Chapter 1
A Dark Visit

 

 

 

It began in early November of ’89. London was shrouded in a veil of fog and freezing mist. It was the kind of day a body must do anything to artificially brighten the gloom that envelops. But neither the turning up of the gas lamps nor the putting of coal on the fire could cut through the depression that descended upon me that morning.

With Mary gone to tend to a sick aunt and no patients scheduled until mid-day, I sat alone with my thoughts, filling the time by chronicling the latest case I had worked on with Sherlock Holmes. The damp weather made my old leg wound ache and left me yearning to move about. But my mind kept coming back to a nagging concern. It had been more than two weeks since the ghastly events upon the moors, and my friend had not once summoned me to join him on a case. This bothered me. Not because I missed the thrill of the chase, but because I was well aware of the dangers long periods of inactivity posed for the great man. After several failed attempts to start my account of the frightening hellhound, I decided to pay a visit to Holmes at the rooms we had shared until my marriage the previous spring. So I grabbed my coat, hat, and cane, and then left the warm confines of my house to brave the brisk chill. I hailed a Hansom cab and, within the half-hour, I found myself standing in front of 221 Baker Street.

Before I reached the stoop, the affable landlady opened the door. “Oh, Doctor Watson!” she exclaimed, registering some pleasure at seeing me at her door.

“Is he in?” I inquired.

A troubled look clouded Mrs. Hudson’s face. “Why, he hasn’t stirred from those rooms since you returned from the country, Doctor. I’m worried. He won’t let me in to tidy up, and I have to leave his meals at the foot of his door. Too often the service goes untouched, Doctor—much too often.”

“It’s nothing,” I explained, “He must be absorbed in some new case or another.”

“No, Doctor, no one has come or gone since your last visit. And he’s stopped his playing.” She raised an eyebrow as if to say, “And you know what that means.”

“Indeed.” I feared my concerns were justified. I knew how mercurial Holmes’ moods were, alternating between weeks of intense activity when he was immersed in one of his baffling cases, and periods of blackness brought on by the lack of challenge to his powers of logic and deduction. During these dismal periods, he would indulge himself with eccentric chemical experiments and somber improvisations on the violin. On the rare occasions these activities could not divert him, he would resort to the use of a dangerous seven-percent solution, that he found “so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind” that its secondary action was a matter of small moment.

I ascended the stairs and tapped the door lightly with the knob of my cane. “It’s me, Holmes.”

“Please. I am in ill humour today and I won’t see anyone. Good-day, Doctor.”

“I just want to visit,” I said.

After receiving no answer, I tried to pique his interest. “I would like to go over some notes on the Baskerville case with you.”

“I’m sure your notes are more than thorough, Watson.” He sounded weary, almost dreamy. “I have no reason to think otherwise.”

“Then come with me to lunch, Holmes. I have no patients until this afternoon…”

“I have no patience for idle chatter at the moment, I assure you. So, once again I say to you, good-day, Doctor.”

With this, I returned home. My mind, however, was not on my afternoon rounds for, as I treated my patients, I kept thinking about Holmes and his worrisome state of depression. I wished that there were a doctor who could cure ailments of the mind. Perhaps the “talking cure” I had recently heard about could ease Holmes’ bouts with depression and eliminate the temptation to use chemical stimulation. It helped with hysteria—could it also work with depression? But this “talking cure” was not an accepted treatment. Besides, it could take months, even years, to be effective. I was afraid that my friend would come to harm much sooner than that.

That night, I secluded myself in my study and pored over my journals. I re-examined the adventures I had shared with this master of deduction, hoping I could deduce a way to lure him from the brink of self-destruction. After some hours, I found myself again going over a list of his attributes and limits I had set to paper early in our relationship:

	SHERLOCK Holmes–his limits
1.	Knowledge of Literature.–Nil.
2.	"         "  Philosophy.–Nil.
3.	"         "  Astronomy.–Nil.
4.	"         "  Politics.–Feeble.
5.	"         "  Botany.–Variable.
		Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of  practical gardening.
6.	Knowledge of Geology.–Practical, but limited.
		Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their color and consistency in what part of London he had received them.
7.	"         "  Chemistry.–Profound.
8.	"         "  Anatomy.–Accurate, but unsystematic.
9.	"         "  Sensational Literature.–Immense.
		He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10.	Plays the violin well.
11.	Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12.	Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

I hoped that the answer to easing Holmes’ bouts of depression lay in this list. Could I get him to apply his considerable talents to the study of some areas of weakness? I explored several possibilities and discounted them all–his mind was too practical. What need had he for classic literature, astronomy, or philosophy?

Only one thing could drag my friend from the depths of his mental stagnation: a new puzzle to solve!

 

– End Chapter One –

© KB Shaw