Prelude to a Partnership

by Miss Roylott

  "Don't help!"

  He raised his eyebrows at me and put down his drink, folding his hands upon his lap. He shrugged and was silent, gazing into the fire.

  I sighed uneasily. To be fair, his question was not all that different from my own curiosity about his possible lovers; he had merely defied expectation by asking me out loud. More importantly, he was offering to help keep my secret safe, a very generous and unusual offer, considering the substantial risk involved. If I accepted his help, would that make him willing to confide in me about his own romantic life? I could not be certain.

  "I'm sorry," I said slowly. "I should not have been so riled. I don't know how to discuss my private life with you. I still feel that I hardly know you at all."

  He looked at me encouragingly. "I understand that you are apprehensive. It is a delicate subject, and I too am a private man. Yet it seems a waste to me to not rely on an ally when you can find one. I have no wish to harm you, Watson." He gestured at the room around us. "You have helped me to have all this. I do not need names or faces, just times when I must make sure that no inquisitive ear is around. It can be a simple, pre-arranged signal between us."

  I cleared my throat and stared into the depths of my drink. "I am alone at present," I admitted awkwardly. "I have had difficulty meeting anyone for many months now.[11]"

  "Ah," he answered softly. "Perhaps I can suggest one or two places where you may discreetly look for companionship."

  "What about you?" I ventured, perhaps too inquisitively. "Where do you go to meet… people?"

  Holmes regarded me with visible surprise. "I thought you had noticed, Watson; you observe me rather closely. I do not 'meet people.' I have no use for such affairs, for I devote my time and energy solely to my work."

  I found that idea remarkable, and rather hard to believe. "Your work? What is—?" Before I could finish, he rose from his chair and retreated immediately to his bedroom. Strangely, that question seems more intrusive to him than any question about sex.

  Holmes worked avidly at his chemicals, in between visits from his many clients. Having remembered his promise to suggest meeting-places to me, he handed me a note containing the addresses of several establishments that cater to deviant tastes. I wondered just how he knew of these molly houses,[12] if it were true that he was no longer interested in unnatural sex.

  Were he a stranger to me, with his obsession for science and other weird interests, I might indeed believe that he was one of those odd men utterly oblivious and unresponsive to carnal pleasures. Yet I had been his sexual partner once, and he had shown great passion and delight in our acts. There still seemed to be such passion in his eyes every now and then.

  When we were alone this afternoon, I asked if he would accompany me to the addresses on his list. "I already know of some of these places; I have tried going before but was too cowardly to speak to anyone. I don't know how to behave."

  He hesitated, weighing the risk of helping me. "I suppose I could accompany you for an evening."

  "Yes, and of course you could find someone for yourself as well."

  He eyed me sardonically and shook his head. "I do not want someone, Watson. Pray do not imagine that I am lonely."

  "Surely, Holmes!"

  "Watson, I told you before—"

  "But you are a man, Holmes! A real man with hunger and desire. I know that much from our… encounter."

  He quirked a half smile. "You must consider me as you do a Catholic priest, consecrated to higher purposes."

  "Higher purposes!" I scoffed. "Your chemicals and your mud splashes? Your cavalcade of clients? Your minutiae of obscure knowledge and hoarded secrets? Whatever your private little business is, it is hardly of much consequence, and is not worth your happiness!"

  He glared at me. "I did not know my happiness concerned you so!"

  "I think you deny yourself for all the wrong reasons. One doesn't just change—"

  He said nothing and stormed out the door. He stayed out all day and into the night, so that I am not sure whether he will even be home when I wake up tomorrow morning. I wonder where he could have gone.

  I woke this morning and could hear Holmes having his breakfast, so I rose much earlier than usual and hurried to catch him, lest he go out again to avoid me. I need not have worried; he was waiting for me.

  As I took my seat opposite him, he wordlessly tossed a magazine before me. The page to which he had opened it contained an article with a pencil mark at the heading. Not understanding the relevance, I ignored it and tried talking to him. "Holmes, I went too far—"

  Waving my words away, Holmes pointed insistently at the article and would not talk to me. He rang the bell to have my breakfast sent up, and just sat there silently munching his toast.

  So I resigned myself to the longish article and began to read. It was called "The Book of Life," and seemed to be a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and absurdity. According to the writer, an observant man could learn astonishing things through an accurate and systematic examination of the world around him. By applying careful reasoning to a person's appearance and demeanour, a logician could deduce all manner of "facts" about that person. The writer called this art the "Science of Deduction and Analysis," and he used many far-fetched examples to illustrate his point.

  "What ineffable twaddle!" I cried, fed up with the boastful article.

  My outburst had startled the maid, who was arriving with my breakfast. I sheepishly apologised to her and put the magazine aside.

