13 A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 2) Prefers Wearing a Mask

"...and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face." [A Scandal in Bohemia]

The morning was a most unwelcome messenger, and try as I might to resist its urgings it brought me to wakefulness again. Existence is truly a tawdry and commonplace affair, and no more so than on that day. The syringe lay next to my arm where it had fallen laxly from the sofa, a thin rivulet of blood marking its length. It was a chill and early time of day, but my methodical mind noted I had slumbered through two visitations already.

My coverlet was wrapped around me with the careful precision that spoke of Mrs. Hudson. No man would tuck in the edges so, and a glint to silver suggested she had brought up the breakfast tray as well. The smaller service, so Watson had not returned, which was a mercy I suppose. It occurred to me that some fit of self-destructiveness would draw him back to me, but those were not terms I cared to make - so better he had not seen me thus. Another visitors imprint existed in the scuffed rug and the umbrella stand set further out from the wall than usual. It looked as if it had fallen and been replaced away from its customary spot. Mrs. Hudson's hand there, ushering out the impertinent visitor, but not tarrying, under the circumstances, to brush the pile of the carpet.

Now my other guest must have been in an impatient and forceful man, Mrs. Hudson would not have willingly let him pass. That it was not Watson was indicated by his clumsiness. Watson was long familiar with the way the furniture stood, and with my own ways. Though they might disappoint him, they would not cause him to step back so suddenly in surprise.

Much as I might wish my mind to be silent, it was not its natural state any more than cheerfulness was my habitual mood. So I rose glumly, noting the stiffening in my muscles, which seem more easily provoked with every passing year. The tea was still tepid and the paper still colder than the room. All marking the events I deduced as having played quite recently to their small insensible audience.

The paper derided Lestrade somewhat on having not yet recovered the Widow's Lace diamonds, so recently lost from their former possessor's abode. The society columns painted the victim, a Baronet, as something of a rake, but the newspaper recorded him as recently married. The Who's Who added that the girl was from a family distinguished by is lucre more than its lineage or looks. That and the somewhat fatalistic nature of his comments, as quoted in the article, were suggestive enough. While the tenor of the prose suggested that old Lestrade might be in the mood to ask for assistance.

Always a truculent man he had come only very slowly to admit any regard for me, and at the price of many efforts on my part - pro bono and unrecognized in any other way as well. His stormy exit suggested that all that work was easily undone. Well, damn the man, I only ever wanted his civility, but he would come from far too low an opinion to one far too lofty. Now no doubt, rather than moderate his thoughts to some middle ground he would simply return to that glowering disdain that he been such a challenge to me, and ignore all my past favors.

Lacking a better purpose, or one I could face, I determined to reclaim the diamonds. I had resources and hypotheses that the police cannot bring to bear on nobility - a class that rarely lives up to its name these days.

There were hours yet to noon, and the idle classes would still be in church, so I gathered together my tools with dispatch. There was a ruddy bruise upon my cheek, but it was faint enough for a little wax crayon, and powder to hide, and the other marks on my body were easily concealed by clothing. I added several spoons of sugar to my tea and drank it cold; it would not do to become weak or ill at a crucial juncture. Being charged with burglary, or even going equipped, would leave me with no aspect of my life unsullied ¼ there my unruly thoughts were straying again to issues action could not resolve.

I walked the few streets to a corner where the cabs were wont to pass and caught one to a place a short distance from my goal. A short distance geographically but world apart in other ways - no one here would willingly speak of any matter to a Peeler. Better in terms of discretion to walk, but my fingers still did not entirely obey me nor was my head completely clear, I took the risk. Reputation is a great protection, so long as I was not caught in the act, I was safe enough.

But caught I was in another way. Strolling nonchalantly down the street I caught a glimpse of Watson's distinctive frame, his way of walking, the way he held himself was so imprinted on my mind that I could pick him at will from any crowd at any distance. At this distance I might avoid him only by most precipitous action, which I refrained from taking, having a better plan.

Instead, I strode forward to meet him and pulled him perfunctorily aside.

"Ah Watson, a fine morning is it not?"

