what he could no longer have.  In yours, I would be forced to keep it if only to prove to myself that you had ever done anything so outrageous."

He shrugged.  "If you do not promise to burn anything of that nature which may drift into your possession, then you will never receive one."  His eyes were mischievous, but his tone was kind.

"Well, perhaps I can treasure more anonymous tokens as an alternative to burning your prose," I smiled, leaning my head against his arm.  I drew out a moss rose from my pocket, still recognizable though partially destroyed.

"What on earth--" Holmes muttered.  "You kept this scrap of flora?"

"Yes.  You are an eccentric, if you will forgive me for saying it, but there is usually a method to your madness.  I could not for the life of me work out what you were thinking."

"Ah," he sighed, leaning his slender neck back and closing his eyes.  "It is a little difficult to explain."

"Try me," I suggested.

"Well, though I was a trifle maddened by your behavior towards him, I looked at Mr. Phelps, who is ill, and to a large degree trapped, and who has no one to reply upon but Miss Harrison.  By any objective standard he is quite well-off, despite these significant burdens.  And then I thought of myself.  I am well, I am independent, and I have you.  I have everything.  We are not guaranteed such felicity in life.  So many extras, my dear fellow.  All the same, I should throw that away if I were you.  It is quite crushed, and half the leaves torn off."

Looking down, I saw he was right.  The parched flower had withered considerably as it was bandied about.  "I don't think I shall," I replied.  The rocking of the train tempted my eyes to close as I returned it to my pocket carefully.  It fit awkwardly beside Percy's key and my service revolver.  I kept my hand upon it all the way back to London, willing myself to watch the streaming houses and Board schools as Holmes drifted off to sleep beside me.

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