  When we were alone again, Holmes finally spoke to me. "You don't like it?" he asked in a strangely cautious tone.

  "The article? No. I don't know why you wanted me to read such rubbish. About yesterday—"

  "The arguments do not convince you?" he persisted.

  "I don't deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me, though. It is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical."

  "Practical?" He looked impatiently at me. "I could give you a practical demonstration of the theory right now, Watson. I have given it to you repeatedly, and you take no notice!"

  "Notice of what?" I protested.

  Calming himself, Holmes met my eyes and sat forward. "I wrote the article myself."

  "You?" I glanced at the article's heading again. The author was not listed.

  "I could not have Stamford and the rest chiding me about it," he explained.

  I believed him, for his manner seemed sincere enough, and I could sense now that Holmes had some particular reason for drawing my attention to this article. He was driving at something behind these arcane theories.

  "I have a turn," he began, "both for observation and deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical—so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."

  "How?" I prompted. I pulled my chair nearer to him, hardly daring to believe that Holmes was at last willing to reveal what he had hidden from me for weeks. He must trust me now.

  Holmes sighed and came to the point reluctantly. "Well, I have a trade of my own," he shrugged. "I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is."

  I did not understand, failing to see anything unique at first in his professed trade.

  Having once launched upon the subject, Holmes was eager to expound upon it. "Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first."

  I thought of Holmes's clients. "Then, Lestrade's numerous visits—?"

  "Lestrade is a we
ll-known Yard detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that is what brought him here."

  Not a romance? He seemed a most persistent suitor. "And these other people?"

  "They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something and want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee."

  I suppose it had to be an innocent explanation, considering that no intimacies took place. Yet all this armchair reasoning seemed quite improbable to me. "Do you mean to say that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?"

  He nodded. In most cases, it was all exceedingly simple for him, what with his specialised knowledge and his principles of deduction. He meant it, seriously.

  I remained sceptical, and also pondered the fact that this profession was so dear to Holmes that he had given up love affairs for this "higher purpose." I doubted this could be a healthy occupation.

  Holmes finally descended from abstract discourse to practical demonstration. "You appeared to be surprised when I told you that you had come from Afghanistan."

  I remembered the incident at Bart's. "Of course! You could only have found out through some underhanded means."

  "Nothing of the sort." He looked hurt that I had suspected him of trickery. "I knew you came from Afghanistan through a simple train of thought. With long practice, this kind of reasoning is now habitual, swift, and largely unconscious on my part. I looked at you and thought, 'Here is Morris again'—I knew that Morris was merely your alias from years ago, but that was how I remembered you—'Here is Morris again, in truth Watson, that naughty doctor I knew five years ago. Though he has not given up medicine, he has an air of a military man now. Clearly he became an army doctor. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and I know that is not the natural tint of his skin. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.' The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished."

  I was astonished all over again. "My shoulder," I corrected him quietly. "My wound is in my shoulder."

  "Ah, I am sorry. I had not observed you long enough at that point to discern that your wound was in your shoulder, rather than your arm."

  "I see." My throat felt dry. So this was how Sherlock Holmes knew so much about me. He was not spying or going behind my back at all; he had no clairvoyance and no ulterior motives. He just… knew me, at a glance. It was as simple as that, and I did not know what to think of it all.

  I frowned, staring at my plate. "I do not remember telling you I was Morris."

  "No, you gave me no name. But I spoke to Douglas afterward, offering to assist in finding you, by way of apology. I had to disappoint him a few days later, however, by proving to him that all the James Morrises present at the university simply were not you. He was mystified, but gave up pursuit."

  "I see," I repeated, not knowing what else to say. Then I recalled the things he had known about me five years ago. "At your university, how did you know—?"

  "I did start to explain it to you, Watson," he pursed his lips, "but you weren't in the mood to listen then. To begin with, there was your university gown. Most people would not have noticed the slight differences between it and our own gowns, as they hardly ever look closely at such common apparel. But I did look closely, and I did notice. Also, the dirt on your shoes showed that you had been at the railway station, so I deduced that you were a merely a visitor to town, pretending to be a student.

  "Being so resourceful, you had obviously come to the Medical School because you were in medicine yourself. You looked slightly older than us undergraduates, and you knew more about chemistry than you pretended to know for Douglas, so I hazarded a guess that perhaps you were already a practising Bachelor of Medicine. I could not, however, get confirmation of this from you, as you seemed not to be listening to me any longer.

  "Lastly, I knew you had come for some clandestine purpose, as you had gone to so much trouble and were quite fearful of being discovered. You were impulsive and emotional, leaving your gown behind where either I or Douglas might take it and through it eventually find out which university you really belonged to. I had not quite narrowed down your nefarious purpose by the time that you kissed me."

