I didn't hear from Holmes again for several days once we'd returned to London and I to my own house, which was not so unusual that anyone noticed but myself. I was a coward and a scoundrel, and I saw my patients, sat down to dinners, and went to bed at night feeling more like an actor on the stage than a man – like I was watching my life happening around me, detached and apathetic.
Even Mary noticed something was amiss with me. I knew she was concerned that something had happened during my stay with Holmes, and it had – but not as she imagined it. She saw my listlessness, my depression, and thought I had been endangered or insulted or even summarily dismissed. Perhaps she thought that it was Holmes who had been endangered, and I was merely uncomfortable with worry.
Holmes was in danger, I thought, but not with threat of violence. The threat against him was one of desire, and it came from me.
Guilt consumed me, that I could think such a thought even as my wife cared for me, and when I went upstairs, I pulled Mary close and apologised for my distance.
'I understand,' she said, even though we both knew she didn't.
'Still,' I said, 'I'm sorry,' and I kissed her – but only briefly.
Keeping myself away from Holmes, tied up in my practice and in my household responsibilities, there was only one outlet available to me: I wrote in a frenzy, hoping that every detail of Holmes I wrote, every denouement he delivered from my pen, every black mood I assigned to him, would purge him from my veins.
I wrote about cases he'd taken on very early in our association; I wrote about cases he had taken on only months ago, before the Berkshire case, before I had polluted our friendship, as though I could cleanse myself of my unworthy thoughts if only I could recall how easily we had lived together. I reached back through my many journals, hoping to find an innocent man in our adventures, hoping to become him again.
The pages poured out of me, one after another, stories about insane wives and spymasters, missing brides and Apache raiders, warring neighbors and scattered oranges. I laughed occasionally, remembering Holmes' cleverness, his feats of wit and his penchant for teasing local inspectors before finally resolving their cases; I also sat somberly in remembrance of Holmes' reckless disregard for his own safety in the face of certain danger.
Would his recklessness extend even to me?
Yes, I thought, and I would protect him from me, even if I did so belatedly.
My isolation ended abruptly one evening some six weeks later, when there was a clatter at the door that resolved itself into the shape of Sherlock Holmes, standing in my parlour. I inhaled sharply; I had underestimated how much I'd missed him.
'Doctor Watson,' he proclaimed, 'I am in need of your help.'
Were I a stronger man, I would have made my excuses. But I was only myself, and Holmes fidgeted restlessly as he waited for my answer, as if he were nervous to hear it. 'A case?'
He nodded. 'And one that may require your revolver, if I am to settle it safely.'
I could hardly send him into peril alone! My heart beat fast and hot as I made my excuses to my wife rather than to him. I retrieved my revolver at once and joined Holmes in a cab, the night pressing in around us. Holmes recounted the facts of the case, seemingly at ease, but his occasional glances in my direction had a precarious, uncertain edge to them.
The guilt was overwhelming. To have made him unsure of our friendship through my distance – it was cruel. That he might have suffered for my own fear and doubts was alarming, and I was determined to make him as sure of my help as he had ever been.
'I had worried,' Holmes said, once we were safely back at Baker Street, the case solved, the kidnapper apprehended, and my revolver luckily unused, 'that I would have to go on this adventure alone.'
I had just finished packing our pipes, and I handed his to him, waiting for him to take a long draw, hoping the tobacco would settle any residual nerves for both of us. 'Regretfully, I have been very busy,' I excused. 'The doctor across the hall from me has taken a leave of absence for his health and I have had his patients as well as mine. But I am here now, old boy, and I am at your service should you require it.'
It was a bold thing, to lie to Sherlock Holmes, but Holmes very rarely suspected it of me and therefore I was perhaps one of the only men in London to have ever done it successfully. He hummed, sinking back into his chair a little more. 'I thought perhaps the Berkshire case did not agree with you,' he said finally.
I looked up, but he was watching the fire, not my expression, which must have been one of surprise. 'The country doesn't suit me,' I finally managed, attempting a smile. 'But I'll follow you anywhere you have need, Holmes. Even to bloody Berkshire.'