14 A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 3) Burned

["You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago."]

I stood before the offices of the Yard and deliberately stoked the fires of my indignation before climbing the steps to the floor where Lestrade's office over-looked the street. I needed it to stride through the ample space where the typists and many other staff worked and loitered, without showing the slightest hint of my inner turmoil. Somehow amidst the rest of my anguish the fact that Lestrade had barged into my rooms and found me, vulnerable and degraded by my own actions, that outraged me the most. It was safe anger, one I could direct righteously outwards without touching on the roots of my guilt. I had known the inspector was in by his shadow against the glass and was pleased to see he was alone.

I closed the office door with exaggerated gentleness, walking on the eggshells of my mood, and turned to Lestrade. The diamonds spilled from my hand onto the chipped wood of the old table in the middle of the small room. Lestrade kicked back from the table and stood, startled by my sudden appearance. He looked from the stones to me and back several times. This was obviously not how he thought his next conversation with me would begin. "The Widow's Lace," he said in a grim, defeated tone of voice. "That you could indulge and any kind of perversion and still make me look like a fool at the end of the day."

I placed my hands on his desk and leaned forward towards him. "It is not yet noon, Lestrade. If it ever takes me till the end of the day to best you, I'll take in my shingle and become a bee-keeper."

Lestrade sat again and wove the strands of glinting gems between his fingers, then looked up at Holmes with well-practiced resignation. "I do hope you'll tell me where you got them?"

I toyed with the idea of walking out and leaving Lestrade to explain things to his superiors and the press, but my contempt for both of these agencies was even greater than my disapproval of the inspector. I lowered into the creaky wooden chair provided for Lestrade's visitors, not quite concealing a grimace as my body protested the abuses it had suffered over the last day or so. Then I proceeded to explain to Lestrade what was to me, completely obvious, but so often astounded others.

"A rake with a pile of diamonds seems rather blase when his wife reports them missing from the safe. For God's sake Lestrade, he went and got them back off his trollop and has spent the last few days trying to think of a lie big enough to save his dignity. I only regret I won't be there when you contrive to *find* them..."

I was no more comfortable sitting than standing, and so I levered myself to my feet again. My feelings broke and dulled, and all I wanted was to crawl back to Baker Street before the melancholic undertow claimed me. "As for this mornings debacle," I concluded coolly. "When you barge into my abode uninvited I do not hold myself responsible for what you discover."

I fully intended to turn on my heel and leave it at that, but it occurred to me that I needed to know whether I still had Lestrade's co-operation, even under sufferance. It was an essential variable in planning my more risky endeavors and the main reason that I let the yard take the credit for my occasional assistance on their stalled cases.

Lestrade looked on calmly, wearing his conventional morality like shining armor. "I had every right to call on you last night when I first had reason to, but I waited till morning. Not to speak with you as it happens, but the doctor. A ...* citizen* helped us apprehend the man responsible for the dock area rollings. However, he could not explain how he came to have in his possession an ex-service revolver whose serial number would place it as being Doctor Watson's."

I knew damn well that Lestrade hadn't had the time to match the revolver number to the service records, so either he was guessing or he had taken down the number some other time when he was at Baker Street. It would be easily plausible that the weapon had been stolen, but if Lestrade had taken the latter course ... and Watson was a hopeless liar anyway. That and the fact that Lestrade had not retained the weapon suggested another approach. Surely Lestrade would rather believe the worst of myself than think that Watson was involved in such practices. In either case, he was unlikely to apply the full weight of the law.

I thrust my hands into my pockets and gave Lestrade a supercilious smile.

"I am sure you are aware that those are not the circles in which the good doctor moves, nor was he entirely pleased that I had so cavalierly loaned out his weapon." I shrugged. "But it was the least I could to help in helping to apprehend Mr. Shrivener. I hardly thought it an effort requiring my personal involvement. Merely some basis for getting the police into that house to discover the evidence that was bound to be within. Something like a local vigilante breaking in and subduing the suspect with the help of an old revolver. I did not account for you methodical weighs, perhaps retirement amongst the hives is not so very far away." My attempt at humor was a little flat, for I am not easily amiable for any stakes.

Lestrade looked doubtful. "...And Watson's involvement?"

"Watson's involvement? Ha! Watson's involvement was to go down there this morning and retrieve his revolver."

"Interesting," Lestrade said with some satisfaction. "I have long suspected that you could lie as coolly as any criminal, but this is the first time I've known for sure... You see, I know that Watson went down to the Oak *last night*, and stayed there *till the morning*, and a most disquieting revelation it was too. Only to be followed by learning more than I wished to know about the extent of your vices. I begin to wonder if there are any real English gentlemen left, for I would previously have thought you and he were prime examples."

Lestrade seemed more smugly satisfied than dismayed to discover our feet of clay; I gave no further thought to cultivating his good favor.

"Whatever you imagine you know about Watson..."

"Your own lies," Lestrade snapped. "Told me more than my surveillance, but do not trouble yourself. I have no interest in pursuing crime ... of that nature."

I felt enraged at Lestrade's casual condemnation of Watson, his judgmental disgust. The fog of my outrage returned in full force, almost paralyzing my thoughts but giving me new impetuous.

"Before you contrive to condescend in the slightest towards Watson you might want to consider whether you would want me for an enemy," I spoke with quiet sincerity, awaiting the whisper of spite that would release the full avalanche of my malice.

Lestrade flushed and stood. "And you might consider that I could always decide to have an interest in investigating such crimes!"

I smiled thinly, thinking immediately of three different schemes that would achieve my threat while defusing Lestrade's, and that was without descending to unsubtle considerations such as just doing away with him. An act I felt, at that moment, quite capable of doing. Lestrade froze, as he accurately interpreted my expression. The longer we stood, the more confidence I felt both in my ability to defend Watson and my desire to do so. How often had I casually drawn Watson into mortal danger? But all the while there was never a time when I wouldn't have given my life for him, it was just that on most occasions I would put the case above either of our safeties. Strange priorities I know, but I am as I am and have long since given up apologizing for it. I calmly considered the implications of my own thoughts as I watched Lestrade become more and more uncertain.

Lestrade glanced down. "Please disregard what I just said," he retracted with as much dignity as he could manage. "I have only the greatest respect for the doctor, and at least in the professional sense, for yourself. Though you do not make it easy."

He held out his hand in a conciliatory gesture, which I ignored as I left. I put him from my thoughts as the least of my worries.