My Dear Watson Read Online Free PDF Page B

but I am. He thought he was so inscrutable.
    Holmes was in a cheerful mood that morning with such a subtle case to explore, and it only got better and better. When Miss Stoner’s unhinged father-in-law showed up in Baker Street to bluster about and bend the fire poker, Holmes knew he was up against a worthy opponent, an intelligent man with a nasty streak of murderous creativity. It only hurt that Dr. Grimesby Roylott accused him of being affiliated with Scotland Yard—a matter of pride, in other words. He considered himself far superior to the mere police, and they wouldn’t like to be put in league with him either. This is one of the most distasteful cases revealed to the public, but still Holmes could hardly curtail his admiration for a truly skilled adversary.
    Being in such a fine mood, he insisted that Watson come with him out to the country (he told Watson to pack nothing but an Eley’s No. 2 revolver and a toothbrush, if you can believe it), and they spent a lovely though undocumented time at the Crown Inn before the tense conclusion of this sinister case. Holmes, of course knowing full well what sort of danger he would be putting them in, did something very sweet. He said to his partner, “Do you know, Watson, I have really some scruples as to taking you to-night. There is a distinct element of danger.” One thing I cannot say against Holmes is that he was ever careless with Watson’s life; he did have some scruples, as he said, and he may even have a few of them left since the war. I won’t lie—we all have fewer scruples nowadays.
    Anyhow; I was not privy to whatever “cheerful” activities Holmes and Watson might have gotten up to before sneaking into the house of Dr. Roylott and Miss Stoner to reveal the speckled band. Watson is predictably shy when talking about the physical act of love, but I’m not newly born or simple, and I can imagine how these men would have chosen to make the time pass pleasantly. Holmes was especially…enthusiastic when there was a chance he might be killed.
    It was good to do something that might alleviate the tension, for they spent that night sitting stiff and fearful in Dr. Roylott’s house, waiting for a deadly serpent to be unleashed on them, though Watson was in a deeper dark than Holmes, and had no idea what he might have to confront. Holmes liked to play his hand close to the vest, even closer than he kept Watson, but Holmes did not lack for bravery; he always stepped in to face every danger which threatened them. He could protect Watson from anyone, excepting himself.
    Those early years, between when they met and about 1887, Watson refers to as their honeymoon years. They were before Holmes started to really self-medicate his depressions with drugs, before he became so famously good at catching criminals that he became a target, before the morality of the time shifted so forcefully against men like them. This was one of the happiest periods of Watson’s life, right up there with the halcyon memories of his childhood, and of course the honeymoon periods he had with each of his wives. Those were the days when Sherlock Holmes was perfect to him.
    By the time we get to the next case he has publically chronicled, five years will have gone by and this happy time will be over. I can find almost no record of events or cases that might have occurred, and Watson is reluctant to speak on this subject. He likes to play it off like he is too old to remember, that his brain is full of holes, and this is one of them. His mind, of course, is as firm as it ever was. As I have said already, Watson keeps his fondest memories to himself.
     

1887: The Beryl Coronet
     
    The atmosphere was frosty in February of 1887. When a robbed financier named Mr. Holder came hurrying up Baker Street, he rushed into a tense household. Watson had an intuition that something was wrong—he could feel it like a winter draft on the nape of his neck—but he didn’t know precisely what was causing it.