I took a firm grip on his coat and drew him into the alley. By long habit he followed my lead, our lives had often depended upon that unquestioning obedience.

"Do give me a hand over this wall," I said in the lower voice. "I am not quite as limber as I might be."

Watson stood frozen, quite unable to respond sensibly. Anything outside of the etiquettes of peace or war had this effect on him.

"Your hand if you please, and keep an eye out for the constabulary."

With a sharp look that I contrived to ignore, he complied, and I left any conscious thought of him behind. Concentration was required as there might well be some hound or ailing servant still in the house. I entered easily through a kitchen window, levering the latch with nothing more complicated than a silver butter knife. It took some minutes to find the safe, concealed beneath a carpet in the smoke-stained study. It was of an old type and easier to pick than a drunkard's pocket.

Normally I would have a higher state of certainty of what I would find within, but sometimes I chose to ride the tiger, and I had not fallen yet. The diamonds were within a crackman's dream. Smallish stones and easy to hock, but so many of them and all of the finest color and clarity. Even I was mesmerized a little by the way they stole the light from the room, playing upon the eyes with a streaming scintillation that many an alpine stream fell short of.

I grabbed my prize and reversed my course with alacrity, fleeing one peril and approaching another.

Its as well no Bobby had happened by as Watson had nerves and guilt were written all over him, I may as well have posted a notice of my crime. He started as I alighted beside him, annoyed that I staggered slightly which spoils the effect. I turned the stones briefly between my cupped hands.

"Almost enough to make one consider a prosperous retirement overseas," I quipped, and pocketed them.

Watson's eyes showed no amusement, but his features were not entirely drawn. I noted that he wore, of course, the same clothes he had left in, but they did not bear the creases of having been worn through the night. Finally, the revolver was in his pocket, and we were both in the vicinity of the 'Journey's End.' Any man might easily conclude that Watson had been with his erstwhile friend. A battered looking blond chap I recalled vaguely as coming to my rescue and being entrusted with the pistol - before all went dim and the curtain rose on our latest and most painful scene.

I walked, and Watson followed beside me.

"I dare say I have murdered our long friendship," I said as we walked, both keeping to our public faces. "And I am not the fool to think my actions can be undone, but I apologize for them."

Watson never thought to dissemble in this or any other moment, though I watched my own actions from a certain calculating remove.

"I do not know that your apology deserves a hearing," he said. "Nor on the other hand am I sure that I deserve to receive it."

Watson words, at time, betrayed his literary streak, but I am no better.

"Sometimes," I said. "A net is so tangled it can only be cut free and left behind, but I am loath to do so if for no other reason than that my profession requires at times the assistance of a man of some wit, much courage, and complete trustworthiness. I only know one such man, the last requirement being the one that limits me the most. Forgive me or don't as you wish, but I need to know whether I can call on you when my or another's safety depends upon it."

It was quite unfair of me, I know, but even with Watson's faith in me shattered he knew the value of my work. I had raised it as a barrier and a bond between us so often in the past, and it was a practice that might serve me still.

"Of course," he said. "But we cannot leave things thus between us."

"Can we not?" I could not keep the sharp edge from my voice though it was fear much more than the scorn it sounded like. "I fancy that what could be salvaged is not worth the ordeal it would require to do so. You may have the rooms as long as you want them; the cost is nothing to me in my current finances."

"Don't be foolish, Holmes," he replied wearily. "You have more call on them, having more possessions, being consulted there, and being the man who located them in the first place all those years ago."

I realized then that I had basically assumed that we would no longer cohabit when better could have been hoped for, but I was always one to prefer honest black to the many half-enlightened shades of gray, so I pressed on.

"I bear the greatest part of the blame, and you have only recently saved my life and not for the first time I might add. So if I choose such a light penance as not disturbing you from our home, I do not see that you should object." I waved away any further words from him, in a panic to be free before I feel to weeping in the street or making some other kind of inexcusable scene. "I have business with Lestrade, and must be away," I said and fled, satisfied that the cut had been quick and clean - but increasingly horrified as to the depth of the wound.