  The memory of that day grew more fresh the more Holmes talked about it. I had so many unanswered questions. "Why weren't you paying attention to your chemical research?"

  "That? Oh, I was repeating an analysis I had done the day before, which had taken a few hours. I merely needed to verify the results, and in the meantime I stayed to observe people."

  "And I wound up in your sights?"

  "Yes."

  I met his eyes. "Did you really want me? Your response was genuine?"

  Holmes nodded gravely. "Watson, do not imagine that I would have done all that merely for a chance to observe you more." He showed a sparkle of humour. "I did not see you that well in the closet."

  "No," I admitted. "You said—you said you had thought of me afterward. For how long?"

  He began to look embarrassed by my sentiment, and he shrugged evasively. "One does not forget such an experience quickly."

  "You said you considered trying to find me. To visit me too."

  He said, "I wondered whether I ought to have kept your gown, held onto a definite clue by which I could trace you." But he quickly added, "However, I soon realized that seeking you out would be unwise. Had you wanted to see me again, you would have asked my name or told me yours."

  "I am sorry. I regret—"

  "Watson, stop it! You used me for your pleasure. I did not mind. It was not more than that; it was not some romance."

  He was right, of course, though he sounded a little inhuman about it. Perhaps I remembered that encounter more strongly and more fondly than he; he had been my first, and he had tasted sweet.

  Holmes took up the magazine again, indicating his article. "So my theories are not rubbish after all?"

  I winced. "You could have warned me." But I shrugged it off casually. "Yes, fine, I was wrong. Are you happy?"

  He still pressed, "What do you think of my profession?"

  "You being a detective?"

  "A consulting detective," he insisted. "What do you think of it?"

  I peered at him curiously. Sherlock Holmes did not seem to be the sort of person to seek approval. "What should I think? I'm confused. I'm astounded. You have been acting suspiciously all these weeks, hiding your profession from me like some precious secret, some matter of national security. Now for some reason you suddenly decide to reveal it. Why did you not tell me before?"

  He looked chagrined. "It is very delicate. I am wary of you or anyone knowing too much about me or my work. Any unofficial detective must respect his clients' privacy."

  "Is that all?" I felt insulted. "Did you think I would intrude?"

  "No, no. Of course I know you are a trustworthy man, and many of my cases are inconsequential matters." He sighed, then admitted quietly, "I am a private man, Watson. I cannot grow too close to someone else; it is against all I have been working for. My objectivity would fail, my methods would suffer. If I ever got comfortable with you—" He swallowed and suddenly looked at me very directly, whispering, "Are you trying to be my room-mate, my friend, or my lover?"

  Had I even known what to say then, I had no chance to answer, for there came a knock at our door, and we each pulled back sharply, realising belatedly how close we had leaned in to each other.

  "Yes, Mrs. Hudson?" I said.

  Our landlady peered in questioningly at us. "Are you gentlemen finished with your breakfast? My maid has not heard your ring."
/>   A glance at the clock told me that our early breakfast was turning into a lingering brunch, and no doubt, the good woman must be trying to prepare for lunch. Holmes and I both rose from the table with embarrassment.

  "It's our fault entirely, Mrs. Hudson," I spoke up. "We were caught up in a discussion. Here, let me help you."

  "No, no," she spoke warmly. "I'll ring, and we will be out of your way soon."

  As our dishes were stacked and removed, I stood awkwardly nearby while I could feel Holmes's presence somewhere in my periphery.

  "Are you gentlemen finished with the morning Times?"

  "Oh," I quickly retrieved it from the tray, where it had lain unread. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."

  "And this magazine?"

  I nervously snatched that too. "I'm sorry, we've left such a mess… "

  Mrs. Hudson waved away my apologies. "No, it is just as bachelors should be. It is so lovely to have the house full of people again." She hummed pleasantly and soon departed down the stairs with the maid, taking away our half-finished breakfast with them.

  I turned to Holmes and saw that he was shaking with tension. I dropped the newspaper and magazine where I stood and rushed to his side. "Holmes."

  He swallowed and tried to control his frayed nerves. "No. No, Watson. I'm all right." He withdrew from my touch, stepping back two paces.

  "You are not comfortable living with me?" I ventured.

  "Sometimes." His eyes were evasive.

  "I'm sorry. I'll find some other rooms, then."

  "No, Watson. Don't." He took hold of my arm. "That would not be fair. My question was… imprudent, and you should disregard it. I do understand that you are not making advances toward me. There are just moments that my judgment clouds and I think—well, it is not your fault what I think."

  "These moments," I stepped nearer, "are they frequent? What should I—?"

  "They pass," he said simply. "They always do." He released me and went to his armchair, where he sank down with a weary sigh. Then he pensively touched his fingertips together. "The question is, does my profession meet your standards?"

  "My standards? What do you mean?"